Witches Abroad

1

Sinking to the ultimate depths of trivial annotating, I suppose I should point out here, if only for completeness’ sake, that (a) there is only one single ‘Boyle’s law’, which (b) says that if temperature is kept constant, the volume and pressure of a gas are inversely related.

2

Safeway is the name of a supermarket chain. Terry says: “I needed some good names that sounded genuinely voodoo. Now, one of the names of one of the classic gods is Carrefour. It’s also the name of a supermarket chain in my part of the world, and I used to grin every time I drove past. Hence, by DW logic, Safeway. Bon Anna I’m pretty sure is a genuine voodoo goddess. The other two are entirely made up but out of, er, the right sort of verbal components.”

3

‘Desiderata’ literally means: “things missing and felt to be needed”. It is the name of a popular prose poem, written by Max Ehrman in 1927, full of advice about life and how to deal with it.

4

Terry writes: “This may or may not already be an annotation somewhere, but Genua is a ‘sort of’ New Orleans with a ‘sort of’ Magic Kingdom grafted on top of it.

It had its genesis some years ago when I drove from Orlando to New Orleans and formed some opinions about both places: in one, you go there and Fun is manufactured and presented to you, in the other you just eat and drink a lot and fun happens.”

5

This confirms the unwritten rule that says all Discworld trolls must have mineral names: ‘chert’ is a dark-coloured, flintlike quartz.

6

Tempscire is actually a French transliteration of Weatherwax.

7

In Victorian times, children’s chests were often smeared with a large helping of goose grease in order to keep out the cold.

Channel swimmers also used to use goose grease. Perhaps they still do…

8

Well — almost. The actual Latin phrase is “tempus fugit”: “time flies”.

9

This refers to an old and very silly song by J. Kendis and Lew Brown, which goes:

10

This was Henry Crun’s standard excuse for not actually building anything he’d invented, on the Goon Show.

11

This is yet another incarnation of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, the Ankhian entrepreneur we learn much more about in Moving Pictures, and who also appears in Small Gods as the Omnian businessman Dhblah.

Also, the name is a direct reference to Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, who was one of our world’s more successful psychic hoaxers: actually named Cyril Hoskin, and son of a Devon plumber, Lobsang Rampa claimed to be a Tibetan monk with paranormal powers. He wrote the best-selling 1956 book The Third Eye which, even though Rampa was exposed as a fraud by Time Magazine in 1958, is still being printed and sold as the real thing 30 years later. Rich, gullible people like actress Shirley MacLaine still pay money to have their ‘third eye’ opened up by contemporary Rampa equivalents.

When questioned about the name, Terry answered: “I know all kindsa Tibetan names… Kelsang, Jambel, Tsong, Tenzin, Tupten (drops Tibetan reference book on foot)… but Lobsang is, thanks to Mr Rampa, probably the best known.”

12

Apart from being Magrat’s ninja war cry, ‘Hai?’ also means ‘Yes?’ in Japanese.

13

“Non compos mentis” is a Latin phrase meaning “not of sound mind”.

14

Anno Domini means ‘year of our Lord’ (as in e.g.: 1993 AD). It is indeed also used to denote old age, although this usage is a fairly recent literary invention, dating back to at least 1888 when Rudyard Kipling wrote the short story Venus Annodomini.

15

Refers to the opening scene of The Sound of Music, where Julie Andrews does just that: running up the mountains, and singing, and wearing dirndls (if you want to know what a dirndl looks like, go see the movie).

16

This refers back to a legendary message that appeared in Crowther & Woods’ text adventure game ADVENT: “You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.”

Many games have included variants of this. It also appeared in Zork (“The second of the great early experiments in computer fantasy gaming”, as The New Hacker’s Dictionary describes it), and in the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game you appear in your own brain, in “a maze of twisty synapses”.

17

In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings there is a famous scene outside the dwarven mines of Moria, where invisible runes written on the door (and revealed by the wizard Gandalf) give our heroes the clue as to how to get the door to open, namely by saying the word ‘friend’.

Personally, I like Nanny Ogg’s way better.

The section dealing with dwarfs (and in fact, almost everything Terry writes about dwarfs) is a parody of Tolkien’s dwarves.

In particular, compare the witches’ musings on mine entries and invisible runes to Tolkien’s scenes outside Moria. Dwarf bread brings to mind Tolkien’s waybreads: cram and lembas. And as the witches leave the dwarfs, they have an encounter with a wretched creature mumbling something about his birthday…

18

In fact, the situation regarding eskimos and snow is pretty much the same as the one Terry subsequently describes for dwarfs and rocks: eskimos have a number of different words for different kinds of snow and ice, but nothing out of the ordinary.

19

From the phrase “tight as a duck’s arse”, implying excessive meanness.

20

Just as an example of the type of song Granny may have in mind, here are a few verses of ‘The Cuckoo’s Nest’:

When this annotation led to a torrent of similar folk songs being discussed on a.f.p., at one point Terry chimed in with: “My favourite was something I think by a guy called Diz Disley back in the very early 70s. From memory:

21

An obvious joke, but easily missed: refers to ducking suspected witches. If they drowned, they were innocent.

22

The “other one” is the crone.

23

Well no, it isn’t, actually. The German word for bat is ‘Fledermaus’, as in Johann Strauss’ famous operette Die Fledermaus. ‘Flabberghast’ seems to derive more from the plain English ‘flabbergasted’ (meaning: astonished beyond belief). Similarly, ‘die flabbergast’ apparently was a Mozart-spoofing sketch that Dudley Moore did in Beyond The Fringe.

24

The names the witches are considering for themselves are puns on existing airline companies or their acronyms. Nanny Ogg starts to say Virgin Airlines, but is rudely interrupted by a gust of wind.

25

Americans might be amazed to learn that Bubble and Squeak, Spotted Dick, and Toad-in-the-Hole (which is mentioned a few lines further down) are all actually the names of existing British delicacies.

Nanny Ogg is correct in identifying Toad-in-the-Hole as a sausage embedded in a sort of tart filled with pancake batter.

Bubble and Squeak is traditionally made on Boxing Day from Christmas leftovers (potato, onion, cabbage and Brussels sprouts appear to be favourite ingredients among alt.fan.pratchett readers, fried up together in lard.

Spotted Dick is a suet-sponge pudding with currants or sultanas in it.

26

Refers to the famous traveller’s guide originally titled Europe on Five Dollars a Day. This is of course also extensively parodied in the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (“see the wonders of the universe for only twenty Altairian dollars per day”).

27

‘Cojones’ is Spanish for ‘hen’s eggs’, colloquially used for ‘testicles’. The whole ‘Thing with the Bulls’ section spoofs the annual bull running festival of Pamplona in our world. Ernest Hemingway was very impressed with this macho activity, and used the word ‘cojones’ to describe the bravery displayed by the young men participating in the event.

I doubt if it originated with Hemingway, but to this day “having the balls” is used in both English and Spanish to mean “act bravely”.

28

The Mississippi River is often known as ‘Old Man River’, for instance in the classic song from the 1936 Kern/Hammerstein musical Show Boat. Near the mouth of the Mississippi lies New Orleans, on which Genua seems to be largely based. And then there are the riverboats, with the gamblers…

29

The most famous part of the Walt Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida, is officially called the ‘Magic Kingdom’.

30

Samedi Nuit Mort = Saturday Night Dead, a reference to the television comedy show Saturday Night Live.

31

Actually, ‘Mardi Gras’ means Fat Tuesday. Nanny Ogg is confusing ‘Mardi’ with ‘Midi’, which mean ‘midday’, i.e. lunchtime.

32

In Terry Pratchett’s universe Black Aliss is obviously the evil witch of all fairy tales. The stories referred to here are Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin and Hansel And Gretel, all of which are available as on-line versions.

33

This is a Blues Brothers reference: in the film, the dialogue goes: “‘Are you the police?’ — ‘No, ma’am, we’re musicians.’”

34

Magrat then goes on to describe more or less what happened in the fairy tales of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs.

35

For once, Nanny Ogg doesn’t mix up two or more real-world tales, but gets the story (almost) right: Circe was the name of the sorceress from the Odyssey who lived on the island Aeaea, and turned Ulysses’ shipmates into pigs when they landed (but didn’t shipwreck) there.

36

In the jargon of American military planners, the DEFCON scale (for Defence Readiness Condition) is used to describe the level of preparedness of U.S. military forces. I quote from The Language of Nuclear War — An Intelligent Citizen’s Dictionary by H. Eric Semler, James J. Benjamin, Jr., and Adam P. Gross:

“DEFCON 5 describes a state in which forces are at normal readiness, while DEFCON 1, referred to as the “cocked pistol,” indicates a state of extreme emergency, when forces are poised for attack. Not all U.S. military forces are simultaneously at the same DEFCON. The DEFCON varies depending upon the type of weapon with which the troops are equipped and the region in which they are deployed. For example, U.S. troops in South Korea are always at DEFCON 4 but soldiers tending nuclear missiles deployed in the continental U.S. are normally kept at DEFCON 5. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy raised the DEFCON of U.S. forces to DEFCON 2 (a status just below wartime conditions).”

37

Fairly standard magic-related concepts, but perhaps it should be noted that wishing on stars is done in Disney’s Pinocchio, while fairy dust features heavily in Peter Pan (both the original play and the subsequent Disney movie).

38

I feel that in Witches Abroad Terry was experimenting much more than usual with the literary device of foreshadowing. This is only one of the many instances in the book where something is said that means nothing to the reader first time around, but which suddenly becomes very significant when you notice it during a re-read, and you already know what is going to happen later.

39

These are references to the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Lion respectively, once you remember that an alcoholic drink is also known as ‘Dutch courage’. In fact, in the original book the courage the Lion is given comes in a bottle, and many feel that Baum had alcohol in mind when he wrote it.

40

The farmhouse landing on Nanny Ogg, and the subsequent events involving dwarfs looking for ruby-coloured footwear are references to The Wizard of Oz.

All Terry’s references are to the movie version, incidentally, not the book. In the book Dorothy obtains Silver Shoes instead of Ruby Slippers, doesn’t say anything approaching “… we’re not in Kansas any more”, and of course the book doesn’t have a ‘dingdong’ song.

41

Dorothy, to her dog, in The Wizard of Oz: “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

42

The girl with the long hair is Rapunzel from the famous fairy tale of the same name. ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ is a different, unrelated fairy tale involving a dwarf spinning gold out of straw.

43

Terry says: “Yep… direct use of existing East London rhyming slang there (Richard the Third = turd).”

44

When questioned about the phrase, Terry explained: “Perfectly good British slang. A ‘wet hen’ is bedraggled, sad and useless. Probably not as useless as a big girl’s blouse, though, and better off than a lame duck.”

45

This resonates with In the Heat of the Night, in so much as we have two persons of the same profession, one of them black, the other white, and one of them way out of her territory.

In the Sidney Poitier movie In the Heat of the Night the most famous line (and indeed the name of the sequel) is Poitier saying “They call me Mister Tibbs.”

The name ‘Erzuli’ comes directly from Voodoo religion. Maîtresse Erzulie (also known as Ezili) is the ideal figure of womanhood, and the spirit of love and beauty.

46

Legba (also known as Papa Legba or Legba Ati-bon) is the Voodoo spirit of the cross-roads, where the Above meets the Below. He is “on both sides of the mirror”. He leans on a stick, and another of his symbols is the macoutte (straw sack). Chickens are sacrificed to him by twisting their neck till they are dead.

47

It is obvious that Granny is trying to tell a joke here — and failing miserably. The problem was that quite a few readers (including yours truly) were having trouble figuring out what that joke was supposed to be in the first place.

People started asking about the Alligator Joke so frequently on alt.fan.pratchett, that eventually Terry himself posted the following “definitive explanation of the alligator joke”:

“It is (I hope) obvious that Granny Weatherwax has absolutely no sense of humour but she has, as it were, heard about it. She has no grasp of how or why jokes work — she’s one of those people who say “And then what happened?” after you’ve told them the punchline. She can vaguely remember the one-liner “Give me an alligator sandwich — and make it snappy!” but since she’s got no idea of why it’s even mildly amusing she gets confused… all that she can remember is that apparently the man wants it quickly.”

When conversation on the net then turned to the origins of the joke, he followed up with:

“As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I first came across the joke in an ancient US comedy routine — Durante or someone like him. It sounds burlesque.”

48

Emberella — > Embers; Cinderella — > Cinders…

49

Nanny is thinking of Man Friday as in Robinson Crusoe’s native friend. But Saturday is of course none other than Baron Samedi (Samedi = Saturday), the Voodoo keeper of cemeteries and lord of zombies. He appears as a skeleton wearing a top hat and a black cane.

50

The two traditional English toasts being mixed up here are “bottoms up” and “here’s mud in your eye”.

51

Maison en Flambé = house on fire.

52

Calling them Magrats is a reference to Bloomers, originally a female costume consisting of jacket, shirt and Turkish trousers gathered closely around the ankles, introduced by Mrs Amelia Bloomer of New York in 1849. Associated with the Woman’s Rights Movement, the outfit met with little success. Nowadays ‘bloomers’ is applied to the trouser portion only.

53

‘Sir Roger de Coverley’ is the title of a folk dance.

54

‘Moutarde’ is French for ‘mustard’. Colonel Mustard is the name of one of the characters in the board game (and subsequent movie) Clue (or Cluedo).

55

Casanunda, “the world’s greatest lover”, refers to our world’s Casanova. Notice that Casanova is often roughly pronounced as ‘Casanover’ (emphasis on the ‘over’), and that Casanunda (emphasis on the ‘unda’) is a dwarf…

Actually, Casanunda is lying, because we later find out he’s only the world’s second greatest lover. But this should not surprise us, since yet even later (in Lords and Ladies) we also find out that he is an Outrageous Liar.

56

A popular way of staving off boredom at typical British seaside holiday resorts is to take a trip in a small boat, which will often journey out as far as the local lighthouse and circumnavigate it. Hence the above colloquialism, implying that Nanny’s experiences were not limited to the inshore waters of male/female relationships.

57

Traditionally, the wiccan goddess is viewed as the triple entity maiden/mother/crone, and our witches indeed echo this model. Neil Gaiman uses the triple goddess quite often in his Sandman series.

58

Baba Yaga is a witch in Russian folklore, who had a hut that stood, and was able to turn around, on chicken feet. I don’t believe that hut could walk, however. (Neil Gaiman seemed to think it could, though: Baba Yaga and a walking hut figure in Book 3 of his excellent Books of Magic.)

One of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (‘House on hen’s legs’) also refers back to Baba Yaga, by way of another Russian’s painting of said fairy tale hut.

59

Casanunda here recreates the famous liar paradox: Epimenides the Cretan saying “All Cretans are liars”. For more information on this paradox see any good book about logic puzzles, although I particularly recommend Douglas R. Hofstadter’s Metamagical Themas.

60

This was the catchphrase from a well-known ad campaign in the late 60s. The No. 2 was car rental firm Avis; Hertz was No. 1.

Avis still uses the “we try harder” slogan, but the “we’re No. 2” part was dropped a long time ago.

61

Nanny is thinking of the Discworld version of Achilles, who was invincible except for a small spot on his heel.

62

Another Wizard of Oz reference (kicking her shoes together three times and saying a similar sentence invoked the spell that transported Dorothy home from Oz).

63

Several people were immediately reminded of Fritz Leiber’s Hugo award winning novelette Gonna Roll The Bones, which ends: “Then he turned and headed straight for home, but he took the long way, around the world.” Terry has said there is no conscious connection, however.

“Seeing the elephant” also resonates nicely with The Lord of the Rings, where Bilbo complains wistfully that he never got to see an elephant on his adventures ‘abroad’: “[…] Aragorn’s affairs, and the White Council, and Gondor, and the Horsemen, and Southrons, and oliphaunts — did you really see one, Sam? — and caves and towers and golden trees and goodness knows what besides. I evidently came back by much too straight a road from my trip. I think Gandalf might have shown me round a bit.”

Also, “to have seen the elephant” is British military slang dating back to the 19th century, and means to have taken part in one’s first battle, while during the 1849 California Goldrush, “going to see the elephant” was widely used as a phrase by people to signify their intention to travel westwards and try their luck. (See e.g. JoAnn Levy’s 1999 book They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush.)