Sveuilite J. J.

Strossmayera u Osijeku

Filozofski fakultet

Diplomski studij Engleskog jezika i knjievnosti i povijesti

Domagoj Rapak

Narrative Causality and the Witches in Terry Pratchett's Discworld

Diplomski rad

Mentor: doc.dr.sc. Borislav Beri Komentor: mr.sc. Ljubica Matek

Osijek, 2011.

SUMMARY Terry Pratchetts Discworld is a series of humorous fantasy novels set on a planet shaped like a disc and supported by four giant elephants standing upon a turtle. It is an imaginary world ruled by s tories through the phenomenon of narrative causality, which means that most activities on Discworld tend to follow the rules and archetypes of storytelling. The author often employs parody and satire, but also infuses his work with myriad cultural references. By means of narrative causality he reveals many common misconceptions and makes fun of them, but also warns the reader to be a critical thinker. After discussing major aspects of Pratchetts writing style and the lessons he imparts, this paper continues to analyse narrative causality as represented in three Discworld novels. Wyrd Sisters is the first Discworld novel in which the witches Granny, Nanny and Magrat appear as main characters. It is revealed how they oppose the rules of storytelling and fight for the freedom of choice. This particular novel heavily parodies and refers to Shakespeares plays, especially Macbeth and, to an extent, Hamlet. Witches Abroad features a m ore in-depth exploration of narrative causality and its repercussions, most notably in the medium of fairy tales. The witches face a power-hungry fairy godmother and set out to stop her villainous schemes. Lords and Ladies refers to Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream and explores many aspects of folklore and folk superstition. Elves come to conquer a kingdom, but first they must face the three witches that oppose them.

KEYWORDS Discworld Terry Pratchett Narrative Causality Witches Folklore

CONTENTS

Introduction 1. Terry Pratchett and the Discworld 1.1. The Author and His Work 1.2. About the Discworld 1.3. Metaphor, Belief, and the Power of Stories 2. Narrative Causality and the Witches 2.1. Wyrd Sisters 2.2. Witches Abroad 2.3. Lords and Ladies Conclusion Works Cited

1 2 2 4 8 13 13 26 33 39 41

INTRODUCTION Stories come in many forms and most of them are considered merely a distraction from the affairs of everyday life. However, there is more to stories than most people consciously realize, for they have the potential to shape the world. Terry Pratchett, author of the best-selling Discworld series, often explores in his novels the impact that stories can have on human behaviour and culture at large. The aim of this paper is to explore the concepts of storytelling, which are present in all the Discworld books, but most evident and best exemplified in the Witches trilogy, and analyse the many sources from which the author draws inspiration, ranging from folklore to popular culture, as well as the ways in which he subverts the tropes and clichs common to fantasy and fairy tales. Pratchetts stories take place in an imaginary setting, but it is a world that reflects our own and carries a deeper message. Stories have a life of their own; while they can inspire people to do good, they also have the potential to cause just as much harm, especially when people fail to recognize them for what they are. The witches of Discworld know this and work to keep the people on the right track, which is exactly what Pratchett strives to do with his readership. His novels are satirical and topically varied, but they all encourage the reader to think critically and never accept things at their face value. Just because something sounds good does not make it true, though it does make it popular, and therein lies the danger. The first chapter presents the authors biography and proceeds to discuss aspects of his writing style and the literary devices he commonly employs. It explains the meaning and purpose of narrative causality and briefly points out some theories on archetypal storytelling and the spreading of ideas. The second chapter focuses on the three novels chosen for analysis in this paper. It lists and explains many references and allusions, comparing characters and situations with their real-world equivalents that have served as sources of inspiration.

1. TERRY PRATCHETT AND THE DISCWORLD 1.1. The Author and His Work Sir Terence David John Terry Pratchett is an English author, best known for his longrunning and best-selling Discworld series, a growing collection of novels set in a world of comical fantasy. Pratchett has written over fifty novels to date not counting the numerous collaborations and contributions and so far thirty-nine of them are set in the Discworld. While he is generally classified as a fantasy writer, it might be said that his Discworld books tend to merge with a variety of genres, crime fiction in particular, but just as easily they can be read as parody and satire. Terry Pratchett was born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, in April of 1948. He wrote and published his first short story at the age of thirteen, but it was still some time before he became a full-time writer. At first he decided to take up j ournalism, which allowed him to brush up on hi s writing skills, as well as make contacts and meet publishers. By 1971 he published his first novel, The Carpet People. In the following decade he worked as a journalist, an editor, and a publicity officer; by 1981 he had published two more novels: The Dark Side of the Sun and Strata. It was at about this time that Pratchett wrote his first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic, finally seeing it published in 1983. His writing efforts were still being hampered at the time by other obligations, and it was not until 1987 that he realised he could actually afford living as a full-time writer. By that time, five Discworld novels had been published and Pratchetts popularity was quickly rising; ever since, he has written two books a year on average and his novels have sold over sixty-five million copies in thirty-seven languages. Pratchett was appointed Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and eventually knighted in 2009 for services to literature. In 2007 he publicly revealed that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers disease, and made it his mission to spread awareness and propagate an increase in funding for its research. Despite his illness, he continues writing books and making public appearances. (Smythe 1) Pratchetts books are instantly recognizable for his writing style. Even though his books are often adult-themed, they are widely read by people of all ages and preferences that is, not just by science fiction enthusiasts for they are a unique mix of all sorts of ingredients, including a sharp wit in keeping with the classics of British comedy. But scratching under the surface of fantasy and comedy is a world of references, trivia, allusions and subversions, some of which are so obscure that most casual readers will never even notice them. Quite often, in order to spot and decipher these elements, a reader would have to be familiar with popular culture, classical works of art or even recent advances in science. Since Pratchett generally uses these references in a co medic capacity, more-than-casual readers might as w ell think of them as i nside jokes. This does not

alienate his potential readership, however, as one can read Pratchett on more levels than one; beneath the humour lie many useful lessons. Another familiar mark of Pratchetts style is that a large majority of his novels lack the traditional chapters. New readers are often surprised by this, and Pratchett is called to explain: Life doesn't happen in chapters at least, not regular ones. Nor do movies. Homer didn't write in chapters. I can see what their purpose is in children's books I'll read to the end of the chapter, and then you must go to sleep but I'm blessed if I know what function they serve in books for adults. (qtd. in Grant 1) Footnotes are another of Pratchetts stylistic idiosyncrasies; he tends to use them frequently and of course in a humorous manner. At times, a footnote takes up almost an entire page, and more often than not there are footnotes referencing footnotes. For example, in the very opening paragraphs of Lords and Ladies, Pratchett writes: Now read on... When does it start? There are very few starts. Oh, some things seem to be beginnings. The curtain goes up, the first pawn moves, the first shot is fired 1 but thats not the start. [...] Other theories about the ultimate start involve gods creating the universe out of the ribs, entrails and testicles of their father. 2 There are quite a lot of these.
1 2

Probably at the first pawn. Gods like a joke as much as anyone else. (7)

And finally, while the characters themselves are not aware of being in a story though they often are aware of narrative causality, which will be the main focus of analysis of this paper Pratchett tends to break the fourth wall and assume a f amiliar stance with the reader; an omniscient narrator aware even of his audience. This is best exemplified in those instances where he steers away from the plot in order to discuss for a moment a particular topic that has cropped up. This, too, often appears in the form of footnotes. Even though it may seem that this detracts from the flow of the narrative, in truth it teaches interesting lessons and enhances the experience.

1.2. About the Discworld As mentioned earlier, Pratchetts best-known creation is the Discworld, a setting for the majority of his novels a place of fantasy, but also of comedy and satire; a vehicle for the exploration of everyday trivia, social absurdities and much more. What all the Discworld novels have in common, and what probably makes them so popular, is the authors humorous, light-hearted and yet subversive approach to classic fantasy literature. The very shape of the Discworld is revealed in its name and is inspired by t he way people imagined our real world in ancient and medieval times. It is a perfect sample for the analysis of Pratchetts approach to writing; his strategy of borrowing mythical conceptions from the real world and putting them to use on the Discworld is arguably his favourite literary technique: Through the fathomless deeps of space swims the star turtle Great ATuin, bearing on its back the four giant elephants who carry on their shoulders the mass of the Discworld. A tiny sun and moon spin around them, on a complicated orbit to induce seasons, so probably nowhere else in the multiverse is it sometimes necessary for an elephant to cock a leg to allow the sun to go past. (Wyrd Sisters 5) Many of the Discworld novels begin with a similar description; it is a clear signal to the reader that one is now leaving reality and descending into a world of silliness and fantasy. Of course, a mere six hundred years ago this would not have been far from the popular perception. Despite the ancient Greeks theories and calculations including Eratosthenes amazingly close estimate of the Earths circumference the medieval society remained mired in superstition and misinformation. The average persons idea of the shape of the world at the time would not have been far from that of the Discworld; a dominant majority of the worlds population was neither formally educated nor literate. The only education they could afford was passed down orally from one generation to the next; lessons would take the form of folk tales, making them interesting and easy to remember. The problem was that they were not necessarily true and tended to generate many fallacious beliefs for example, the one about the shape of the world. Believing that the Earth was flat did no ha rm, though; unless one believed otherwise, of course, and dared to speak up. Pratchett, along with Jacqueline Simpson, a British folklorist, co-authored The Folklore of Discworld, a metanarrative analysis of real-world myths and legends that have had an influence and were the sources of inspiration for many of the elements that appear throughout the Discworld series. One of the first things they discuss is the origin of a disc-shaped world supported by elephants and turtles. On Earth everyone knows that people used to believe that their planet was also flat, if they thought about it at all. In fact for several thousand years a growing number of 4

educated people have shared the knowledge that it is a globe. Generally speaking it was wisest not to shout about it in the street, though, because of the unrest this could cause. No doubt scholars in the ancient Hindu India partook of this knowledge, but since truth comes in many forms, the age-old epic poems of India declare the world to be a disc. (Pratchett and Simpson 23) The two proceed to examine the Hindu cosmology, in which turtles and elephants are featured on a regular basis: At some stage, though nobody knows just when, these insights began to blend, with the result that some (but not all) Hindu mythographers now say the world is a disc supported by four elephants supported by a turtle (23). Regardless of whether Pratchett was aware of these particular facts at the time of writing, this medieval idea of the shape of the world is now rooted in common contemporary perception, a type of general awareness which he refers to as white knowledge (Abbott 1) further to be discussed in a later chapter. Discworld books are a series of stand-alone stories that can be read in any given order, for there are no sequels as su ch. Many of the books return to familiar characters and continue their stories, but each is an enclosed story with a clearly defined opening and conclusion. Early novels followed the adventures of an unlikely wizard called Rincewind, but Pratchett eventually introduced entirely new characters and situations which then shared the same setting. By now there are about eight books featuring Rincewind as the protagonist, as well as a few others where he merely makes a brief cameo appearance. Throughout this Rincewind cycle the author tends to poke fun at the subgenre of Sword & Sorcery, including such tales as Robert E. Howards Conan the Barbarian or Michael Moorcocks Elric of Melnibon series. As Stephen Briggs points out in the preface to an interview with Pratchett, it is commonly believed among Pratchetts readership that his novels keep getting better and better, gaining new depths and overtones as the time goes by: By now, Discworld is a state of mind. It clearly started as just another medieval fantasy world, but it has evolved fast [over the years]. Originally it parodied some of the clichs of fantasy writing, and remnants of that style still remain as dandruff on the shoulders of something altogether more worthwhile. Most of the recent stories are set in a more fruitful context that of a world held artificially just on the brink of industrial revolution, and in which all the dwarfs and the trolls and other mythical fauna never went away but stayed on to open ethnic restaurants and make money. (Pratchett and Briggs 465) Set in such urban settings are the City Guards novels that feature the watchmen of AnkhMorpork, the largest city on the Disc. This part of the series functions much like any crime fiction novel would except that some of the characters are dwarfs, trolls, or vampires, and the crime in

question is more often than not supernatural in character. For this part of the series the author often draws parallels with the classics of the genre, as well as b uddy cop films like Dirty Harry or Lethal Weapon, but also satirically chews over such topics as politics, economy, or social psychology. Finally, the last major cycle is that of the Witches books, which draw heavily from folklore, fairy-tales, as well as the works of William Shakespeare. The first three novels of that cycle are going to be discussed in this paper in more depth: Wyrd Sisters (1988), Witches Abroad (1991) and Lords and Ladies (1992). They focus on a trio of witches in their continuing fight against the evil influences that plague the Discworld. While most Discworld novels are set in the city of AnkhMorpork, the three witches books usually start in the small kingdom of Lancre, some ways hubwards 1 of the aforementioned city. As mentioned earlier, Pratchett has a t endency to include many allusions and veiled references in his books; most people would recognize these to be drawn from popular culture, mythology, or other authors works. Many of those references are often hard to spot even by educated and well-read readers, but, as William T. Abbot points out in his thesis, this merely encourages readers to look them up and learn something new: While some may suggest that Pratchett excludes part of his readership by ha ving heavily allusive books, others would argue that the range of his allusions gives all readers recognizable reference points. Obviously, readers will not understand all of Pratchett's allusions, but more literate readers will take great pleasure from them. The less culturally aware reader will still get the feeling that Pratchett has planted these ideas, and will often search them out actively. (White Knowledge and the Cauldron of Story 1) Evidently, it is not necessary for the readership to be fully familiar with a given subject in order to recognize its elements and repercussions within a Discworld narrative. For example, in Carpe Jugulum, a Discworld novel featuring vampires, he draws from a multitude of sources: folklore, mythology, Bram Stokers Dracula, as well as the personas of the silver screen Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, actors best known for their roles in vampire horror films. In common perception, however, their individual appearances and character have fused together into a universal archetype. Here and now, in the twenty-first century, all vampire lore has blended
1

Since Discworld is shaped like a disc, giving directions complicates things a bit. Hubwards points towards the

centre of the Disc, the Hub, which also functions as a pole in terms of the climate getting colder as one approaches it. Rimwards, therefore, points towards the warmer Rim, or edge of the world. The other two directions are turnwise and widdershins.

together into a luscious soup (Pratchett and Simpson 16). Even without knowing much about the original sources of vampire imagery, bits and pieces tend to present themselves almost instantly to any casual reader: the red cape, the bloody fangs, the stake through the heart they have become hallmarks of the vampire genre, as well as popular Halloween paraphernalia. Pratchett seems to have coined the term white knowledge 2 in order to describe this general awareness: If I put a reference in a book, I try to pick one that a generally well-read person has a sporting chance of picking up; I call this white knowledge, the sort of stuff that fills up your brain without you really knowing where it came from (Words from the Master 1). Nobody is the ultimate expert on a ll given topics, but everyone can pick things up he re and there even without understanding the bigger picture. One does not have to be familiar with the full biography of Julius Caesar to know that he uttered the famous phrase, Alea iacta est! when he crossed the river Rubicon. Indeed, this does not even have to be true; what is important is that most people are familiar with the phrase and its supposed origin; thus it becomes something Pratchett can use to strike a familiar chord. This approach is not always looked upon f avourably, and some critics would argue that Pratchett owes his success to other authors, failing to create anything more than a highly derivative fantasy. However, as Abbott points out, no w ork of fantasy is entirely original, making that an unfair and rather superficial estimate: All literary worlds build on elements of past literary worlds, and white knowledge creates the basis for the myths that people live by. [...] In some ways, Pratchett (like many other quality fantasy authors) has not only referred to the recognizable and wellknown, but he has also connected to what Carl Jung calls the collective unconsciousness of his readership, using symbols and making deeper connections to readers' archetypes and realities. (1)

The term holds no racial overtones in this particular case and is probably related to white noise, i.e. background

sounds on television and radio channels that are not receiving a signal (Ellis-Christensen 1).

1.3. Metaphor, Belief, and the Power of Stories When compared to other fantasy settings, the Discworld is hardly out of the ordinary; it does have a weird shape, but there are wizards and magic, elves and dwarves, and so on, all indicative of an over-used standard in contemporary fantasy fiction, especially in the so-called post-Tolkien era. 3 In the case of Discworld, this is somewhat justified as Pratchetts fiction often subverts and parodies these generic imitations. They are essential elements, even though Pratchett rarely makes them the focus of the story; he prefers to concentrate on the message the story is an entertaining lesson rather than entertainment alone. By means of the Discworld novels, Pratchett frequently explores the concepts of storytelling and their power to shape public opinion and influence society: Because stories are important. People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, its the other way around. Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power (Witches Abroad 8). Metaphor has always been a potent weapon in the right hands even in the real world. Indeed, it often matters little whether a thing is actually true; when sufficient people believe it to be it almost makes no difference. This is particularly true in the case o f contemporary storytellers journalists and broadcasters who shape the public opinion on everything from politics to religion. Pratchett makes the logical next step in his Discworld books if sufficient people believe in something strongly enough, it becomes a literal truth. On Earth, it would be considered a metaphor; on Discworld, it is something quite real. As mentioned earlier, the majority of the medieval population of Earth believed our planet to be flat and was resistant to new ideas and discoveries. This is a natural sociological phenomenon; radical new ideas are destabilizing factors in any society, especially when they become unavoidable. In order to preserve the status quo, a ttempts will be made to discourage them from taking root for as long as possible. Pratchett parodies this in the novel Small Gods, which describes a religion whose teachings claim the Discworld to be round. With sufficient converts, this would likely even become true. Of course, to quote Voltaire, With great power comes great responsibility, and when words hold power they are not to be used carelessly. On Discworld, this
3

J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings revived the popularity of the fantasy genre in the latter half of the twentieth

century, proving that it could be more than just pulp literature. Unfortunately, its influence was so widespread that many fantasy writers began to replicate Tolkiens style, brining little to no innovation to the genre: all of a sudden, almost every fantasy book was featuring elves, dwarves, wizards and orcs in an epic struggle of good versus evil, by default. Pratchett was very much aware of this when he started writing the Discworld novels, and so he decided to make fun of it.

is especially true, and wizards and witches are very much aware of it; the shape of the world is closely tied with what its people think and believe. On Discworld, metaphor has a disturbing tendency to take itself seriously. Death as a robed skeleton is not just a metaphor for the process of mortality; he really is a robed skeleton, with a rich existence of his own. On Discworld, belief is a potent force. What is believed strongly enough is real. (Pratchett and Briggs 138) Because many people tend to portray Death in anthropomorphic
4

terms i.e., as a sev en-foot tall

skeleton, dressed in black and brandishing a scythe on Discworld he becomes an actual character, appearing to each and every person at the moment of their passing. Since many characters usually villains and their victims die during the course of the novels, Death is the only character to make an appearance in all of them. 5 Pratchett goes even further than that, imbuing the character of Death with a personality unlike any other. Depending on ones beliefs, death can be perceived as a terrible end, but also as a passing into the next world. On Discworld, since most peoples ideas about afterlife will probably come true, Death is not so terrible; he is merely providing a service, ushering the souls of the dead into the afterlife of their choice. Along the way he has even developed a personality by attempting to understand and imitate humanity. And so, the Death of Discworld lives in a separate dimension, in a house with a garden and a butler. He is a metaphor breaking out of its limits, because ideas can often have a life of their own. The Discworld is a place where stories happen, which seems simple enough, for that is what fictional settings are for to have stories take place. However, from the perspective of the Discworlds inhabitants, these stories become observable facts like gravity, or the change of seasons. Pratchetts characters are often aware of the rules of the story as if they were physical laws, and these storytelling axioms are referred to as narrative causality. Similarly, in the real world, there are established literary techniques, genres, writing styles, and even rules of storytelling; a

Anthropomorphism, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is treating gods, animals or objects as if they had human

qualities. Many such characters appear in Pratchetts novels and he collectively names them anthropomorphic personifications. They are not to be confused with gods, in this case, although they may exhibit god-like powers. The character of Death is a prime example.
5

To date, this is true for the regular Discworld novels, although Death fails to make an appearance in Wee Free Men, a

book for young readers. Since there are other Discworld novels for young readers and he does make an appearance in all of them, it is a unique occurrence.

large majority of stories never fails to adhere to at least some of the established plot devices, tropes, and archetypes. 6 The authors of The Science of Discworld II: The Globe discuss the similarities between Discworld and Roundworld as they jokingly label the real world and the many repercussions of narrative causality. It should be noted that they sometimes refer to narrative causality as if it were a demonstrable physical element, and so they call it narrativium. They also claim that something close to narrativium can be found even in our Roundworld society. Discworld narrativium is a substance. It takes care of narrative imperatives, and ensures they are obeyed. On Roundworld, our world, humans act as if narrativium exists here, too. We expect it not to rain tomorrow because the village fair is on, and it would be unfair (in both senses) if rain spoiled the occasion. Or, more often, given the pessimistic ways of our country folk, we expect it to rain tomorrow because the village fair is on. Most people expect the universe to be mildly malevolent but hope it will be kindly disposed, whereas scientists expect it to be indifferent. (Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen 22) In this example narrative causality has taken the shape of folk superstition, but it can also have motivational purposes. Indeed, Stewart and Cohen go so far as to suggest that the human species is better classified as pan narrans, the storytelling ape, rather than homo sapiens, the wise man. They posit that the human civilisation owns its success not just to intelligence, but also to the invention of storytelling. The thinking process, they say, is little more than telling oneself little stories; education, as well, has often come in the same form. We learn to appreciate stories as children. The childs mind is quick and powerful, but uncontrolled and unsophisticated. Stories appeal to it, and adults rapidly discovered that a story can put an idea into a childs head like nothing else can. Stories are easy to remember, both for teller and listener. As that child grows to adulthood, the love of stories remains. An adult has to be able to tell stories to the next generation of children, or the culture does not propagate. (326-327) Nowadays, it is easy to access almost any type of information known to humanity, and learning processes have changed considerably with the recent advances in communication and information technologies. In the early days, however before writing, but also during the long ages of widespread illiteracy learning came in the form of stories carried through an oral tradition. Stories
6

The website <http://tvtropes.org> abounds with humorous discussions on popular tropes and lists numerous examples

from television, but also literature, comic books, video games, and even real life.

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told by t he proverbial fire were not merely entertainment, but a way of teaching useful lessons, passing on certain knowledges to the new generations; thus was folklore born. However, storytelling is not always a reliable tool. Our fascination with stories lays us open to a variety of errors in our relationship with the outside world. The rapid spread of rumours, for instance, is a tribute to how our love of a juicy story overcomes our critical faculties. The mechanism is precisely the one that the scientific method tries to protect us against: believing something because you want it to be true. Or, for some rumours, because you fear it could be true. (Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen 328) Narrative causality stems from the many similarities that are common to all stories when comparing folklore, mythology, and even religion, one can easily notice many analogies. The author Joseph Campbell explores this in depth in his seminal work, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949), by c omparing many world mythologies and seeking their common threads. He concludes that every traditional story of a heroic quest is basically the same story with only the names and setting changed to suit the storytellers culture. Popular tales represent the heroic action as physical; the higher religions show the deed to be moral; nevertheless, there will be found astonishingly little variation in the morphology of the adventure, the character roles involved, the victories gained. If one or another of the basic elements of the archetypal pattern is omitted from a given fairy tale, legend, ritual or myth, it is bound to be somehow or other implied and the omission itself can speak volumes for the history and pathology of the example. (Campbell 38) Indeed, this is not restricted to classic myths, but applies to all literary genres due to the many universal elements that they share. In order to explain why this is so, Campbell reaches for the theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung; the analysis of dreams yields many similarities when comparing dreamers from widely different cultures, exposing an inherent collective unconscious. And yet he is, at the time of writing, admittedly uncertain by w hat means and in what eras the mythological and cultural patterns of the various archaic civilizations may have been disseminated to the farthest corners of the earth (142). Almost three decades later, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins would propose a scientific solution to this dissemination of cultural patterns in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), and call these patterns memes (192). Throughout his work he argues that memes are the key instruments of cultural evolution. The word meme was coined by deliberate analogy with gene, and memetics with genetics. Genes are passed from one generation of organisms to the next; memes are

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passed from one human mind to another human mind. A meme is an idea that is so attractive to human minds that they want to pass it on to others. (Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen 328) Since then, the meme theory has been much discussed, but little used in scientific research due to its abstract nature. It is still useful, however, as an explanation of why some ideas survive and spread while others die out. Dawkins suggests that a single meme has a much better chance of surviving in a memeplex than on its own; memeplex representing a cluster of ideas, such as cultural, political, or religious doctrines and systems. It is a set of memes which, while not necessarily being good survivors on their own, are good s urvivors in the presence of other members of the memeplex (Dawkins, The God Delusion 230). Memes are exactly like genes in that they possess no conscious intentions of their own, and spread indiscriminately without regard to whether they are useful, neutral, or positively harmful to us (Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen 329). People who create memes often let them loose with particular intentions in mind, but once they start spreading they soon become impossible to control. When they are popular, they spread very much like a disease when they are not, they die out or survive in isolated pockets. Advertising campaigns are one example of intentional manufacture of memes, which can be beneficial as well as harmful. 7 This might also apply to memeplexes, which have the potential of indiscriminately combining all sorts of memes into a very popular and dangerous ideology. Thankfully, one can easily protect [oneself] against becoming infected with a meme. The ability to think critically, and to question statements that rest on authority instead of evidence, are quite effective defences (Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen 330). Narrative causality is a direct result of the spread of certain memes and memeplexes, ideas that have become so entrenched that they are no longer examined or questioned. The problem with established ideologies and dogmas is that they are beyond doubt, even when their many elements are demonstrably false or harmful memeplexes are hard to break. On Discworld, critical thinkers are usually the main protagonists, as they alone hold the weapons essential to keeping such monsters at bay. Unchecked narrative causality is something the witches of Discworld would never allow in their neighbourhood.

Cigarettes are inherently harmful, for example, and yet remain popular and are freely, if subtly, advertised.

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2. NARRATIVE CAUSALITY AND THE WITCHES 2.1. Wyrd Sisters Although an earlier Discworld novel introduces the character of Granny Weatherwax, it is not until Wyrd Sisters, the sixth novel in the series, that her companions are brought into the story as well. Together with Magrat Garlick and Nanny Ogg she makes up a trio of witches who live in the secluded and mountainous kingdom of Lancre, serving its people and protecting them from evil influences. The book begins with their meeting in a dark and stormy night, huddled around a fire and a bubbling cauldron. In the middle of this elemental storm a fire gleamed among the dripping furze bushes like the madness in a weasels eye. It illuminated three hunched figures. As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: When shall we three meet again? There was a pause. Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: Well, I can do next Tuesday. (Wyrd Sisters 5) This is a clear parody of Shakespeares Macbeth and its opening scene, in which the three witches enter the stage amidst thunder and lightning, and the First Witch utters: When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? (1.1.1-2) It will become evident that Macbeth, along with some of Shakespeares other works, was a major source of inspiration for Wyrd Sisters. The Scottish play is also a likely source of the novels title, since the three witches in Macbeth are sometimes called the Weird Sisters and are know for their prophecies on the destinies of kings. That is what Macbeth calls them, and what they call themselves. The Weird Sisters (Pratchett and Simpson 200). However, this is not to say that they are merely strange in appearance or behaviour one must look to Norse mythology for clarification. The Norns, or Nornir, were the Germanic fates, the goddesses of destiny. The original Norn was undoubtedly Urd (Fate). It was believed that the Norns decided the destinies of gods, giants and dwarfs, as well as of humankind. The Anglo-Saxons called Urd by t he name of Wyrd, and in England there was maintained a belief in the tremendous powers of the three sisters long after the arrival of Christianity. (Cotterell 211) Pratchett and Simpson agree that the word wyrd was known to Shakespeare, but that he probably misspelled it. Either way, it can also function as a p lay on words, with the two meanings

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overlapping: witches may well hold the threads of fate in their hands, but to anyone of a more sceptic calibre they appear as merely strange old women. 8 The three Norns have established themselves as an archetype in literature, as well as popular culture, which is why there are exactly three witches in both Macbeth and Wyrd Sisters. Pratchetts witches are not as supernatural as the Norns, nor quite as ominous as Shakespeares, but they are still learned in the ways of magic. In our real world the three witches have further precedent: In southern Europe people thought that there were supernatural women who bestowed wishes and gifts on newborn babies. They were a kind of fairy, but it was most unwise to use that word better to refer tactfully to Ladies from outside, or Ladies who must not be named. They were the original fairy godmothers. In Greece and the Balkans, they would arrive on the third night after the birth, and there were three of them. Everyone went to bed early that night, the dogs would be chained up, the door of the house left unlocked. The babys cot would be placed near the icon in the main room, and beside it a t able with three low stools for the Ladies. There would be a can dle burning, and heaps of food bread and wine, fruit, nuts, honey-cakes. Nobody could enter the room till morning, when the midwives and female relatives would eat up the goodies themselves, for the Ladies had already magically taken what they wanted of them during the night. (Pratchett and Simpson 202) It just so happens that the three witches of Lancre receive an opportunity to save a babys life and appoint themselves its godmothers. It f urther complicates matters that the baby in question is the late kings one true heir, an extra nod to the rules of narrative causality. As has been mentioned earlier, magic and storytelling are closely tied together on the Discworld, and therefore being sensitive to magic and sensitive to the rules of storytelling is sometimes the same thing: A spell is a story about what a person wants to happen, and magic is what turns stories into reality (Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen 23). Pratchetts characters will at times find it suitable to conform to storytelling archetypes, but some of them are quite ready to resist narrative causality whenever it threatens their personal freedoms. Magrat sighed. You know, she said, if we are his godmothers, we ought to have given him three gifts. Its traditional. What are you talking about, girl?
8

Scepticism and atheism are still present on the Discworld; even though the omniscient narrator establishes the

existence of magic and gods as fact, the characters themselves are free to believe what they want.

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Three good witches are supposed to give the baby three gifts. You know, like good looks, wisdom and happiness. Magrat pressed on defiantly. Thats how it used to be done in the old days. Oh, you m ean gingerbread cottages and all that, said Granny dismissively. Spinning wheels and pumpkins and pricking your finger on rose thorns and similar. I could never be having with all that. (Wyrd Sisters 51) Even though the novels title refers to Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick as sisters, they are not blood relatives, but rather members of the same sisterhood a witches coven. And that there are three of them is important in more ways than one, because not only is three a good number for witches, but it has to be the right sort of three. The right sort of types. (Pratchett and Simpson 204). It is imperative that they should be of a certain age and thus fit in their particular niche. However, mythological trinities of fate were all the same age, as well as Shakespeares Weird Sisters. It was only in the early twentieth century that their archetypal imagery received a slight overhaul. Pratchett and Simpson recognize three authors as chiefly responsible for this new iconography; the first is Jane Ellen Harrison, a Cambridge scholar, and it was she who decided that all the many goddesses in ancient religions could be tidily sorted out into three aspects of one great Earth Goddess: the Maiden, the Mother, and a third she did not name (205). The second was the magician Aleister Crowley, who recognised the third entity as the Crone and drew a parallel with Hecate, the Greek goddess of darkness and black magic. And then the idea took root in the mind of the poet Robert Graves, and grew into his book The White Goddess (1948), the picture of a lovely, cruel threefold deity who brings both life and death, inspiration and despair. Her third aspect is the crone, the hag, the destroyer, but beyond the pain she represents there is a promise of reward and renewal, so she is not to be seen as evil. (Pratchett and Simpson 205) This final manifestation of the threefold goddess has become the most popular; the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone have now established themselves as the new archetype; even the Norns are nowadays often represented as such a trinity. The Pratchetts three witches are no exception; Magrat Garlick, being the youngest of the three, as well as the least experienced, is almost certainly the Maiden. Nanny Ogg, an older witch who has given birth to fifteen children and is an experienced midwife to boot, must therefore be the Mother. Finally, there is Granny Weatherwax, the oldest and probably the most powerful witch on the Discworld, so much so that nobody would dare call her the Crone if the need arises, however, she is humorously referred to as the... other one. As another witch points out in Witches Abroad, Because there would have to be three of them. Three [is] an

15

important number for stories. Three wishes, three princes, three billy goats, three guesses... three witches. The maiden, the mother and the... other one (62-63). As mentioned earlier, a group or a meeting of witches makes up a coven, though this really depends on ones standpoint. While it is true that, for a long time in European history, people believed in witches and held even wilder ideas about their supposed activities, there is little to no evidence about such things ever having existed. Supposedly, they met at secret sabbats, participated in demonic orgies, worshipped evil spirits and plotted magical schemes that they constantly visited upon the unsuspecting populace. Curiously enough, even without establishing the true nature of historical witches, if they even existed as anything other than as misunderstood or mistrusted wise women, there exists today a n umber of witch revisionists. One of the first such people was Margaret Murray, an early twentieth century scholar. [She] maintained that witches had indeed been members of a real secret society, but that they did no harm all they were doing was to keep an old religion going, honouring gods and goddesses of earth and moon, of sex and seasons and crops. She claimed that they were tightly organized into covens of thirteen, and had been holding exactly the same ceremonies to mark the seasons on the same dates all over Europe for hundreds of years. (Pratchett and Simpson 217) In one of those curious instances where life imitates fiction, Murrays ideas gave birth to a N ew Age religious movement called Wicca, whose practitioners worship a Triple Goddess and a Horned God. They often form actual covens and celebrate seasonally-based festivals, but are in fact rather diversified in their beliefs and practices, picking up bits and pieces from other religions as well as historical occultism. The Discworld witches are similarly disorganized, as each one has a unique approach to her work. Unlike wizards, who like nothing better than a complicated hierarchy, witches dont go in much for the structured approach to career progression. Its up to each individual witch to take on a girl to hand the area over to when she dies. Witches are not by nature gregarious, at least with other witches, and they certainly dont have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didnt have. (Wyrd Sisters 8) It becomes evident that witches sometimes do things they would never admit to doing; there is no hierarchy, and yet all witches stand in awe of Granny Weatherwax; there are no covens in a formal capacity, and yet they do hold meetings and discuss matters of witchcraft. Originally, forming a coven was Magrats idea, since it appears she is the one most in tune with Wiccan practices of our

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world. 9 Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg do not seem to want to revive some of the old traditions, however. An oven? Nanny Ogg had said. Whatd we want to join an oven for? She means a coven, Gytha, Granny Weatherwax had explained. You know, like in the old days. A meeting. A knees up? said Nanny Ogg hopefully. No dancing, Granny had warned. I dont hold with dancing. Or singing or getting over-excited or all that messing about with ointments and similar. Does you good to get out, said Nanny happily. Magrat had been disappointed about the dancing, and was relieved that she hadnt ventured one or two other ideas that had been on her mind. She fumbled in the packet she had brought with her. It was her first sabbat, and she was determined to do it right. Would anyone care for a scone? she said. Granny looked hard at hers before she bit. Magrat had baked bat designs on it. They had little eyes made of currants. (Wyrd Sisters 9) Many Discworld characters, like Magrat for example, often possess a certain intuition about things that do not quite exist on the Discworld itself, but do in the real world; it appears as if they are able to tap the same white knowledge as the readers, often to humorous effect. Granny Weatherwax paused with a second scone halfway to her mouth. Something comes, she said. Can you t ell by t he pricking of your thumbs? said Magrat earnestly. Magrat had learned a lot about witchcraft from books. The pricking of my ears, said Granny. She raised her eyebrows at Nanny Ogg. Old Goodie Whemper had been an excellent witch in her way, but far too fanciful. Too many flowers and romantic notions and such. (Wyrd Sisters 17) Magrat, it becomes clear, has inherited many books from her tutor, the late Goodie Whemper, and one of those books must have been Shakespeares Macbeth, or at least its Discworld variant: By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. (4.1.44-45) As mentioned earlier, all witches have a unique approach to their craft; Magrat has a tendency to get carried away with occult trinkets, wearing a lot of jewellery with pentacles and other magical
9

As it later becomes clear, Magrat's name is a misspelled Margaret. It is probably no coincidence, as she is obviously

the Discworld counterpart to Margaret Murray.

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motifs. She has also inherited more than just books; when her tutor died she took over her responsibilities, but also some of her habits. Like Whemper, Magrat is a r esearch witch, experimenting with herbs and figuring out how to use them for magic potions and remedies. Granny Weatherwax, on t he other hand, uses what she calls headology, and gives people bottles of coloured water; in other words, she employs the placebo effect. Much to Magrats annoyance, both methods are equally successful. Magrat is slowly learning that tools do not make a witch, but vice versa. What might be called the classical witch comes in two basic varieties, the complicated and the simple, or, to put it another way, the ones that have a room full of regalia and the ones that dont. Magrat was by i nclination one of the former sort. For example, take magical knives. She had a complete collection of magical knives, all with the appropriate coloured handles and complicated runes all over them. It had taken many years under the tutelage of Granny Weatherwax for Magrat to learn that the common kitchen breadknife was better than the most ornate of magic knives. It could do all that the magical knife could do, plus you could also use it to cut bread. (Witches Abroad 197) Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg approach witchcraft without ceremony or flourish; they make do with black clothes and pointy hats and are a constant source of irritation for Magrat with their blatant disregard for the occult paraphernalia. On the other hand, even though Granny disapproves of Magrats love for showy utensils, she respects the fact that every witch has her own style. Nevertheless, she does tend to openly express her opinion when she is annoyed. What the witches do have in common is their magical intuition and a duty to set things right. The three witches stumble upon the royal crown of Lancre; being naturally sensitive to magic, as well as to narrative causality, they instinctively mistrust the object and recognize its potential to cause a lot of trouble. It turns out they are right, for the regicidal lord Felmet is seeking it in order to proclaim himself king. They are not willing to let him find it, however, just as they defy him by protecting the late kings infant son. A slight problem arises in that they are not sure what to do with the crown. Oh, thats easy, said Magrat. I mean, you just hide it under a stone or something. Thats easy. Much easier than babies. It aint, said Granny. The reason being, the countrys full of babies and they all look the same, but I dont reckon theres many crowns. They have this way of being found, anyway. They kind of call out to peoples minds. If you bunged it under a stone up here, in a weeks time itd get itself discovered by accident. You mark my words.

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Its true, is that, said Nanny Ogg, earnestly. How many times have you thrown a magic ring into the deepest depths of the ocean and then, when you get home and have a nice bit of turbot for your tea, there it is? (Wyrd Sisters 31-32) Nanny Oggs last remark is a cl ear reference to popular folk tales in which people find curious objects, only to discover that they are unable to get rid of them. Similarly, in The Lord of the Rings, the dark lord Sauron crafts a Master Ring with which he hopes to subvert the people of Middle Earth to his evil cause; his plans are foiled, however, and the ring becomes lost for many centuries. It is implied that the Ring has a will of its own and plans to return to its maker, calling to men and beasts, wanting them to find it, use it, and become Saurons thralls. The main protagonists find the ring and recognize its dangers, but the wizard Gandalf shuns the suggestion of casting it into the sea: Not safe for ever, said Gandalf. There are many things in the deep waters; and seas and lands may change. And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one. (Tolkien 347) While the crown of Lancre would allow the evil lord Felmet to officially become its king, it is not so evil an artefact as the One Ring to warrant its destruction as the only viable solution; Granny Weatherwax opts for hiding it amidst a stash of theatrical props, the only place where it would never be easily noticed. Magrat picked it up and turned it over in her hands. Its not as though it even looks much like a crown, she said. Youve seen a lot, I expect, said Granny. Youd be an expert on them, naturally. Seen a fair few. Theyve got a lot more jewels on t hem, and cloth bits in the middle, said Magrat defiantly. This is just a thin little thing Magrat Garlick! I have. When I was being trained up by Goodie Whemper maysherestinpeace maysherestinpeace, she used to take me over to Razorback or into Lancre whenever the strolling players were in town. She was very keen on the theatre. Theyve got more crowns than you can shake a stick at although, mind she paused Goodie did say theyre made of tin and paper and stuff. And just glass for the jewels. But they look more realer than this one. (Wyrd Sisters 36) Perception is often dictated by one s expectations, and expectations are in turn dictated by previous experiences. This is narrative causality at work, and the witches use the same principle to

19

their benefit; most people would never expect a real crown to be hidden in a props chest. Naturally, a critical thinker would eventually arrive at the solution, and to quote Sherlock Holmes, When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth (Conan Doyle 138). Fortunately, lord Felmet lacks the inquisitive nature of a good de tective: The duke had managed quite well for fifty years without finding a use for curiosity. It was not a trait much encouraged in aristocrats. He had found certainty was a much better bet (Wyrd Sisters 58). Duke Felmet is ridden by gui lt and self-doubt, but also imbued with ruthless and calculated evil; he is clearly the novels antagonist, falling almost too neatly into the niche of the archetypal tyrant, as described by Campbell: The figure of the tyrant-monster is known to the mythologies, folk traditions, legends, and even nightmares, of the world; and his characteristics are everywhere essentially the same. He is the hoarder of the general benefit. He is the monster avid for the greedy rights of my and mine. The havoc brought by him is described in mythology and fairy tale as being universal throughout his domain. [...] The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world no matter how his affairs may seem to prosper. Selfterrorized, fear-haunted, alert at every hand to meet and battle back the anticipated aggressions of his environment, which are primarily the reflections of the uncontrollable impulses to acquisition within himself, the giant of self-achieved independence is the worlds messenger of disaster, even though, in his mind, he may entertain himself with humane intentions. Wherever he sets his hand there is a cry (if not from the housetops, then more miserably within every heart): a cry for the redeeming hero, the carrier of the shining blade, whose blow, whose touch, whose existence, will liberate the land. (15-16) Indeed, the very kingdom refuses Felmet as its ruler not its people, nor the witches, but the land itself its heart and soul, brought to life by the magic of Discworld. Felmet feels that uneasy presence pressing down on him, but does not recognize its character; the land deems him unworthy of being its ruler, but he believes it to be the witches magical influence. He decides that they are his enemies, and seeks ways of fighting back. The duke shrugged. How should I fight magic? he said. With words, said the Fool, without thinking, and was instantly sorry. They were both staring at him. What? said the duchess. The Fool dropped his mandolin in his embarrassment.

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In in the Guild, said the Fool, we learned that words can be more powerful even than magic. Clown! said the duke. Words are just words. Brief syllables. Sticks and stones may break my bones he paused, savouring the thought but words can never hurt me. My lord, there are such words that can, said the Fool. Liar! Usurper! Murderer! The duke jerked back and gripped the arms of the throne, wincing. Such words have no truth, said the Fool, hurriedly. But they can spread like fire underground, breaking out to burn Its true! Its true! screamed the duke. I h ear them, all the time! He leaned forward. Its the witches! he hissed. Then, then, then they can be fought with other words, said the Fool. Words can fight even witches. What words? said the duchess, thoughtfully. The Fool shrugged. Crone. Evil eye. Stupid old woman. The duchess raised one thick eyebrow. You are not entirely an idiot, are you, she said. You refer to rumour. Just so, my lady. (Wyrd Sisters 86-87) What they are talking about is, of course, an intentional dissemination of untruthful memes: starting a rumour that will demean the witches and leave them vulnerable. The force of narrativium makes this a very efficient tactic on the Discworld; in the end it does not matter whether a rumour is true, but whether sufficient people believe its claims. Witches are weakened when people lose respect for them. Meanwhile, the three witches also experience the shift in the atmosphere; they notice that there is something wrong: the kingdom has woken up, r ebelling against Felmet. As Granny Weatherwax returns home to mull over this turn of events, her hut is silently surrounded by t he animals of the forest, the non-human inhabitants of the kingdom. She faces them in her courtyard, but they merely stare at her in silence, demanding of her to take action and protect the kingdom. Granny is immediately wary of the suggestion, knowing and fearing the pitfalls of magical interference in the matters of social hierarchy. Witches steer clear of politics and know better than to interfere, even when it is for a good cause. Look, said Granny. What can I do about it? Its no good you coming to me. Hes the new lord. This is his kingdom. I cant go m eddling. Its not right to go meddling, on account of I cant interfere with people ruling. It has to sort itself out, good or bad. Fundamental rule of magic, is that. You cant go r ound ruling people with spells,

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because youd have to use more and more spells all the time. She sat back, grateful that long-standing tradition didnt allow the Crafty and the Wise to rule. (Wyrd Sisters 103) Granny is a very powerful witch, but wise enough to know that she must refrain from using her magic to solve every single problem, lest it establish a chain of events that can only lead to devastation and misery: That which magic rules, magic destroys (Wyrd Sisters 54). Contrary to popular belief, magic in contemporary fantasy literature is not employed at the drop of a hat. On the Discworld, the wizards and witches treat it rather like nuclear weaponry: it does no harm for people to know youve got it, but everyone will be in trouble if it gets used (Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen 75). Even though magic does not exist in our world, it commonly appears in stories as a lesson against the temptations of rulership; any characters that can restrain themselves from using their power, unless absolutely necessary, are deemed heroes; those that abuse it are usually the villains. As Campbell puts it, the hero is the man of self-achieved submission (16), the man or, indeed, the woman who can restrain ones ego, see to the needs of the many and do what is right. It is only too easy to be a villain, but it takes some effort to be a hero. On the other hand, the witches are not entirely without fault. They cherish their individuality and thus possess an unrestrained ego. Witches know that something must be done when trouble arises, but that is usually the only thing they can agree upon. This often causes tension between the witches, but also among other magic-users; it becomes very hard for them pool their resources and work together. Your average witch is not, by na ture, a social animal as far as o ther witches are concerned. Theres a conflict of dominant personalities. Theres a group of ringleaders without a ring. Theres the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is Dont do what you will, do what I say. The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they cant avoid it. (Witches Abroad 19) Wizards magical activities are kept in check through hierarchy and constant competition; witches work alone within their respective territories, but keep an eye on each other. The best witches are those that can keep an eye on themselves and resist the temptation to solve all problems with magic. Granny, Nanny and Magrat know that they cannot defeat Felmet through direct action; the only thing left to do is to trust in narrative causality and await the arrival of a hero that will save the day namely, to wait for the heir of Lancre, the babe that they saved, to come of age. Lord Felmet is aware of this being their only chance, but holds little belief in the power of narrativium. ... but there is one who could defeat you, said Granny slowly.

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The child? Let him come when he is grown. A young man with a sword, seeking his destiny. The duke sneered. Very romantic. But I have many years to prepare. Let him try. (Wyrd Sisters 155) This is, of course, a reference to the legend of King Arthur, another Lost Heir. He was famous for his swords: the one he pulled out of a stone made him king; the other was given him by the Lady of the Lake and called Excalibur (Pratchett and Simpson 337-338). Similarly, in The Lord of the Rings, the character of Aragorn is a descendant of an ancient line of kings; he too reclaims his throne only once his ancestral sword is reforged, finally fulfilling a centuries-old prophecy. The sword is one of the three most common symbols of rulership; the other two are the sceptre and the crown, and it is the latter that Felmet should probably be referring to in this case, for he needs that crown to legitimatise his station. The ghost of the late king Verence confronts the witches, asking them to help remove the duke from power; Granny admits there is nothing to be done but wait for the heir to come of age. That would take over a decade, however, and the witches possess no such patience; especially so due to the spreading disrespect of witches that Felmet has sown with false rumours. It is his intention to further defame them, as well as secure his rulership, by placing an order for a play that will rewrite history and clear him of his crimes. Granny Weatherwax decides to speed destiny up and transport the entire kingdom fifteen years into the future. Thus Pratchett subverts the more common narrative: stories of a returning heir usually begin in medias res, after many years of strife and misery and just in time for the hero to appear. It also shows that Granny Weatherwax, while hesitant to meddle directly, is only too ready to employ magical shortcuts and have things her own way. She knows the rules and takes care not to break them, but she also knows how to circumvent them altogether if necessary. Earlier, the witches have left the infant prince in the care of a troupe of travelling thespians; in the end it turns out to be the very same troupe that Felmet has commissioned for his play. In an ironic turn of events, the late kings son Tomjon is resultantly groomed to become an accomplished actor rather than a monarch. The witches believe his journey back to Lancre to be of a prophetic nature, though, and help the troupe along with spells, as well as directions, it being traditional that young heirs seeking their destiny get help from mysterious old women gathering wood (Wyrd Sisters 262). They are eager to see Tomjon avenge his fathers death and take back his rightful throne, even though they know that magical meddling is dangerous and has a tendency to backfire. Granny nodded. But, she thought, it was going to be worth it. She hadnt got the faintest idea what Tomjon had in mind, but her inbuilt sense of drama assured her that the boy would be bound to do something important. She wondered if he would leap off the stage

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and stab the duke to death, and realized that she was hoping like hell that he would. (Wyrd Sisters 274) Instead of coming to avenge his father, Tomjon arrives in Lancre to perform. The play that Felmet has commissioned is reminiscent of a play-within-a-play that Shakespeare has employed in some of his plays, including Hamlet. The character of Hwel, Tomjons mentor, is a dwarfish playwright bursting with creative energy and is clearly a caricature of Shakespeare himself. As the witches finally sit down to watch his newest play, Granny ruminates nervously on the power of theatre; a power over which she has no hold. The theatre worried her. It had a magic of its own, one that didnt belong to her, one that wasnt in her control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didnt belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didnt know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better. (Wyrd Sisters 276) What Granny is missing is that the same applies to all storytelling media, since every story is susceptible to revisionism. Modern historians are aware of this, and therefore history is always subject to changes as new evidence surfaces. Theatre, much like the movie industry, is not open to revision; once a play is staged or a movie filmed, there is no going back. Its story is unchanging and, if successful, can only spread its message, for better or for worse. For instance, Shakespeare portrays his Richard the Third as an evil, lame, hunchbacked king, whom Henry must kill to save England. This is not historically correct rather it is how Henry would have liked people to remember it (The Annotated Pratchett File: Wyrd Sisters). It dawns on the three witches that Felmets play is portraying them in less than favourable light as well. Objectively, the play is made up of lies and slander, but the audience does not seem to care. Granny turned slowly in her seat to look at the audience. They were staring at the performance, their faces rapt. The words washed over them in the breathless air. This was real. This was more real even than reality. This was history. It might not be true, but that had nothing to do with it. Granny had never had much time for words. They were so insubstantial. Now she wished that she had found the time. Words were indeed insubstantial. They were as soft as water, but they were also as powerful as water and now they were rushing over the audience, eroding the levees of veracity, and carrying away the past. Thats us down there, she thought. Everyone knows who we really are, but the things down there are what theyll remember three gibbering old baggages in pointy hats. All weve ever done, all weve ever been, wont exist any more. (Wyrd Sisters 282)

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In the end, with their reputation at stake, the witches decide that they must interfere after all in order to prevent the play from delivering its intended message. They decide to cast a spell on the actors that will change their lines in the play but, being unable to invent words of their own, they opt for a verbatim retelling of the events as they truly took place. The duke is horrified to see himself exposed and jumps upon t he stage, stabbing everyone in a bout of madness. It seems he would prefer a tragic ending, much like that of Hamlet, in which all the major characters die from sword or poison. It is not to be, however, as he fails to notice that his dagger is a theatrical prop with a retractable blade. The Fool steps forward as a witness to his crime, and Granny chooses the moment to reveal Tomjon as the true heir. The heir-turned-actor is not so keen on accepting the crown, however; he refuses to heed the call of narrativium, feeling that acting is his true calling. It falls to Magrat to solve the puzzle: she produces the Fool, revealing him as the old kings bastard child. In the real world a bastard could enjoy some benefits at best, but never inherit a title let alone a royal one. And too late does Magrat realize that the Fool is not really the late kings bastard, but the queens instead. Granny discourages her from worrying about it too much: Anyway, look at it lik e this. Royalty has to start somewhere. It m ight as well start with him. It looks as though he means to take it seriously, which is a lot further than most of them take it. Hell do (Wyrd Sisters 331). On the Discworld, with a little help from the witches, the imperatives of narrative causality can sometimes be avoided. Destiny is important, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. Its the other way around (Wyrd Sisters 331). In a way, Granny Weatherwax battles narrative causality because she is a proponent of free will something that Destiny, being a deterministic system, does not allow. The question of free will still remains unanswered; whether it exists or not is a matter of perspective. As humans, we are naturally obsessed with our future and what it has in store for us. Aside from waiting, the only way to see the future is through stories. This is probably why stories about time travel or those set in the future are so popular, even though they repeatedly turn out to be utterly wrong. On the other hand, some few turn out to be right, almost as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. The stories of Jules Verne are a perfect example; even though he did not get all the details right, his characters journeyed under the sea and to the moon in circumstances very similar to the reality that followed a hundred years later. Authors like Verne probe the possibilities of human achievement and inspire future generations to test their theories. Science fiction does not always remain such sooner or later it becomes just science. But it has to start somewhere, much like Grannys new-fledged royalty. Humans need stories to determine their destiny.

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2.2. Witches Abroad While Wyrd Sisters largely draws inspiration from the works of Shakespeare and explores the effects of narrative causality that originate in theatrical plays, the next book in the Witches cycle Witches Abroad focuses on the similar effects that are fashioned by fairy tales. It is the first book in which Pratchett gives narrative causality its name and form, though it has already been clearly hinted at in his previous work. It means that a story, once started, takes a shape. It picks up all the vibrations of all the other workings of that story that have ever been. This is why history keeps on repeating all the time. So a thousand heroes have stolen fire from the gods. A thousand wolves have eaten grandmother, a thousand princesses have been kissed. A million unknowing actors have moved, unknowing, through the pathways of story. It is now impossible for the third and youngest son of any king, if he should embark on a quest which has so far claimed his older brothers, not to succeed. Stories dont care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself. It takes a special kind of person to fight back, and become the bicarbonate of history. (Witches Abroad 9) In an earlier chapter, Joseph Campbell has been quoted expressing similar sentiments in The Hero With a Thousand Faces; the same conclusions can apply to all stories, myths, and fairy tales: they can grow, twist, intertwine, change shape, but they always sprout from a universal source the human nature. Possibilities are endless, and yet the stories always seem to be about the same old things and that is exactly what makes them interesting. The character of Death, being an objective observer, is fascinated by stories and unable to comprehend why they always have to contain negative aspects of humanity: Inside this little world [humans] had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. [...] They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in. (Wyrd Sisters 298) It is hard to imagine that anything unrelated to human activities could ever become a popular genre. The best and most popular of stories are about a conflict of opposites; after all, it is hard to describe love without comparing it against hate, peace against war, courage against fear. Being human is a journey, an aspiration for larger things; the lesson of many a story is that one should always follow 26

the path of goodness. The goal is to reach Nirvana, to achieve Buddhahood, but the path is impossibly hard to follow as it is obfuscated by evil influences. The only thing that remains is to fight evil; that, at least, is more often than not a clearly definable enemy. The negative aspects of humanity delineate the path, and in stories be it literature, theatre, or television the dichotomy is often quite obvious; the good and the evil are clearly represented, and the good tends to triumph in the end. In comparison with reality, the differences are apparent; for one, the heroes and villains are not so easily definable, nor is there a clear line between good and evil. The matters of real-life politics and social interactions are subjective and open to discussion, and as is often said history is written by the victors. Indeed, subjectivity defies even moral judgement; a man being deemed evil by others rarely thinks so of himself, subscribing to a different school of thought. And so it is with the villain of the novel, the witch Lilith, who sees herself as a benefactor and fulfiller of wishes, with nothing but good i ntentions on h er mind. And yet, she is the villain for one simple reason; she does not acknowledge any limit within or without, always grasping for more power and taking it at every opportunity. A good witch, as has been mentioned earlier, uses magic only when absolutely necessary. Lilith takes control over the city of Genua through magic and shapes it according to the rules of narrative causality. She takes peoples lives and twists them, sucking away their will-power and personality, forcing them into the patterns of old stories where she, and she alone, is in control. Yet all the time she is enslaving them, she convinces herself that she is the good godmother, the good witch. And if thats not being a wicked witch, what is? (Pratchett and Simpson 234) As Pratchett explains, Genua is a sort of New Orleans with a sort of Magic Kingdom grafted on top of it (qtd. in Annotated Pratchett File: Witches Abroad). He arrived at the idea while driving on a USA tour from Orlando to New Orleans, and Genua was formed by fusing the two: Orlando is famous as t he location of the Walt Disney World Resort and one of its attractions is the Magic Kingdom, complete with a fairy-tale castle. It is interesting to note that the Disney World attraction was partly inspired by the real-world castle of Neuschwanstein, built in the southwest Germany by Ludwig II of Bavaria, a nineteenth century monarch. It was constructed as a personal playground for the reclusive king one in which he could escape to an immersive Wagnerian utopia of heroic knights and tragic, love-addled ladies (Wolf 1). Lilith is somewhat similar to Ludwig II in that regard, though his subjects probably suffered a lot less for his schemes than the citizens of Genua.

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The city came as a shock. From a distance, it looked like a complicated white crystal growing out of the greens and browns of the swamp. Closer to, it resolved into, firstly, an outer ring of smaller buildings, then an inner ring of large, impressive white houses and, finally, at the very centre, a palace. It was tall and pretty and multi-turreted, like a toy castle or some kind of confectionery extravaganza. Every slim tower looked designed to hold a captive princess. (Witches Abroad 148) New Orleans, on the other hand, is famous for its festivals and cuisine. As Pratchett explains, 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 (qtd. in Annotated Pratchett File: Witches Abroad). The author Jack Zipes analyses the influence of Disneys animated films on the common perception of the classic fairy tale and seems to arrive at a similar conclusion: There is something sad in the manner in which Disney "violated" the literary genre of the fairy tale and packaged his versions in his name through the merchandising of books, toys, clothing, and records. Instead of using technology to enhance the communal aspects of narrative and bring about major changes in viewing stories to stir and animate viewers, he employed animators and technology to stop thinking about change, to return to his films, and to long nostalgically for neatly ordered patriarchal realms. (Breaking the Disney Spell 352) Lilith feels that everyone in her kingdom should behave according to the rules of narrative causality: cooks must be fat, jolly, and have their arms covered in flour; innkeepers must be similarly fat, as well as red-faced; toymakers must cheerfully sing or whistle while they work. However, just like in Disneyland, everything about her version of Genua is artificial and enforced. Its people long to return to the old days of freedom, when happiness was not mandatory. Fortunately for them, the three witches of Lancre come to visit. On their way from Lancre to Genua, the witches encounter some of Liliths previous work: a castle under the influence of a sleeping spell, reminiscent of the story about the Sleeping Beauty. They are not too surprised to find a palace full of cobwebs and comatose courtiers, since fairy tales are quite commonplace on the Discworld especially with a little help from the right type of witch. Granny instantly recognizes it for what it is and strongly disapproves. Enforced fairy tales may as well be a type of prison; people caught up in them become little more than puppets on a cardboard stage. Thats fairy godmothering, this is, she added, half to herself. Always do i t impressively. Always meddling, always trying to be in control! Hah! Someone got a bit

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of poison? Send everyone to sleep for a hundred years! Do it the easy way. All this for one prick. As if that was the end of the world. (Witches Abroad 115) Again, the tale of the Sleeping Beauty has been made popular by a Disney animated feature, and it is that imagery which usually springs to mind: If children or adults think of the great classical fairy tales today, be it Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or Cinderella, they will think Walt Disney (Zipes 332). There are many other adaptations, of course, but none so dominantly present in popular culture or as suggestive in the establishment of fairy tale narrativium: they are an example of a very successful memeplex. Disneys version also tellingly features three fairy godmothers. Lilith honestly believes that she is the good one and is giving the people what they want a happy ending. The other witches are more down-to-disc in that regard; they do not believe in happy endings. As the witches wake up the sleeping castle, Magrat is somewhat disappointed. I wonder if we did the right thing? Im sure it was a job for a handsome prince. Hah! said Granny, who was riding ahead. And what good would that be? Cutting your way through a bit of bramble is how you can tell hes going to be a good husband, is it? Thats fairy godmotherly thinking, that is! Goin around inflicting happy endings on people whether they wants them or not, eh? Theres nothing wrong with happy endings, said Magrat hotly. Listen, happy endings is fine if they turn out happy, said Granny, glaring at the sky. But you cant make em for other people. Like the only way you could make a happy marriage is by cuttin their heads off as soon as they say I do, yes? You cant make happiness... Granny Weatherwax stared at the distant sky. All you can do, she said, is make an ending. (Witches Abroad 118) Later on t he road, the witches come across a young girl in a red cape, visiting her grandmother; again they recognize narrative causality at work the tale of the Little Red Riding Hood. Lilith had passed that way as well, and already Granny is suspecting it to be her work. She is also angry to see peoples lives being twisted by stories; the little girl was told to visit her grandmother all by herself and in spite of the dangers of the road. Magrat is left to guard the little girl while Granny and Nanny leave to sort out the wolf problem. Tell me, said Magrat, you said your mummy knows about the big bad wolf in the woods, didnt you? Thats right. But nevertheless she sent you out by yourself to take those goodies to your granny? Thats right. Why?

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Nothing. Just thinking. (Witches Abroad 124) The story of the Little Red Riding Hood is often interpreted by w ay of symbols; her red cape sometimes represents her love for her grandmother, at other times it is her innocence, soon to be lost. The big bad wolf, in such cases, becomes a metaphor for an adult male that preys on young girls; it is a cautionary tale, telling them that such men are to be avoided. Interpretations vary as there are many different versions of the story; the same is true for all the more popular fairy tales: Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast, and so on. N arrative causality picks up on their common thread, just as Vladimir Propp does in his Morphology of the Folktale; he decides that comparing different folk tales yields a finite number of threads. First glance would seem to indicate that it is necessary to cover all extant material. In fact, this is not so. Since we are studying tales according to the functions of their dramatis personae, the accumulation of material can be suspended as soon as it becomes apparent that the new tales considered present no ne w functions. Of course, the investigator must look through an enormous amount of reference material. But there is no need to inject the entire body of this material into the study. We have found that 100 tales constitute more than enough material. (386) By the end of his analysis, Propp identifies thirty-one functions of the fairy tale, as well as t he typical characters: villain, donor or provider, helper, princess and her father, dispatcher, hero and false hero (387). Similar archetypes are to be found in every story; the same story can be told a hundred times in a hundred different ways, but it is the subtleties that matter and the quality of storytelling that decides its popularity. The Greek concept of tragedy was an extreme form of narrative imperative: the nature of the impending disaster had to be evident to the audience and to virtually all of the players; but it also had to be evident that it was going to happen anyway, despite that. You were Doomed, as you should be but well watch anyway, to see how interestingly youll be Doomed. And if it sounds silly to watch a drama when you know the ending in advance, consider this: how likely is it, when you settle down to watch the next James Bond movie, that he wont defuse the bomb? In fact youll be watching a narrative as rigid as any Greek drama, but youll watch anyway to see how the trick is done this time. (Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen 342) And there are lessons to be found in fairy tales, even though they change with the times; modern attitudes often perceive things that could not have possibly been placed there before Freud or Jung came along. As Maria Tatar writes in the introduction to The Classic Fairy Tales, they are sometimes overanalysed:

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Both Fromm and Brownmiller's efforts to view Little Red Riding Hood as a repository for certain timeless and universal truths founder precisely because every critic seems to find a different timeless and universal truth in the tale. Allegorical readings tend to undermine and discredit each other by their very multiplicity. Their sheer number begins to suggest that the story targeted for interpretation is nothing but nonsense, that it veers off in the direction of the absurd, signifying nothing. (7) Analyses of fairy tales, it becomes clear, range from the exaggeratedly complex to the naively simplistic. They all concur that there are lessons to be found in the stories, but disagree as to what the lessons really are. Parents nowadays are often wary that their children should not be exposed to scary and dark stories, but this is a very fresh perspective most fairy tales, in their original forms, were very graphic and did not care much about a young c hilds sensitivities. If anything, they imprinted their lessons that more easily. G. K. Chesterton did rather better when, in an article defending fairy stories, he disputed the suggestion that stories tell children that there are monsters. Children already know there are monsters, he said. Fairy stories tell them that monsters can be killed. (Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen 341-342) As the witches continue their journey, they hear tales of pigs building houses and bears living in cottages; the former refers to the story of Three Little Pigs while the latter is clearly about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The witches realise that someone with magical talent has twisted the surroundings to fit the shape of the aforementioned stories. Granny sighed. Someones been here before us. Passing through. Someone who knows about the power of stories, and uses em. And the stories have... kind of hung around. They do that, when they get fed... Whatd anyone want to do that for? said Nanny. Practice, said Granny. (Witches Abroad 135) It becomes clear, as t hey arrive to Genua, that it was all Liliths doing and Genua is her crowning achievement. The road to the city is made of yellow bricks and, just as they approach, a farmhouse falls on N anny Oggs head; it is soon surrounded by s inging dwarfs demanding her boots. The witches are as much annoyed as they are puzzled by t his series of events, but Granny suspects that it is another story at work. Indeed, this is almost a direct parody of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, originally a childrens novel by L. Frank Baum, but also famous for its many musical and film adaptations. Lilith is disappointed that this particular story does not turn out as it should, since Nanny Ogg survives the farmhouse: Witches ought to be squashed when a farmhouse lands on them. Lilith knew that. All squashed, except for their boots sticking out (Witches Abroad 146).

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Lilith is a tyrant, clear and simple. She killed the previous ruler of Genua, the Baron, and replaced him with a Prince, who turns into a frog during the night. She orchestrates the entire city to conform to the rules of narrative; the Barons daughter, Emberella, is destined to marry the Prince and live happily ever after. Granny compares Lilith to a circus ringmaster; with the power of the story unfolding around her she takes the central stage, and if the story should arrive at a satisfactory conclusion she will gain sufficient power to bend more than just one city to her will. For the three witches there is no other course of action but to try and stop her, for they are the true heroes, while Lilith fails to see herself as the true villain. And, as noted by Campbell, the villain is doomed from the start. From obscurity the hero emerges, but the enemy is great and conspicuous in the seat of power; he is enemy, dragon, tyrant, because he turns to his own advantage the authority of his position. [...] The tyrant is proud, and therein resides his doom. He is proud because he thinks of his strength as his own; thus he is in the clown role, a mistaker of shadow for substance; it is his destiny to be tricked. (337) Granny and her companions interfere with the story and come to a final encounter with Lilith. Granny breaks her mirrors, the amplifiers of her magical power. They are both whisked off into a dimension of mirrors, their reflections stretching down an endless corridor. They are given the choice of returning to the real world by choosing the one image that is real. Lilith wanders down the corridors, but Granny recognises it for a trick question and points at herself. As Campbell points out, it is the villains destiny to be fooled.

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2.3. Lords and Ladies The final novel to be covered in this paper is Lords and Ladies, predominantly inspired by Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream and fairy lore. It continues the story where Witches Abroad left off, just as the witches return home to their kingdom of Lancre. In their absence, king Verence has made preparations to join in matrimony with Magrat Garlick, while a coven of young witches has formed in order to practise magic around a circle of ancient stones. All this sets off a series of events in which elves arrive to Lancre and attempt to take over the kingdom. Contemporary fantasy, it has been mentioned, is heavily under the influence of Tolkiens Middle Earth; his elves are beautiful, graceful and immortal creatures they are humans stripped of all their negative characteristics. Similarly, fairies are now commonly regarded as tiny, often winged, people who live amongst plants in magical harmony with nature. In the latter case, Disneys animated features are again a major culprit. Such contemporary conceptions are heavily distorted images of their true nature; Pratchetts elves and fairies are a lot more in line with their traditional origins. It should be noted that there is no universal description for an elf or a fairy, and the two words are often interchangeable. The same names can often refer to widely different creatures: big or small, ugly or nice. What they do ha ve in common is their mischievous and sometimes outright evil and misleading nature; stories teach us that they are best avoided if possible. Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No-one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad. (Lords and Ladies 170) Elves do not inhabit the world of humans; they live in a reality of their own instead. Whether it is a dimension in which they choose to live or a prison of sorts to which they are sentenced, they are not welcome back in the real world and yet they use every opportunity to break through. The passages into the world of elves are usually marked by circles of stones or other foreboding landmarks; they are a warning to the people to stay clear. There is a particularly ominous circle of stones in Lancre called the Dancers, and it marks a gateway into the elf-world. Most of the time the 33

way is shut, but every few decades the magical borders between the worlds weaken and allow passage. The elves are biding their time, but once they come through only the witches will be able to oppose them they alone know them for what they truly are. How long was it, now? Must be hundreds and hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Witches didnt like to talk about it, because theyd made a big mistake about the elves. Theyd seen through the buggers in the end, of course, but it had been a close thing. And thered been a lot of witches in those days. Theyd been able to stop them at every turn, make life in this world too hot for them. Fought them with iron. Nothing elvish could stand iron. It blinded them, or something. Blinded them all over. (Lords and Ladies 136) But the people of Lancre have forgotten what elves are really like. The perceptions have shifted, memories have faded, and all that remains is the completely wrong impression that they are beautiful, graceful, and immortal. And the terrible thing is that they really are, because they can get into a persons mind and make themselves appear however they choose. To be fair, they are not evil, no more than a cat is evil to a mouse; they are a complete absence of empathy and morality. Humans, for them, are slaves and playthings, amusing to a point, but ultimately expendable. Thats how the elves see things, yes? When they get into a world, everyone else is on the bottom. Slaves. Worse than slaves. Worse than animals, even. They take what they want, and they want everything. But worst of all, the worst bit is... they read your mind. They hear what you think, and in self-defence you think what they want. Glamour. And its barred windows at night, and food out for the fairies, and turning around three times before you talks about em, and horseshoes over the door. (Lords and Ladies 163) Whenever elves threaten the Discworld and they do s o in more than just one book in the series the main antagonist is always their ruler, the Queen of Elves. She usually appears as a slender, graceful, dark-haired, and extravagantly dressed woman. In folklore she is known simply as the queen of the fairies, but in A Midsummer Nights Dream Shakespeare names her Titania. Since her elves inhabit a dimension that resembles a cold, snow-covered forest, her character is also evocative of H. C. Andersens Snow Queen or C. S. Lewis White Witch, though Pratchett never makes it clear if there really is an intended connection. In Lords and Ladies, at a time when the borders between the worlds weaken, it is her plan to marry king Verence and become the rightful sovereign something that would establish a firm foothold and reinforce her control over Lancre and the human world in general. To do this, she tempts Diamanda, a young girl who plays at being a witch, into helping her to break through. Elves promise wealth and power, but true witches know

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that their gold turns to leaves the next morning. Because they have no scruples or empathy, elves are the perfect villains. Elves are the High Folk, but they dont have lives of their own; they are simply portrayed as being antithetic to what people, especially heroes, want to do. [...] They are ciphers, they dont have creative personalities, and they dont learn. [...] They dont tell stories to themselves or, rather, they keep telling the same old story. (Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen 158) Elves and fairies of the real world come in many different forms, and throughout history they were blamed for many a foul deed, whenever someone died, or lost his wits, or became paralysed, or simply was never the same again (Pratchett and Simpson 83). Before the advances of medical science, it was an explanation as good as any for a sudden stroke. Even in recent times, especially in Eastern Europe, there were found clusters of rural superstitions. In Romania there are the iele, elves of the forest, who dance and sing during the night; those that hear them singing often become deaf or mad. In Russia and other Slavic lands there are elves who make people get lost in forests, or pull them under water to drown (83-84). At other times they just steal things. Fairies were also blamed for kidnapping children and replacing them with changelings. Changelings were a particularly sad obsession. A healthy young c ouple out in the country and in a world without modern medical understanding or any idea of the meaning of the term limited gene pool, give birth to a child who looks like a little old man, or is beautiful but very backward, or eats incessantly but nevertheless fails to thrive... and the only reason the family can find lies in folklore: The fairies stole our beautiful child and left one of their own. (Pratchett and Simpson 87) Various remedies were suggested, some of which were little more than child abuse at best, socially conditioned infanticide at worst (87). During the Victorian times it was slowly dawning on those of the medical profession that these cases were an illness, but for the people in distant rural parts the folklore still made more sense; elves and fairies were the obvious culprits. In many parts of the world they were also blamed for mysterious disappearances, and tales abounded of people being dragged to the elf-world, only to return years later, unchanged. During a wedding dance on a Danish farm the bride went out for a breath of air, and walked as far as a little mound in one of the fields, a mound where elf-folk lived. It had opened up, and elves were dancing there too, and one of them came out and offered her some wine. She drank. She joined in the dancing, just one dance, and then remembered her husband and went home. But the village and the farm looked different; she couldnt recognize anybody, and nobody r ecognized her. There was just one old woman who

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listened to her story and exclaimed, Why, you must be the girl who disappeared a hundred years ago, at my grandfathers brothers wedding! At these words, the brides true age came upon her in an instant, and she fell dead. (Pratchett and Simpson 97-98) Elves appear under many different names and shapes, the words elf or fairy sometimes even representing a classification of a larger group of creatures. Even on Discworld they have many names and titles: the Fair Folk, the Gentry, the Lords and Ladies, the Fairies. The word fairy is sometimes spelled faerie, and is also brought into connection with fay and fair. Although they do not have the same root, fairy has come under strong semantic influence from fay and fair, both of which may be derived ultimately from the Middle English feyen, Anglo-Saxon fegan, meaning to agree, to fit, to suit, to join, to unite, to bind. Thus the desirable has the power to inspire even compel agreement, as well as to bind. Binding is one of the properties of decrees, and of spells. Interestingly, this root also gives fee, as in payment, for transferrals of money too arise from agreed bonds, as a response to a desire, a need. (Warner 310) Aside from the Queen and her subjects who use glamour to conceal their true shape, other known inhabitants of the elf-realm are also unicorns and pictsies. 10 Elves, genii, forest spirits, the whole Indo-European panoply of magical beings become reduced in France to two species: ogres and fairies (Darnton 290). It is in their nature to taunt and tempt mortals with promises of gold and power, although in the end they take much more than they have given. As quoted earlier, elves fear only one thing: iron. It is unknown why this is so, but horseshoes and blacksmiths are still considered lucky by some people. According to Pratchett and Simpson, there are theories that this is nothing more than a folk memory of some prehistoric human society which did not have iron weapons, and fled from others who did (85). On Discworld, the stones that surround the entrance to elf-land are a form of heavily magnetized iron and appear to be the most efficient precaution against elvish incursion. There are other such stones littering the hills of Lancre, though not all are necessarily doorways into other worlds. Similar stories exist on Earth as well: Stone circles are powerful or, at least, become cloaked in powerful stories. In various parts of England Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Derbyshire there are circles of stones known as the Nine Ladies or Nine Maidens or Merry Maidens. There may or may not actually be nine of them, but their story is everywhere the same: there were once some girls who loved dancing so much that they would go off to the hills to dance together whenever they could, even on Sundays when they should have been in church. So one
Pictsies is a play on words combining Picts and Pixies, the former being a Scotland tribe unconquered and described by Julius Caesar, the latter yet another name for fairies in some parts of England.
10

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Sunday they were smitten by the Wrath of God, which turned them to stone. (Pratchett and Simpson 241) And then there is the matter of the Long Man, one of Lancres most interesting features. There is also a Long Man in England, but it is a giant human figure carved into the chalk hillside near Wilmington. Another famous figure is that of the Cerne Abbas Giant, also called the Rude Man for its plainly rendered phallus. The Long Man of Lancre, however, is a series of burial mounds forming a suggestive shape when seen from above: two round barrows at the foot of a long one. The people of Lancre traditionally clear the grass and rubble around the Long Man every twenty years, an occasion that is usually followed by feasts and merriment. The real-world Cerne Abbas Giant requires to be similarly scoured every seven years in order to keep it clear of grass and weeds, and there is also a strong local tradition that couples who want a child but have failed to conceive should visit the Giant and make love at the appropriate spot (246). The Long Man of Lancre is more than just a series of barrows; it is also an entrance into yet another elf-world. Unlike the Queens parasitic universe of forest and snow, this underground elfworld is a series of caverns that leads to a steaming hall, a kind of a shamans sweat-lodge, in which resides the Antlered One, the Lord of the Elves and the Queens estranged husband. Nanny Ogg seeks an audience with him and requests that he discourages his wife from attacking Lancre. Neither he nor the Queen are ever named in the Discworld novels, but it seems obvious that they are based on the characters of Oberon and Titania from A Midsummer Nights Dream. In addition to that, the description of the Antlered One identifies him as a counterpart to the neo-pagan Horned God, who is really a composite of bits and pieces of various myths, some far older than others the figure in the Trois Freres cave, the Greek Pan, the Celtic Cernunnos, the medieval idea that the Devil has bulls horns and goats feet (248). Being a representative of male sexuality and strength and part of Natures renewing cycles, it is only natural that he should choose the Long Man as his abode. On Earth, among neo-pagans, he is a crucial part of their pantheon; on Discworld, he is also a god, but the witches have little time for him. They know that gods exist and that is exactly why they see no need to believe in them. Deus ex machina saves the day; Granny and Magrat are almost defeated by the Queen, but it turns out they are only distracting her and buying Nanny Ogg some time. The Antlered One intercedes on Nannys behalf and takes the Queen away. Magrat later remarks overhearing something about meeting by moonlight (Lords and Ladies 350). This is a reference to Oberons line as he meets Titania in A Midsummer Nights Dream: OBERON: Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

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TITANIA: What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence: I have forsworn his bed and company. (2.1.60-62) In yet another example of a play-within-a-play, Hwel the playwright decides to record the events that took place; he calls it The Taming of the Vole, because no-one would be interested in a play called Things that Happened on a Midsummer Night (Lords and Ladies 382). This, of course, refers to The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Nights Dream. In the end, the Disc is once again rid of the elves, at least for a while. Elves and their queen can probably never be defeated completely; they are an evil that lurks in the hearts of men. The only thing to do is remain wary and always keep some iron handy. One of the lessons here is that history can teach us not to repeat old mistakes like, for example, trusting elves for even just a moment and so it is vital not to forget what really took place. One can reconstruct pieces of history in the form of a story, but therein lies the problem of subjectivity; stories are fragile and malleable. It does good to retrace ones steps from time to time and check the facts.

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CONCLUSION Terry Pratchetts Discworld is at first glance a series of humorous novels set in a fictional setting of fantasy, but beneath all that one can also find and decipher an underlying message. The author subtly permeates his novels with his thoughts and ideas, focusing especially on the purpose of stories in human culture and civilisation at large. As it turns out, stories are a lot more than mere entertainment; they are an evolutionary vehicle as well as cultural scaffolding. They are a natural next step following the development of speech and communication; everything we know and do stems from stories of some kind. Throughout history they have been an important tool for the dissemination of knowledge and establishment of cultural identity. Stories have brought people together, but they have also caused wars; that should be sufficient proof of the influence they have had on human lives. Not all stories are good stories, of course. In order to survive and continue spreading their message, stories must be enjoyable. Scientists have compared the transfer of ideas to the transfer of genes, naming them memes, and concluded that popular ideas have the best chances of survival. Subsequently, they have decided that many successful memes group together to form memeplexes that we commonly recognize as ideologies or even religions. The problem with memeplexes is that they can include some very harmful memes, and yet become the means of ensuring their survival. Consequently, people come to accept groups of ideas without taking care to examine their particulars, which often leads to some very dangerous behaviour. Pratchett warns us that even stories must be critically reviewed. Literary theorists have examined various stories, including myths and fairy tales, and derived from them many universal elements: the narrative structure, the types of characters, the lessons they hold. Some of these elements date back to prehistoric times; due to their continued popularity they have survived to this day. In addition, they have had sufficient time to spread and entrench themselves in many different cultures throughout the world. Pratchett draws attention to these elements by employing them in humorous situations; the Discworld is a carnival mirror to our Earth and he uses it to subvert established tropes and archetypes. Many of his novels feature witches as the main characters; they who are in classical tales usually the villains or scheming spinners of fate now become heroes who save the world on a regular basis. The lesson he is trying to impart is that stories, while useful in their way, can sometimes lull our minds into a false sense of security and make us start taking things for granted. Critical thought is the only sure defence against falsehood. Discworld is ruled by narrative imperatives, collectively called narrative causality, which means that things happen because the rules of the story demand it. When a hero embarks upon a quest it is inevitable that he should save his love interest and defeat the villain. Pratchetts 39

protagonists are no different; they too strive towards happy endings and generally reach them, but the ways in which they do it are often quite different from what one would expect. Usually, like in the witches case, the roles are reversed: the antagonists do not advertise their villainy, presenting themselves as upstanding citizens, for example, with a moral high ground. The community at large takes their side; between them and the hero are not monsters to fight, but normal people to persuade, to have them see behind the mask and expose the villains true face. And so it is in the real world, as well; true villains are not witches or wizards, and true heroes will find little use for big shiny swords. The witches of Discworld defy narrative causality because it is a force that limits human freedom. They do not believe in destiny, but that people have the power to make their own future. Unfortunately, people are unaware of possessing this power and they generally fail to utilise it. The witches are like shepherds that steer them in the right direction. Of course, this is a big responsibility, and they are not without fault. They must be careful and keep second-guessing themselves all the time. Fortunately, there are subtle hints that warn them when they start going too far; Granny Weatherwax, for example, knows that she must not cackle. Since narrative causality dictates that all evil witches must cackle, Granny knows not to cross that line. Narrative causality is not inherently evil, but is probably best avoided altogether. Elves are a warning; they are part of our past, but also one possible future. They are humans stripped of emotion and imagination, and they represent the past and future failures of our race. On Discworld, people fight the fairies with iron; on Earth, we fight them with education, and yet there are still parts of the world where one can find some thriving remnants of folk superstition. Some of these beliefs are harmless, but not all; some encourage rather foolish or immoral behaviour. What the elves teach us is that we, as a race, must preserve and create stories, but never forget that they are only stories. We have the potential to grow and reach the stars; some stories can show us the way, while others can lead us off course. As individuals, as well as a race, we must be careful in choosing which stories to believe.

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WORKS CITED Abbott, William T. White Knowledge and the Cauldron of Story: The Use of Allusion in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. The L-Space Web. Web. 11 October 2011. <http://www.lspace.org/books/analysis/bill-abbott.html> Breebart, Leo, and Mike Kew, eds. Words from the Master. The L-Space Web. Web. 11 October 2011. <http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/words-from-the-master.html> Breebaart, Leo, and Mike Kew, eds. The Annotated Pratchett File: Witches Abroad. The L-Space Web. Web. 11 October 2011. <http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/witches-abroad.html> Breebaart, Leo, and Mike Kew, eds. The Annotated Pratchett File: Wyrd Sisters. The L-Space Web. Web. 11 October 2011. < http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/wyrd-sisters.html> Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. London: Fontana Press, 1993. Conan Doyle, Arthur. Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Illustrated Novels. London: Chancellor Press, 2003. Coterell, Arthur. The Encyclopedia of Mythology. London: Hermes House, 2010. Darnton, Robert. The Meaning of Mother Goose. Tatar 280290. Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. London: Black Swan, 2007. - - -. The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Enright, Jamas, ed. Terry Pratchett, A Biography by Colin Smythe. The L-Space Web. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.lspace.org/about-terry/biography.html> Grant, Gavin J. Terry Pratchett Interview. Indie Bound. Web. 13 October 2011. <http://www.indiebound.org/author-interviews/pratchettterry> Pratchett, Terry. Lords and Ladies. London: Corgi, 1993. - - -. Witches Abroad. London: Corgi, 1992. - - -. Wyrd Sisters. London: Corgi, 1989. Pratchett, Terry, and Jacqueline Simpson. The Folklore of Discworld. London: Corgi, 2007. Pratchett, Terry, and Stephen Briggs. The Discworld Companion. London: Victor Gollanz, 2001. Pratchett, Terry, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. The Science of Discworld II: The Globe. London: Ebury Press, 2002. Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folk Tale. Tatar 382387.

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Shakespeare. William. A Midsummer Nights Dream. Open Source Shakespeare. George Mason University, 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org> - - -. Macbeth. Open Source Shakespeare. George Mason University, 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org> Tatar, Maria, ed. The Classic Fairy Tales. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. Tatar, Maria. Introduction: Little Red Riding Hood. Tatar 310. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. London: Harper Collins, 2007. Warner, Marina. The Old Wives Tale. Tatar 309317. Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Disney Spell. Tatar 332352.

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