The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 115: A Hat Full of Sky Pt. 2 (You are a Horrible Geas)

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “A Hat Full of Sky”. The Hills! The Witches! The Ankle!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:TTSMYF Presents Marc Burrows: The Magic of Terry Pratchett - We Got Tickets'Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch' announced | Terry PratchettGood Omens returns July 28th - Twitter [@GoodOmensPrime] Strike Two - NetwarsUS covers for Tiffany books - Twitter  [@JMVenz] Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation - Wikipedia Best of Hyacinth Bucket's Name Mispronunciation - YouTubeSelf Did It: Fairy Legends of Type 1137 Scottish Folklore: The Brollachan - Spooky StuffThe Most Unusual Pub Names in the UK - The UK Pub Co The History of British Pub Names with Mary-Ann Ochota - GetOutside (OS)Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

It's just such a good year to fancy David Tennant. So, Pratchety News, podcast element news, new, oh, two things. Yeah, First Bill, new book. Yeah, Rihanna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent, who's an children's author and works in the video game industry as well, and illustrated by Paul Kidby, Tiffany Aking's guide to being a witch timely. Yeah, interesting.

Rihanna Pratchett's first published writing set in the disc world. Yeah, I saw her respond to somebody else earlier who asked if it's your first, like, bit of writing set in this world. And she said, it's the first bit that will be out there, but not my first bit. So. Oh, that's cool.

I'm looking forward to it. What do you think, like, general vibes? I think it's going to be a bit of fun. If nothing else, the illustrations are going to be gorgeous. And I can't imagine the writing is going to be bad considering who's doing it. Yeah, no, exactly. I'm expecting it to be more, like, more on the where's my

cow scale than the, say, I think it'll be more than just pictures, but I don't think it's going to be like an amazing set of short stories. I think I'd feel differently if it was like a book thanks book. Yeah, I'd have mixed feelings, but this is good. I'm going to enjoy this. I think Rihanna Pratchett's always said, like, she'll do stuff in the universe, but it won't be like more full length

books, which is, we don't need more. We have like 40 odd. Yeah, no. And yeah, it's fine just to leave a series. Eventually, I want to finish this podcast one day is what I'm getting at here. You know full well, I've made plans to keep you podcasting with me beyond the disc world, at least we'll change the

subjects. We're going to become a nuclear physics podcast. Astrophysics. Absolutely. We're the weird, in a weird twist or Gormungast. We can't keep us busy for at least another hundred episodes. We can't do Gormungast front scene. What about the bit?

I know. I forgot I was going to read it for April Fool's Day this year. I feel like if we ever do Gormungast, we absolutely cannot like advertise in advance that we're doing Gormungast. We just have to like drop out of nowhere a three hour Gormungast episode. Agreed. Yes.

Which will be like chapter one. Yeah. And then never do chapter two. Actually, that's doable for us. We could do that as a bit. Just occasionally, random Gormungast episodes appear with no warning. Speaking of random episodes appearing with no warning, good omens is happening sooner than we thought.

It's got a release date. It's coming out at the end of July. It's also all dropping at once, which so originally I thought it was going to be a weekly thing and we were planning weekly coverage, but we may now do that slightly differently. Do you have any thoughts? You don't want to see the like pen and paper. It's not gone in the spreadsheet yet, because it's not thoroughly decided.

We can save that conversation for. Listeners, you're welcome. But yeah, so that'll be good anyway. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm glad it's soon, I think. Yeah. I'm very glad it's soon. It's really nice timing.

That was the last one. That was like a it was 2019. Oh, so it. Um, it came out in 2019 on Amazon Prime, but it was a much later release on BBC iPlayer. Um, I think it was like April, because I remember I watched it as soon as it came out and then I watched it when I was in Portland with my cousin, which is how I remember it's that year.

And then I watched it again when someone else was visiting like in that would have been like July, August time. And then we covered it really early on. I think it was like, right. I think it was like our first equal rights. Yeah, that was our first TV thing we did then. Yeah. We, cause we did two episodes on the book and then two episodes on the show.

We timed up. So I think it would have been, I think that was our last set of in person episodes was Good Omens. Oh, yeah. At least we could act like we don't live in the same town still. It was too far. Yeah, we're not going back to recording in person because you no longer live like a minute down the road from me.

And honestly, there were times then where I didn't want to just because getting back to where I lived from yours was upper hill. It is upper hill. And this is one of the very few hills we have. Yeah. It's not really a very, like anywhere, anyone who lives somewhere with hills, it's not, it's not what you're thinking. It's not a hill.

It's a, it's an incline. More of an incline than I'm willing to accept for unseem. An inkling of an incline. Yes. An inkling of an incline. But yeah, very excited for Good Omens series two. We're going to talk about it a lot more on our bonus. Bonus episode?

We've got a bonus episode coming on the 25th of May, which listeners, we'd very much like your questions and thoughts and what have yous for, but we'll be talking about our Good Omens series two hype. Hype, hype, hype. Of which there is much. Hype, hype. So this weekend, this Friday, we are doing a live show. That's happening very soon.

Yes, with Mr. Mark Burrows. Yeah. We've got so, there are so many actual on-themed things to put in this soft open today. Yeah, we have a lot. I'm really excited about the pen I got for black letter calligraphy. I've watched so much good TV recently.

Oh, God. All right. Shall we, uh, do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, I do want to make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the true shall make you fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one a stymie in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan.

And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of A Hat Full of Sky. It is, it is. It is, uh, chapters five through eight, inclusive. We always like to make sure Francine knows which chapters we're doing. Once, once, but yeah, no, still, I appreciate it. Never letting you forget it. Uh, note on spoilers before we crack on.

This is a spoiler light podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book, A Hat Full of Sky. But we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, the Shepherd's Crown, until we get there. So you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Across a surreal landscape that turns out to be a sleeping giant girl. We've all been there.

We've all been there. Alrighty. So. Previously on. Follow up. That's what, no, follow up. Yes. Fuck.

Damn it. On Patreon, Pete sent us a very interesting askable about the Rises Strike that gives a lot more context. I'm going to link that in the show notes. And Neris warned us that if you want to visit the Uffington White Horse at 9 a.m. on the third Sunday in August, there will be Morris Dancing. Ooh. Ooh, ah, depending on your perspective on Morris Dancing.

I like Morris Dancing. Oh, I don't mind Morris Dancing, but I was once giving some Canadian friends at all of our small little town and there were unexpected Morris Dancers and I had to explain it. And yeah, that's a conversation. I don't mind Morris Dancing, explaining Morris Dancing and also pointing out, no, it's fine. Their faces are painted green.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's on the debate for the podcast. And on Twitter, Annie and Brum recommended. We were talking about silly names last week. The book, Potty, Fartwell and Knob by Russell Ash.

Extraordinary, but true names of British people. Marvellous. Which I'm absolutely going to buy, because apparently in a lot of the places it goes into, like, the origins and history of those names and who doesn't love a silly name. And Jeffrey sent us the American Book covers for We Free Men and a Hat Full of Sky and they're really cool. I really like them.

So I'm going to link to that tweet as well. They are very cool. I like that art style. Cool. Right. Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on a Hat Full of Sky? I would. Previously on a Hat Full of Sky.

Something wicked this way comes drawn towards which to be Tiffany like a malignant moth to an IE flame. As yet unaware, Tiffany heads onwards and hubwards with teacher slash witchfinder, Miss Tick, leaving the chalk for an apprenticeship in the mountains. A tense moment in two shirts makes shambled eggs, but the two witches soon find mislevel and Tiff takes off with her new tutor. Our hero soars above the chalk, absorbing the view and expelling her breakfast before arriving at her new lodgings, where she meets Miss Level again

and Oswald, the tidy ghost. While Tiff tries to win the hearts and minds of cross goats and townsfolk, we learn a little about the buzzing monstrosity heading her way. The knack-mack-fiegel are finally on route to intervene, but can several dozen pixies in a trench coat hitchhike faster than a hiver can hover? Amazing. Well, can they, Joanna? You have to tell us now.

I will tell you now. All right. So in this section, in chapter five, Tiffany and Petulia go to the Sabbath. Tiffany meets Anna... Sounds like the title of an always sunny in Philadelphia website. Tiffany meets Anna Grammer and the ragtag bunch of young local witches, and they're all getting ready for the witch trials. Some proper witchcraft takes place and Tiffany gets upset when they can't see her hat.

Back at the cottage, Tiffany is frustrated, homesick and debating her true witchiness. She says, see me to check on the hat, but something not Tiffany sees back and darkness falls. In chapter six, Jeanne uses her cauldron and swims in memory to find out that the hivers found Tiffany. Meanwhile, our heroine's full of get-up-and-go, but she's not quite herself. There's magical a fallout around the cottage. Oswald's missing, the goats are cowering, and there's an SOS on the table. Petulia visits, and Tiffany's unpleasant. Miss Level has a busy day planned, but Tiffany's tiger hallucinations and her back to the cottage.

A shamble explodes as Tiffany's magic gets blatant, and she finally conquers the broomstick she takes flight away. Miss Level finds the watching feagles, and they explain the hiver. A drop of whiskey induces them to explain Tiffany's seamy trick, much to Miss Level's borrowing horror. In chapter seven, Tiffany lands on Mrs Eowig's lawn and breaks the curse net. Anna Grammer's appalled at Tiffany's power, but the hiver wants allies, and Tiffany needs a new dress.

A small voice echoes from the private part of Tiffany's mind. At Zaxax Emporium, Tiffany goes on a spree. She expects her discount on her new cat and cloak, and a wizard interrupts when to stop her. After the frog and the gloop reform into Brian, Tiffany successfully claims her new wardrobe. Granny Weatherwax, meanwhile, is borrowing bees and sees that something's borrowed Tiffany. The feagles admit to Miss Level that their plans are little lacking, but if they can just step into Tiffany's head, they can set her right. Tiffany comes home, and one of the Miss Level's heads for the village to confirm

a suspicion about Tiffany's financial status. Tiffany accidentally pushes the hiver out and begins to fight herself until the hiver kills one of Miss Level. In chapter eight, an exhausted Miss Level wakes up half dead. Tiffany is unconscious, and the feagles get into her head. They find the hut and realise they need to bring the beast to Tiffany's own turf, with the help of her advice on scents. The feagles head out, thieving to find the important smells,

while Rob waits in her mind and destroys the threes, threatening to take root. The feagles get carried away brawling, but Billy breaks things up and shames them with a sad song. In Tiffany's mind, with the hiver on her land, the hills and the chalk rise up and throw it off. There are three knocks at the front door. And here we have a very extreme example of a Pratchett ending before the ending. Oh, yeah. Climactic scene.

Climactic scene. Two sad strips the way through the book. Love it. Evil defeated, but now we've still got a third of a book. Helicopters and loincloths. Hamish, the aviator, tries out a broomstick, which are absolutely helicopter for the season. Okay.

Yeah. And I feel like somewhere at Sac-Sac-Strong in the Arms Emporium, there must be a fancy loincloth. Probably so. I'm surprised we can get hovering gloop as a helicopter. Surprised and grateful, I suppose. It's only so much I'm willing to discuss the hovering gloop for a scene. All right, let's move away from the gloop.

Be a really good non-binary drag name. No, it wouldn't. I don't usually argue with you on this, but I'm worried. All right, I'm not renaming myself the hovering gloop. Have you, we have a full explanation of the hermit elephant. Do you have an irrelevant elephant? No, I forgot about that. I'll come up with one for after the break.

Excellent. Okay, I appreciate that. Is this the first time we've had hermit elegance explained in the Discworld books? Because I'm sure we've had it before. I don't know. We'll look it up. I feel like we've had it before, but I don't know if that's just because we've read it in the Discworld companion or something.

I've just read these books so many times that I just feel like I've always had a knowledge of hermit elephants. Wonderland. Either way, it brings me great delight to picture the elephant setting up in a little hut. A elephant in a hut. The happy little elephant. Quotes. Quotes.

Do you have a favorite quote? I do. So this is when Miss Level is getting to know the feagles. For a moment, Miss Level had a picture in her mind of a silent moonlit bedroom with a sleeping child. She saw by the window, lit by the moon, one small figure on guard and another in the shadows by the door. What were they guarding her from? Everything. That's a nice thought. That would make a beautiful illustration as well.

Yeah. How about you? What do you got for us? I haven't written down the context, but when they're in Tiffany's mental landscape, and still there was the hush. It was the pause before an orchestra plays, the quietness before the thunder. It was as if all the small sounds of the hills had shut down to make room for one big sound to happen. Very good. A little calm before the storm moment. I love it. Yeah. It was also a hush rather than a silence if we're going to be pedantic with Tiffany.

Do you think that works? We should always, yes. We should always be pedantic with Tiffany. You're right. By the way, the Hermite Elephant has popped up before. M.A. is the abbreviation of the book. What's that one going to be? Men at Arms? I guess, yeah. I'm on the Chris Jones writing quotes page, but it's possible that the strangest and possibly saddest species on disc world is the Hermite Elephant.

This creature lacking the thick hide of its near relatives lives in huts, moving up and building extensions as its size increases. It's not unknown for a traveller on the plains of the wonderland to wake up in the morning in the middle of a village that wasn't there the night before. That is the one I remembered. So we have met them before. They bring me delight every time. Oh, yes. Cool. Right. So characters, should we start with Tiffany?

Yeah. Makes sense. Sure. Our protagonist, our heroine. Our lead. She's homesick. Yeah. Yeah, would be. Oh, 100%. Is there something about her going to stay with Miss Level that really reminds me of like, did you ever go on like residential school trips when you were a kid? Once, yeah. Yeah. To France.

We had a couple. We had like some like coastal ones near here and then there was a ski trip in France because I'm middle class. I'm bad at skiing. I spent like that. That's why you were sent. Girl, I don't come back till you can ski. No, I still can't ski. I spent that entire trip eating. Nice. It was good. But yes, it reminded me a little bit of that.

It reminded me of going to stay with family friends in middle of nowhere. Holland. I went to stay with some family friends in Holland once. That's what it reminded me of. I love that. I love the word chicken, which is kip. Kip. That's all I remember. The line about homesickness is beautiful though. She longed for the hiss of wind in the turt and the feel of centuries under her feet. I know.

It is. It's gorgeous. Just the feeling that she had the sadness and didn't have anything to do with it. That was beautifully. Yeah, the frustration. Yeah. If you're used to having this, you know, to accidentally therapy speak it, having this coping mechanism going up to the, going up to the shepherd hut and releasing your emotions into the wind there. And if that's the way you learn to deal with it. And we know there is a presence there. Quite practical coping mechanism. Like she had like a busy life working on the farm and making

the cheese and doing the thing. And she has chores here, but they're not her chores. It's difficult to distract yourself when what you would use to distract yourself is another reminder of the fact that things are different. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And it's another, like we'll talk about the calder a bit later, but I thought it was another interesting contrast there that the new Calderdini so far from home has this connection. And it's very helpful in comparison. Like she can, and obviously it's this on a whole different level, but just that she can access all of her forebears and her home and their homes.

Be kind of there with the other calders. But I also like the same bit where you get her sort of home sickness and needing the blue butterflies and the sounds of sheep. You get her frustration with the fact that she's not learning the proper magic. Yeah. And I really love the way she's thinking about it. She wanted to be doing serious witch stuff and guarding the world against evil forces and also doing good for poor people because she was a really nice person.

Exactly. Yeah. Oh, it must be great. And I must have read this when I was not, I didn't read it when it came out, but when I was still young, I think. But reading this when you're 11 must be great because someone's like saying all of it out loud. Yeah. Like in the most kids books, it's just implied. Whereas in this one, you're like, the bit of you inside your head with the third thoughts that's like, am I only doing this because I want to be a good person? Is that a bad thing? Is that about loud?

Yeah. Like I was talking about this kind of theme of Tiffany having some vanity and that causing a bit of downfall for her, this idea of like not just being a really good person but kind of being seen to be a really good person and also being seen to defend everyone from evil. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, bless her. And so it starts with this frustration here and then you get Hiva Tiffany confronting this level and saying, you know, why can't we be doing real magic and says the line, the big bad would should be scared of us.

Yeah. Which is reminiscent of an old line about Granny Weatherwax, wasn't it? It's also a good callback to Amazing Morris and it's weird because it's a really different context here and Amazing Morris, it's, you know, the rat saying, we are the dark words, they should be afraid of us. And it's a really heroic moment. Whereas here, it's like a how far she's fallen moment. Yeah. But with the same sentiment. Real matter of fact with Granny, wasn't it?

It's like, because she's the scariest person, she's the scariest thing in the woods. Yeah. But she's earned that and Tiffany hasn't had a chance to earn it yet. Yeah. And she wouldn't brag about it. She's not one to put herself forward. Nobody would ever say she's one to put herself forward. No, no one would never say Granny Weatherwax was the one to put herself forward. The whole bit where she's trying to socialize and very awkwardly, is that something you want to talk about a bit later or is that for now? I'll talk about that when we get to Enneagramma, but I just, I felt seen and attacked.

Yeah. I was kind of expecting her half to kind of, because she was thinking all of the clever things about like the dogs and everything. I was expecting her to come back with a one-liner on it, but she didn't, which is more realistic, I guess. But it's like, come on, Tiff. Yeah. You kind of wanted to stand up a bit and it's not quite there. It's quite interesting that Miss Level really doesn't see Tiffany as powerful. And the feagles sort of say, well, she's got the power of her land in her. And obviously that sets up for when she rises up as the land to throw off the hiver. Yeah. It kind of makes sense that Granny Weatherwax has been the one witch to understand

that because Granny's had that moment with the mountains. Yeah. She has, she has Lancas within her that, you know, they managed to move the whole place in time for 10 years. That was a thing. But she's got this deep understanding of the land. They understood that she effectively borrows the whole country. Yes. Yeah. Which is an incredibly cool moment. And so, yeah, it's a similar kind of relationship that Tiffany has. But it's just something Miss Level doesn't see. And you get the great line in Tiffany's

dream, or mental landscape, is that the big wee hag dreaming, she's the hills or the hills dreaming, they're the big wee hag. The feagles get it. Yeah. Which is a reference to the Laozi. Yeah. Ancient Chinese philosopher. Am I Laozi dreaming, he dreams he's a butterfly and that the famous sort of quote from his philosophy is, am I Laozi dreaming that I'm a butterfly or Laozi? Listeners, if you're interested in that kind

of philosophy and a really good explanation of it for Western people, a beautiful book called Watching the Tree by Adeline Yemma. So, yeah. It's like the Toad and the Lawyer. Just like the Toad and the Lawyer. The weird ethos fable. One of the lesser-named ones. Oh, one last thing about Tiffany before we move on. She's got drawings of hearts and flowers in her diary. Because she's an 11-year-old girl.

I am not judging her for having drawings of hearts and flowers in her diary. Do you have any idea how many of my notebooks have little like hearts and flower doodles around the edge of them? And I'm not an 11-year-old girl. I'm not a fucking girl. I like, there's a little bit like that. We find out from the feagles, not from Tiffany's in a monologue. Yeah. There's nothing about, yeah. There's nothing about Tiffany that implies hearts and flowers, but it's still there. Yeah. And the bit about like her waiting 25 minutes for Roland to go by, so that she can turn her nose up at him.

Yeah. And like the feagles tell us that as well. Tiffany doesn't think about these things. No, she just happens to do that. Anyway, yeah. So the hyva, I'll talk about the sort of hyva around Tiffany together a bit later, but we get a really nice explanation of the hyva from the feagles. Oh, yeah. Once they've worked out what the things are, you get on sheep, whether it's horns,

walls, tails, legs, chairs. Sheep ticks. So it's a parasite. Which I thought was interesting because there's a few bits that kind of parallel lords and ladies in this section. And we, in lords and ladies, the universe of the elves is considered a parasite universe. That's how it's described. And we get that again in We Free Men. We've also looked at brood parasites before, and I can't remember in which context that was. We might have just been excited about brood parasites. No, I've got it in my actual research folder. I don't, yeah. Listen, as we don't remember anything once we've released an episode, it's just gone.

Yeah, that's pretty much it, I'm afraid. But yeah, it creeps in. It looks for folks with power and strength, kins, magicians, leaders. And it used to live in beasts. And this is where we get this explanation of Tiffany's power, where she's saying, you know, if it looks for people like that, why would it go for Tiffany? And they say, oh, yeah, it's she has the power of the land in her. And if you actually think about what a hyva could do with that, that's quite terrifying. Yes, luckily it can't access that bit of her. The borrowing bit is still the only bit that mislevel can grasp at that point, isn't it?

Yeah, and that's great. They explain this. So talking about mislevel, they explain all mislevels. They explain the C-metric to her, and she's horrified because she recognizes it as borrowing as something dangerous. And we've already seen the dangers of borrowing. We saw it right back in equal rights. So it's really interesting to see a different flavor of the dangers of borrowing. Yeah, yeah, because the danger was losing your mind in something else. And this time, it's something else moving into you while your mind is elsewhere. Yeah. But it still feels a bit similar to when Esk was starting to lose herself in the bird. That part of you that's you dwindling and getting smaller and smaller and harder to

maintain. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's interesting. We see mislevel having a different relationship to witching than a lot of the witches we've met. She came to it later because she was doing her circus things, although she's always been well-suited to it being the way she is. It's very difficult. We just had Monster's Regiment and obviously struggled a bit with pronouns there. I don't know how you pronounce one person in two bodies. I think just her, she thinks herself as one person. But yeah, she has that witch thing of not really the magic of not using magic, the granny weather wax thing and then any odd thing that we've seen a whole bunch before.

And then there's this whole thing of the basic rule of witchery, it's up to you. Just because you don't use magical art doesn't mean you're not the one who has to help when help is needed. You are the one in the pointy black hat. Yeah. And again, we get this emphasis on hats again, which is very fragile. Love a hat. Hat's very important. Right up to Tiffany with her big pointy hat that she gets replacing the invisible one given to her by granny weather wax. Yeah, she's decided she needs a hat hat now. Yeah. And when mislevel's coming to terms with her loss, with the loss of one of herself. And we very rarely see a witch actually get like pissed off, frustrated and know I'm done with this unless it's something like Tiffany or Agnes,

like a young witch. We've seen Margaret get upset, but Margaret get upset. But when Margaret gets upset, she ends up being really quite cool and angry. We do get granny weather wax going to sit in a cave for a while. Oh yeah, there is that. But she's trying to do stuff. She is kind of doing stuff in the cave. And before mislevel sort of passes out again, says everyone needs a witch, no one cares if a witch needs giving and giving a fairy godmother never gets a wish, let me tell you, which the wish theme coming back again. Yeah, for sure. It's and when you get the bit where Tiffany's kind of throwing her life at her. Yeah, you kind of get a feet, you get that little bit of exposition tells you why she

feels a little bit bitter about some of it maybe. Also makes me wonder how does Tiffany knows that bit? Like is the Hiva mind reading of other people somehow? Or like she's just become incredibly extraordinarily perspective. Yeah, like I suppose Tiffany or had that potential within her and the Hivas amplified it to the point where she can, which is also making cheese with the point of a finger and turning a guy into a frog and some gloop. So she's definitely had her real bad abilities enhanced. Not good cheese. Not good cheese. Sorry, spoilers for the next section. Spoilers about the quality of the cheese. Sorry, if you're worrying, it's not.

Do not look, do not seek out the magical cheese. Don't do it. It's like very gold. Very gold Hiva cheese. Two sides of the same coin. Sorry. Disappearing coin. Petulia. The description of her as being so incredibly agreeable. Yeah. You could stand back as Petulia reversed her opinions like someone trying to turn a cart around in a very narrow space. I felt really, really quite attacked by this. Yeah, well, you should. That's fair. Oh, no. I mean, no. I like the description of sheep as baggy though. That's quite funny.

They are quite baggy. Yeah, they're just kind of bags here. And the wiggly noses of the pigs. I just like Petulia's thoughts on animals. I support Petulia's love of pigs and veterinary witchcraft in general, but especially pigs. Nothing wrong with being a good pig witch. Absolutely. Sturdy. That's what you want. Yes, you want a sturdy pig witch. Not like our overseas fuckers. Going on to meeting the rest of the group, especially Anagrama Hawkins. And what's great is that we've met a group of young witches like this before.

Diamander et al. Diamander Tockley, who wore a floppy black velvet hat that had a veil. I found it quite interesting. We get this bit in Lords and Ladies where Agnes Slashpedita has gone to this sabbat-type meeting and they did the raising of the cone of power and some candle magic and some scrying. And here we've got opening the four corners and... Yeah, yeah. It just seems to be a phase that the teenage witches go through. Well, I think I talked about this in Lords and Ladies, but this is a thing with teen girls

where they go into this kind of, like a lot of teen girls go through some kind of witchy phase. Yeah. And if you're actual witches, it's going to happen. Yeah. The witchy phase is going to be a little bit wankier, saying that my pagan phase was very fucking wanky. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of... I think you had gotten over that by the time we met.

Oh, I had. I had. That was... I feel like it gets more intense if you're like raised religious as well. I had some witchy books and I had a Christian friend who asked me to put them in a different room when she had a sleepover with me. I think I know who that is. Yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah. I had so many pentagram necklaces. It's ridiculous. Noice.

I was... The getting tangled in your own occult jewellery bit from last section was also quite relatable. Well, do you know what the four corners of the world are, then? No. Of course you don't. God, she's a twat. Really pissed me off reading that bit. It's so specific and I like how much of the Diamanda Tockley there is in her, but like extended and done more.

Diamanda Mark II. Diamanda Mark II. She talks about Granny Weatherwax and says there's ignorant old women like her who keep witchcraft rooted in the past, which again was the Diamanda thing and what led to the jewel. So you can't help but want to see her taken down a peg. Yeah, absolutely. She's everyone's fucking middle school bully as well, isn't she? Oh, 100%. I've known many anagramma Hawkins in my life.

She had the kind of voice that you obeyed and Tiffany found herself saying her name as if she was asking permission to have it. Yeah. And it's horrible because Tiffany's just had that deciding, am I going to be standoffish with Petulia? Fine, I'm going to try and make her friends with her. Because Tiffany, even before she gets taken over by the hiver, like she has a bitchy side to her and a bit of thinking she's sometimes a bit superior, which is fair because she's an 11-year-old girl and she's discovering she's powerful and that might make you bitchy and make

you think you're better than certain people, especially if the main person she interacts with her own age is Roland. Yeah, she is better than him, I'm afraid. Not a statement, just a fact. The thing about anagramma is she's telling everyone else what to do. She's not doing anything herself. She's not being useful, but she's having a go at everybody else for doing it wrong. Yes, always. That is my least favourite flavour of person.

And the other which is Lucy Warbeck, Dimity Hubbub, Gertrude Attiring, Harrieta Bilk and Lulu Darling, who can't seem to do anything about the name. I don't think there's anything wrong with the name Lulu Darling. Tiffany's a stupid name, said anagramma. Fucking anagramma. And she's sort of calling her new girl and then lecturing them on how to hold everything up properly. And she's learned it all from Mrs Eowig.

Mrs Eowig, it's pronounced awesh. I couldn't remember how she wanted it pronounced, so I just went with the obvious. Which just in case we didn't say and see under all fishes is a reference to Hyacinth. Yeah. It's pronounced okay. Yeah, go watch it again, because it's funny. Which is also where we start talking about with Mrs Eowig, the witch trials being brought back. And I like Tiffany's immediate comparison to the sheepdog trials. Yeah, absolutely.

Because we had such a distinct description of the sheepdog trials and how Granny Aking was at them. Yeah. And then obviously. A few more parallels between Weatherworks and Aking. And obviously we've experienced the witch trials in seeing little fishes. I can't remember if it's said in C-End that Mrs Eowig's got a wizard husband, although he doesn't do wizarding anymore. I feel like I already knew that bit of information.

I haven't read this book for a very long time, so I'm going to say yes. Yeah. And the Hiva's perspective on her is interesting. The Hiva, as Tiffany says, well, she thinks you can buy magic. But then the Hiva is also going out and looking for these shortcuts. Well, I think the Hiva's going out and buying what it knows it needs to look like a powerful witch. So it knows it needs the friends, like Enneagrama, and knows that all these ones do nothing, but this is how you look like a witch.

Which isn't all that different from what Mrs Eowig is doing. No, although I wonder how much Mrs Eowig persuades herself that you do need the things. Yeah, I don't think she's conscious. Like Magratt learned young, luckily, that the Rune Knife is exactly the same as the Bride Knife. Well, actually a lot of the Mrs Eowig stuff does feel Magratty, like the house with the paintings. And yeah, Magratt was naive enough to treat witchcraft like that until, but then she has her Bride Knife lesson.

Yeah, I think the difference was as well, Magratt was just a nicer person. Like a kinder person who genuinely wanted to do good and not in a maternalistic way. Slash also had better influences on her. Yes. Like you can't really. It's hard to call that any old good influence, but it's true. And they bullied her something chronic, but you know, it made her a stronger person. She shall make you pro-bullying, apparently.

Specifically pro-bullying, Magratt. No, she doesn't deserve to be bullied, but it did get her into a very good suit of armour. It did. It did. Then we have, speaking of the bullies, Granny Weatherwax. Yeah. Whose misbehaviour we approve of. We always support Granny Weatherwax behaving in any way she chooses,

and definitely not because she intimidates us. And today she's bee-having because she's continued her feat of being able to borrow an entire hive. They've done it with bees. She's done it with bees. They've done it with bees. Yes, again. And what an awful image of her lying there with bees crawling in and out of her mouth. Yeah.

And dislodging one last bee from behind her tooth. Yep. This is how you get myths and legends about bees being spontaneously generated. Yep. Which is. Which is. Which is. The transition into her point of view is great because it's just like that really cinematic

transition we had in the last section. This take the yi away from Tiffany up through the shop, high above the village until the landscape spreads out in a patchwork of fields with some mountains. And it talks about the impacts of Tiffany's magic as well. The magic spreads out like ripples as the ripples widen. The magic gets fainter, although it never dies. Yeah. Which is nice because obviously we've talked about ripples in the world.

As one of the very famous Pratchett quotes before. We have indeed. Yeah, so more of Granny Weatherwax next section. But for now, good to know she's paying attention. On Granny Weatherwax. World is a house on fire commented. It's been pointed out to me that every author is every single one of their characters and sometimes novels can be seen as a self asking itself a question.

And if not answering it, processing it and coming up with a better one. So Terry once said, Granny envies for his favorite characters. And I think sometimes of Tiffany as his desire to pass on what he loved most about Granny condensed in a way that would expand through practices and examination of the ideas. Which is a really lovely way to think about it. Yeah. Anyway, who else have we got? Oh, awfully wee Billy Big Chin.

The New Gonagall. Our New Gonagall. I keep, I got lords and ladies out because I was looking for something to do with time and autoclean. I keep picking up the wrong book when I'm trying to find questions. Put it under the desk. That's what I do. And now I've now got a pile of unrelated books under the desk.

Which is a great way to be. I don't want to talk about how many books are currently on this table, but it's a sewing table. It's quite big. I've got a very small desk, which is why they're all under the desk. Yeah, he's very inspiring in a different way than the last Gonagall. He is. He's young.

I love when Rob reassures him and says, well, no, other Gonagall's done this. And now you're the Gonagall that knows the most about this. Yeah. Yeah, don't worry. You may be a beginner at this, but literally you're the most experienced anyway. I think the way Rob treats him is quite sweet, because awfully, we Billy Big Chin's come over with Genie.

And so the way Rob's treating him is almost like a guy that's married his older sister and his sort of bitch become this older brother figure, like an older step, not like a stepfather, but that kind of same vibe. Yeah, definitely. And so he's being really supportive as Billy learns his Gonagall. But the bit where he shames them, what a speech. I know. Have you got it?

I have. I'm not going to do this in the accent. In your West Scottish Brogue, please, Joanna. In my best Scottish Brogue. No, that's much worse than your normal voice. Just normally, please, Joanna. I curse my feats that let me stand here in front of you. You shame the very sun shining on you.

You shame the kelder that birthed you, traitors, scuggans. What have you done to be among this parcel of rogues? Any man here wants to fight, then fight me. I fight me. And I swear by the harper bones, I'll take him to the deeps of the sea and then kick him to the craters of the moon and see him ride to the pitterheal itself on a saddle made of hedgehogs. I tell you, my rage is the strength of the storm that tears mountains into sand.

Who among you will stand against me? Yep. Yeah. Love that you got hedgehogs in there. Parcel of rogues. Which is Robbie Burns poem. Is it now? It is.

Oh, what's it about? I think the English. Damn it, I should have had that as my obscure reference. Such a parcel of rogues. Oh, it's a Scottish folk song as well now with the lyrics taken from it. All right, we'll link to that. Yes. But yeah, that's just such a great moment.

I love it. Yeah, absolutely. I would feel shamed and a little terrified. I would a hundred percent feel shamed. And a bit confused, probably, if I was drunk as well. But the feagles are used to that, so. I was going to say, I don't think the feagles are often fully sober. It's, yeah, you definitely need to be that dramatic to get their attention

where they're in that kind of mood. So I think he will be a fine feagle at Gonegal. Gonegal. I think he's had his mouse pipes out at that point as well. So he's played them a sad song before shaming them. Yeah. Yeah, you've got them in the weepy frame of mind and then, yeah. But also, he's the one shaming them.

He's saying, you know, stop getting carried away and brawling and having fun. We've got a proper job to do. And he's probably out of the entire group, the least attached to Tiffany. Yeah. Like he's here for almost the bigger risk of the hiver than specifically Tiffany. But they've got a geese and he knows what a geese is. Yep. One of them big birds.

Don't want to get on the wrong side of one of them. It's a lovely day in Tiffany's mental landscape and you were a horrible geese. Oh, very good. Speaking of Tiffany's mental landscape, that's not the location we're starting with. It's almost like I didn't plan this. Zack's strong in the arms Emporium. I want to talk about pretty quickly. Paul Ryan.

Boffo but posher. Posh Boffo. I don't think we've met Boffo yet. Have we? No, no. The concept of Boffo has not yet been introduced to us. Bullshit. This is Winter Smith.

That is not the first time Boffo comes up. I think it's not the first time we hear the word but like the full description of what Boffo is and how it works. I believe it. All right. All right. I'll look it up. I'm doubting myself now.

First spoiler likelessness. This is not a major spoiler. No, no, because we've definitely talked about it before. Unless we haven't in which case I'll cut this whole bit out so it's fine. No. You're absolutely right. Introduced in Winter Smith. I don't know.

What the fuck I'm thinking of? Oh well. There's a clown called Boffo in one of the... Men Arms. Men Arms here. Well, that's the one at the Falls Guild. So I'm assuming that's the one with the clown called Boffo. Good thinking.

Right. So anyway, this shop is a wee bit more pretentious, I'd say. Yes. Pretentious witch-ness. Including fake shambles hanging from the ceiling. Oh yeah, decorative shambles. Yeah, which feels like having just learned what a shamble is to then decorative shamble very quickly becomes this epitome of everything that's wrong with this shop.

Yeah, absolutely. The pointlessness of the ones and the balls and the rooms. And we've already, you know, Anagrama points out Miss Tickshole using a sorcerer of ink and she's probably caged the ink. Oh, she's a fundamentalist, gives witches a bad name. Which actually, there's something Anagrama says, I think it's in that section. Do we really want people to think witches are just a bunch of mad old women who look like crows? That's so gingerbread cottage-y.

Which isn't that different from Tiffany's perspective on witchcraft and why she wanted to become a witch. She didn't want people to make assumptions about the women who do look like mad old crows that maybe live in a gingerbread cottage. Yeah, they've just come... Yeah, they've got the same kind of thought there, but they've come out with such different motivations. The whole thing about it being old fashioned to use the ink and the sorcerer kind of thing,

actually. Maybe you think it's modern witchcraft by these people's standards. It's kind of going in the opposite direction to the modern wizardry because right at the beginning of Discworld, we were talking about how the newfangled wizards could do the right of ash kent with five cc's and mouse blood and a matchstick. Yes. The old fashioned way to do it is with all the Zach's stuff. Stuff crocodiles, that kind of thing.

Maybe. I mean, Missy is obviously being influenced by her wizard husband. Maybe there's this... As the wizards are getting rid of all that stuff, the witches are being more encouraged to take it up so that people like Zach's act don't go out of business. Yeah, and you've got anagrammer saying stuff like, oh, a wizard could do stuff so witches can't. Yeah, I love the idea that the witches have of the wizards considering. We've met the wizards. Oh, yeah, we know the wizards, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They can't or they shouldn't, especially in the Dean's case. Yep, yep. Maybe we'll let the lecturer... We wish it stopped trying. Dean, sorry, Dean, we love you. Yeah, the whole hat theme you were talking about, we get all the different hat fashions here. Some years, the slightly concertinid look was in. The variety is even the most traditional hat.

The country woman with inside pockets and it's waterproof. The safety guaranteed to survive 80% of falling farmhouses. Yay, cool back. And Tiffany chose the tallest upright cone, more than two feet high, and big stars sewn on it. Yep, which says witch. Yes, which very much says witch. And is taller, importantly, than Mrs. Ewigs. Yes, I did like the detail that Mrs. Ewig has, like, which hat cutouts in all of the

doorways in her house. That's quite funny. It makes you think some kind of bird of paradise, doesn't it, where the bird with the biggest hat is in charge. Yep. I know that's not what bird of paradise they're doing, but I quickly caught myself halfway. That's fair. But also, so Tiffany's gone for a hat that's bigger than Mrs. Ewigs,

but Tiffany's presumably quite a lot shorter than Mrs. Ewig. So even with the hat, Mrs. Ewig's hat's going to stand taller. So does Tiffany also need to stand on something? Have I thought about this too much? Well, Tiffany's a bit taller than before, because she thinks she's taller than she is. Oh, good point. So we'll have to say, we'll put them back to back. Yep.

And whoever's point reaches further towards the heavens. When's the witch trial? Yep, that's how it works. Yep. Nice. I mean, there's a lot of books about witch trials today, because my research went in a direction that it didn't end up staying in along that demonic possession, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Yeah, that's not fun. It says at the very end of the author's note in the book that witch trials happened in the round world, they were a lot less fun. Yeah, they are. Yeah, that's true. Ducking stool always looked fun though. There was, well, talking with the ducking stool, there was one story where as a bunch of magi, I think they called it.

So I don't know when this was written down, but apparently whatever, not good enough like Catholic priests tried to exercise this demonically possessed witch, whatever it was, and put her on the ducking stool. And it worked well enough to drive a demon down, but then a whole legion of demons came in and a priest had to come and sort it out properly. Ah. And that's what happened when you get the cowboys in for your exorcisms. Very good.

No. Calling a licensed Catholic priest, or maybe a different sort. Again, I can't remember what century this was. I have an interesting day of reading. I'll tell you that. Yeah, I cannot see that. I've got some links for you. How does your mental landscape look?

Confused. Fused a little frightening. Glad to be in this century for once. I'm not often glad to be in this century, but every now and then. Right, yeah, sorry. So Tiffany's mental landscape. We get more of a description of how fecal travel between worlds works, except we don't really, other than it's all in the ankle movement.

You can. You can. The crawl step. The crawl step. That's probably a reference. Sounds like a reference. Didn't look it up. Me neither.

Got a struggle to find a reference, and now I'm seeing them everywhere. Oh, we forgot to mention Paul Bryan, who I just wanted to quickly mention, because he's another example of not quite a repeated character, but we've got a few, like, pathetic ex-wizards around the place, haven't we? The one who's got the parrot. Can't remember where he turned up, but he was in a shop and all. It was mort. There's one in mort.

There's one in mort. In Bryan's case, he was a king, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah. In Bryan's case, he was never a, he was never a wizard. No, he just happened to university. He did some night classes at the university and now dresses up as a wizard. On the frog transmutation thing and the whole floating gloop,

we've been talking about that quite a lot recently, because there was a thing in Science of Discworld about how it worked with sympathetic transmutations. We've got lots of different theories of how this works. I think in this case, it's how Tiffany thinks it works. It works. Exactly. Because otherwise, that presents the terrifying question of when the lawyer was turned into a toad, was there a corresponding gloop?

And we think no. We think no. We hope no. I'm saying there is not just a floating balloon of lawyer gloop. Oh, although actually, oh, this all ties in with the lore, because we know that fairy godmother magic acts a little bit differently, because fairy godmother can do things like turn pumpkin into carriage and nanny ogre and granny weatherwax say something to the effect of that's not how that should work.

Yes, very true. And snakes into people and people into mice and all those things, all those good things. So yeah, that's why there's no toad lawyer gloop. Yep. Glad we got that sorted. So Tiffany's mental landscape. Mine's looking quite gloopy. So the space that Tiffany occupies, the space that's still her in the landscape,

I find really fascinating. It's this bit of granny aching. It's the shepherd's heart and the turf and the chalk. The space is present, but it's you'd imagine in a story like this that you'd get there and you'd find like Tiffany locked in her own mind, there'd be some kind of walking talking Tiffany in the space. Yeah. And that's the Tiffany that's speaking in tiny words.

And it's not, it's just the space. It's present, but not her. And of course, when she fights the hive or off, you get that moment where it comes up and it's the reveal that she is the space. And I just think it's really beautiful. What do we think of the sky being black despite the sun being up? Terrifying. Agree.

And I'm not sure if that's because the space is a bit wrong, because you know, the mind is a bit wrong at the moment, or whether it's just how that is. I feel like it's because the mind is wrong, because then we also get the forest starting to approach and reclaim. Yes, which is in itself just fucking terrifying and very, what we were talking about the chalk downs in the last Tiffany book and how because these grasslands are technically kind of man-made, man cultivated, not technically they are, but thousands of years old.

And what would it do to the ecology now if the forest were allowed to reclaim them? Yeah. And often I think when you think of what's good for the environment, what's good for a landscape, you think of reforestation always. And you think of things being allowed to go to the wild. And you know, grasslands, they're good too. Yeah. And you get the feagles talking about it from their perspective,

which is that they're a jungle teaming with life. Yeah. Yeah. We knew that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, when you walk through Meadow in the summer and it's loud. Oh, it's noisy and bitey and stingy and all those things.

Oh, yeah. We're long trousers, even if it's too hot chaps. No one's slimed to disease. So I've been writing toolbox talks this week. No, I'm really paranoid about Lyme disease. I'm not wearing shorts in a meadow. So to speak. You know what I say about her?

Doesn't wear shorts in a meadow. But yeah, so that's a beautiful thing. And the memory that the smells like that idea of scent memory, which is so true and so intense, like I've got like certain perfumes they wear because they remind me of such incredibly specific times and places. And the smells of food that is certain things. And for Tiffany, obviously, it's the sheep's wool, the jolly sailor and the tap and time.

Yeah, absolutely. I have an irrelevant elephant. You have an irrelevant elephant. So in 1923, there are a group of British surveyers mapping out topography of the Gold Coast in West Africa. And there was one particularly inaccessible bit that they really could not be asked to get to. Like they're tired. They were done.

They were just done with it. And so they decided to kind of make up that bit of topography and just say, damn it and go home, which maybe nobody would have ever noticed, except they drew the topography in the exact shape of an elephant. Apparently, the group of young army officers took the image of an elephant of a magazine they had with them and just traced it on the map. And nobody noticed for a little bit. There were some maps published with the elephant on it.

So that's fun. Well, that's a good way to go the long way and see the elephant. Yes. Okay. Well, I liked that. Let's talk about other little bits we liked. Yes, let's. So going back to the landscape thing again, actually,

and back to our chats about hills, I suppose. The line, she missed the horizons. She missed the sky. Everything was too close. That's when she's walking through the forest. Makes me think about when I'm going for walks around here in Suffolk. And I'm like, finally, the sky's big here. It's so flat.

I've lived here for 20 years on and every now and then I'm still just like, God, I missed the landscape being broken up a bit. There's not forest so much. I like forest. Forest is fine, but the coast is better. Everything's broken up. There's not just one vast expanse of blue or gray ahead of you. Wow.

When I was in Germany for the convention a couple of weeks ago, it was like gorgeous and hilly where we were. Eventually, I'll edit that little video diary together and you'll see some more shots of it. Sure. But I don't think I was, obviously, I went with Mark and I'm not sure he was entirely prepared for me, like staring out of the train windows and the car windows,

like, landscape, there's hills. So big and pretty and there's stuff. Yeah, we need to go traveling more. You do. And then the next one I've got is, again, harking back. Magic with 1K at the end there. I just during the meeting, the coven meeting there, I enjoyed all this stupid language like the,

get the shriven chalice. No, not that one. No, the one without handles. Two shriven chalices. Very good, very nice. And it also reminded me a little bit of the secret society in guards, guards. Oh, yeah, very much so. Yeah, just up themselves all this nonsense while they're just,

you know, really achieving very little. It also, like, obviously, we were talking about, like, how much that hits the whole middle school bully thing and, like, just reminders of being a young girl, but also, like, do you remember when you'd have, like, elaborate make-believe, like, games you'd play as young girls and you'd be like, no, no, you have to hold it exactly like this and stand like this.

Yeah, when I was that age, me and my friends came up with this whole, like, religion that we were going to have, and, like, of the four elements, and they had all symbols and fucking all kind of bollocks. Yeah, you get so into it, except they, like, again, it's that, except that some of them, like, have a bit of magic in them, so it's like,

ugh. Gets a bit carried away with. Yeah, 11-year-old girls are terrifying at the best of times. Yeah, they really are. Like, in a good way, a lot of the time. I like how angry and feral a lot of girls that age are when they start to realise injustices and get real cross about it. About 8 to 12, I think, that's when the feral hits.

There's some stuff being going around on Twitter today, because there was an 11-year-old that wrote into, I think, The Guardian complaining about the coronation, everyone was saying, there's no way an 11-year-old wrote this, like, in all the language they've used, but I was like, no, no, 11-year-olds will 100% write an indignant letter. If I can find the tweet, I'll send it to you,

but it is that thing. Like, no. An 11-year-old can 100% get indignant about something and write a very indignant letter about it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We all read too much when we were 11. Yeah, we don't have a very particular flavour of nerdy 11-year-old girl here.

There it is. I found a huff-paste article about it. Yeah, no, this could absolutely have been written by an 11-year-old. Yeah, 100%. So, thunder and lightning. What about it? It's when Genie's doing her cauldron and her hidlins and she lies back, nothing happened except that the thunder rattled the land

and the lightning turned the world black and white. And I just like having thunder and lightning as a motif in this, because we had, obviously, that's the dogs that's in We Free Men, and there's something about the fact that feeling like they're still there. Yeah, and she's down on the chalk, of course, still, and yeah. They're still keeping an eye on things. There's something, although the thunder and lightning happens in quite dark and dramatic moments, it's Genie doing her hidlins.

It's when the hiver takes over Tiffany, it's nice to think the dogs are still keeping an eye on things. Yeah, and it's also just narratively satisfying. And also, we had all the chapters opening with these italics, and it's mostly ideas of the hiver searching, but that one just opens with the lion thunder rolled across the chalk. Oh yeah, nice. Well spotted.

Oh yeah, and then we have the, when the feagles have appeared to mislevel, and she says, oh, I sort of thought you might have been mythological. And Rob says, well, we want to stay that way. It's bad enough those archaeology men wanting to dig up our mounds without them folklore ladies wanting to take pictures of us and that. And I just love the idea of the discworld folklore ladies running around looking for little pixies and the like. Yep, I like to think, practically it was thinking of Jacqueline Simpson while writing this.

But I feel like they're in like a particular kind of Edwardian gown and a very specific hat. Is it a bit of, did you read or watch The Essex Serpent? No, that was a big thing on TikTok wasn't it? It's, I mean, it's a really gorgeous book. Should I have a signed copy of Thanks to a Friend? Who went to a signing for me and grabbed me a copy? Because she knew I'd be obsessed with it. The TV show's gorgeous as well, but that's largely because

it's Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston looking broody on The Essex Coast. Broody or brooding? Bit of both. Nice. Oh, speaking of the archaeologists and the like digging up the man's actually, that whole bit about Tiffany's crossed arms being like the old times when the men used to build the mounds was quite cool. Oh, yeah.

And then my last little bit that greatly amused me was when Tiffany lands on Mrs Ewick's lawn. She'd heard of lawns, but had never seen a real one before. A lawn meant you were posh enough to afford to give up valuable potato space. And I love lawns as a class signifier. Oh, yeah. Because most of the sort of class signifier stuff we've had on Discworld has been like very Angkor Pork specific. It's very like all the stuff with Sibyl Ramkin, Vimes knee Ramkin.

So to get this countryside version of the class signifier, which is having a smart lawn with stripes on it. I'm not a fan of lawns. No, same, yeah. What about you then? I just really like the line. It's terrible here on a ship try to spit. Because you can imagine it.

You absolutely can. I'm not sure I want to imagine it. And just the idea of a sheep getting into water that a beagle's been in and trying to spit it out. It's very funny. It's a funny image. It's a funny sentence. I agree.

Excellent. I'll tell you what's not funny. What's not funny, Joanna? What's not funny? Things that are like hivers. Things that are like hivers. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

So a very short talking point I've got today. It's really a launchpad for yours. But I just thought we'd have a look at things that are a bit like the hiver. There's a Wikipedia article called Behavior Altering Parasites. And can I just say that I hated reading this article? And I don't recommend you do it yourself unless you have a very strong stomach, listeners, Joanna, all alike. I'll link it, but it's a horrible rabbit hole to go down.

I wish I hadn't. So you've got your big stars, obviously. You've got rabies. You've got cordyceps, which is in the limelight recently, again, thanks to what do you call it? Last of us. The last of us. Yeah.

That was the thing that takes over ants. Yeah. Yeah, you got the horrible coming out of your head. Oh, I don't know. I'm talking about this. I hate it all so much. You also got things like toxoplasma, which is that one that infects cats. And it's apparently behavior altering in the way that if it gets into a rodent,

it makes them less scared of cats, makes them more confident. So it can complete its life cycle by going into a cat, which I think is probably the horrible parasite closest to the hive here, making you all confident and getting in danger. So that's that. And then I don't know why I did it. It was too late. It was too late to change directions at this point.

And so I put it in there, but I hate talking about fucking parasites and stuff. So more charming, though, although still horrific from folklore, Scottish folklore, we have the Brawler can, which was mentioned in an L space article about this. And they said, maybe Pratchett got his inspiration from a book in the 60s that also had a similar one, or maybe it was from the original Scottish folk tale. So there's a class of malevolent spirits called the Vaugh, I think, spelled F-U-A-T-H. And this Brawler can, chappy being, is meant to be the son of one of these. And it's shapeless.

It has no form. It has eyes and a mouth, but it can only say two words, which translate to myself and thyself. And a few tales about him were collated into one book. And there was one I particularly liked, slash, was terrified by, which was he lay all his lubber length by the dying fire, lubber length, love that, by the way, by the dying fire, and Murray threw a fresh peat on the embers, which made them fly about red hot, and Brawler can was severely burnt. So he screamed in an awful way and soon comes the Vaugh, very fierce, who cries,

oh, my Brawler can, who then burnt you? But all he could say was me. And then he said, ooh, me and thou, me too. And she replied, were it any other? Wouldn't I be revenged? So there's a whole class of fairy tales, folk tales on your index that you like called myself and thyself. Oh, cool.

Yeah, which actually is a completely different direction. But very briefly, it'll be some kind of gremlin fairy, whatever, that introduces itself usually to a child as myself, like its name is myself. And therefore, when it then does some mischief, and the child bit scarfers, and the child's parent comes along, and there's like a smash vase on the floor or something more horrible. And who did this? And the child does myself.

Yeah. Hello. Anyway, Brawler can. And you can tell if it's taken on someone's shape by their eyes darkening and reddening. And so, yeah, it's very much a hiver-esque. Yeah. Anyway, why, basically, why is the idea of being taken over like this? Why are the parasite ideas so horrifying, Joanna?

It is really horrifying. And this book, does it really incredibly well? One thing I want to point out is we've talked a lot about point of view in the books. The fact that it's the third person, but it tends to stick to a specific person's point of view, or switches between sections. So like in this, it's Tiffany, or it's Miss Level, or it's the feagles. Yes. But it's from their points of view.

And even once Tiffany's taken over, it's from Tiffany's point of view. But it's from Tiffany as Hiver point of view. But it doesn't say that. It does it as if it is still just Tiffany, just said Tiffany is acting weird. And you get the little clues pretty early on with the looking down and seeing her graffiti on the table and things. Yeah, yeah. So you have, I mean, the first moment where she's taken over is horrifying because we've

had it built up by the other characters telling us this is something to worry about. And obviously the Hiver interlude, we saw what happened to poor Dr. Bussle. We saw what happened to poor Dr. Bussle indeed. When she's taken over, Tiffany tried to shout, see me not, but there was no mouth to shout. And I think that's part of the horror. It's not just this loss of your identity is something you're taking over. It's this lack of control you have. It's like a, like sleep paralysis.

Yeah. Yeah. That trapped and can't scream out. Yeah. That was one of the horrible parasites. Few of them do that. They release some nerve toxin to make you stop moving, but yeah. It's a very close cousin to my like weird things where I feel claustrophobic.

That similar trapped feeling. And yeah. So then you start getting these clues of Tiffany. We know Tiffany's not right. We know Tiffany's been taken over, but then it's all still very Tiffany's point of view. She's full of get up and go. So the goats reaction to her cowering in one corner, not being dicks to her and have forcing the go into the milking position and what have you.

And the book continually doesn't comment on it. Like it's very show, don't tell. It's just showing us all these things. It's already told us. So now it's just showing us this outcome, but not reminding us of it, but it's still really clear. It builds up these new feelings in her. And the thing is, some of them do seem like Tiffany flavoured still. She wanted to do things, climb the highest mountain, run around the world, leap into the sky.

Her bones were itching, which is a brilliant sentence that's a little bit. And then you get the chalk on the table like you pointed out this message. And we don't see any part of Tiffany write that message, but obviously some part of Tiffany that still Tiffany did. Yeah. And the part of Tiffany that still Tiffany stopped her from hitting the goat. Yes, that same thing. And that's the same part that's trying to stop her from flying off on the broomstick.

Yeah. There were a few things that she just won't, a few lines she just won't cross even in this horrible situation, which quite evocative of granny again, isn't it? There's a few. There's just a few 100% don'ts. You don't hurt a kid. You don't hit an animal.

And then you start getting the, well, I think the hitting an animal is specifically so on Tiffany because of that whole thing with Granny Aikin in the last book, the donkey peddler, the peddler hitting his donkey and Granny Aikin stopping him. And that's a huge, this is not Tiffany moment. But again, just the book isn't saying it. So we're still watching it from this weird not Tiffany point of view. And we all know, but I think that really builds into the horror in a really clever way. And then you start getting the tiny font.

It starts when she's being vicious to Petulia. You still sleep with a teddy bear and just breaking her down so quickly, but these little tiny help me's. And that's kind of like the reassurance moment because before that point, we're not sure whether Tiffany's been just irrevocably changed or whether this is another presence in her. So those help me's and the help me on the table are those moments to reassure us that there is still some real Tiffany.

Yeah, she's there. It's not just the virus has turned her into a twat. Exactly. And as you see her become more and more of a twat, she's almost like stepping back from her humanity, her dislike of Miss Level and this idea of doing the chores. Because we already saw Tiffany dislike Miss Level and doing the chores. Because she wanted to do bigger things, but it's just a different flavor here. Yeah, it can tap into the hints of bad motivation and

exploit them because everybody has unkind thoughts and oh, yeah, the point is, yeah, being a nice person or a kind person doesn't mean you don't think bad things. It means you don't do bad things. What's so great is that we've only known Tiffany for a book and a half, which and they're shorter books. And as Pratchett goes, like there are some characters we've had ages to get to know, but we still know Tiffany well enough.

Even if you haven't read We Free Men, you know Tiffany well enough to know that Tiffany doing these things is not Tiffany. Yes. It's really well earned. And we don't see it referred to as the hiver speaking until a bit later, when Tiffany's in Anna Grammer's house and threatening her and asking her to go shopping with her. And the quiet voice is saying, help me, please stop me, help me.

And Anna Grammer notices this weird echo. She notices something. Yeah. Similarly to Diamander, Anna Grammer does have a bit of real witchiness to her. Yeah. She had that bit of ability to exploit into arrogance. Yeah. And yeah, she's like, oh, don't worry about that echo.

It'll be gone soon. But it's not Tiffany is, oh, that's said to the hiver. That's nothing. It'll stop seeing it. And that's the first time the hiver says something. Oh, that's fussy. That is probably the first time the hiver says something. And it's specifically, I'm very, very worried about saying this is definitely the first time

this does or doesn't happen. Oh, don't worry. Yeah, I just massively outdid you this episode. So you're going to cut that out. I'm not. I've put it too, I've mentioned it too many times now. I'm more lazy than I am prideful. And that's an important thing to know about me.

That is very helpful. And yet, so I think that's what builds the horror of it is the fact that all these things are things that Tiffany could be doing if that just a small switch was flicked in her brain, that it's not necessarily just a sense of possession, but it is using that pettiness of Tiffany. I mean, you get those great moments where she just, it feels like it is more Tiffany because those hallucinations are happening. The tiger and the teeth and the ferns and she's confused.

That feels more Tiffany than Hiver, her reaction to the hallucinations. And you can almost see it's like the Hiver realizing her needs to dial back and go out this from a different angle and let some Tiffany-ness out with all of the Hiver-ness. Yeah. A tiger is not going to get on well in this village. Exactly. An awful, awful witch might. So instead it does things the Tiffany way and that means going back to this idea of vanity

and specifically wanting to look the part to have the power. So going, dress shopping, getting the ridiculous hat and the billowing cloak. And I'm not going to lie, I really want the fucking impritical billowing cloak. I want a cloak that billows. I see. I'm not that fast, but obviously I want a billowing cloak, but mainly I want a good, like an Aragorn cloak, you know? Well, now I know what to get you for your birthday.

A good water-free cloak. Yeah. Oh, I don't know if I'll wear it, mate. That's the problem. Oh, no, you never fucking will. When am I ever walking all the way to Gondor? Very rarely. Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell?

Anyway. Why is a Raven like a writing desk? So many questions going on answered on the true shall make you fresh. Yeah, so this vanity thing, when the hiver starts using the tiffiness of it, that means going shopping, that means getting the dresses. And when Tiffany gets this surprise return, when she briefly finds herself in control of the body again, she calls the code stupid. Yeah.

Like, it's this refreshing moment, and obviously it's within a really horrible moment she's fighting for every finger and toe on her body. Miss Levels gets killed, or one of the Miss Levels gets killed. But within that, there's this refreshing moment of, oh, good, Tiffany did not want this. Yes. Because you could see Tiffany for a second after that horrible experience of the Sabbath thinking, well, maybe I shouldn't wear a green dress,

then I should get some occult jewelry and a black dress to fit in. Yeah. And she'd have come around. She'd have come around. But here it's like, now she's had the opportunity to be that person that anagramma would be intimidated by via the hiver. She's reverted back to almost like a fuck, no, I don't want to change. Yeah.

In a good way. Oh, yeah. Can you remember what Mrs. A would call the color green, like unlucky and auspicious, something like that? Something like that. I'd have to flick through a lot of pages. And then, yeah, so when the hiver is forced in Tiffany's mental landscape onto the turf, that's when we get the hiver's point of view.

Hmm. And when we guess it, the real separation between Tiffany and hiver is when it's forced into that space. Yes. Perspective within a perspective, very weird. It is perspectives on perspectives in perspective. But this whole theme of losing slash having your identity subsumed by this malicious presence, yeah, there's so much horror in it because like we said,

that we can still see so much Tiffany in it enough that there's some doubt. And the fact that no one immediately realizes that it's not her, which must be so difficult for the bit of Tiffany that can see things that no one's going. They're worried about her. They're confused by her. But Miss Level's not going, oh, this must be a malicious presence, because clearly this is not how you would act. It ties very much in with the homesickness, doesn't it?

If she was at home, someone would have noticed immediately. She would have been saved by the females immediately. Her mum would have known this wasn't her. Yeah, her little brother would have thrown Sweetie's at her. Went with would never throw away a Sweetie. Yeah, of course, I'm sorry. But I think it's really essential when you're talking about the fact that this character is an 11-year-old girl and we talked about obviously the size of it, the bullying and the

magic and the particular flavors of magic they get into. But also that's such an age where you're picking an identity and you're really getting to assert that for the first time. It's like, I think around that age, you start getting to maybe have some more say over what you wear, over who your friends are, because maybe you go to a bigger school or you're in bigger class sizes or something. And it's that age I remember having conversations with my friends about what's a good first and what's cool in a real sense.

I remember just literally that age, somebody going, oh yeah, but somebody going around saying they're cool isn't cool, and me going, oh yeah, all of this stuff, it's that age, you're going, all right, all right, I'm going to work out what makes a person someone I want to be. Yeah, it's 100% that. And so that's, I mean, it's terrifying time in anyone's life to be subsumed by a malicious supernatural parasite. But especially when you're 11 and you haven't got necessarily a fully established identity to subsume over the parasite.

Ooh, do we want to go full deep into this and point out the fact that it's that age that all the stories about poltergeists and malevolent forces, it's all around girls that age, isn't it? 11, 12, 13. Oh yeah, you look at something like The Exorcist. And it's meant, you read any book about horrible forces like that, and they all say they conglomerate around girls that age. They're meant to be the unstable, horrible to be around.

It's all very misogynist and. Oh yeah, and also I feel like people's perceptions of girls that age and why the law. I'm never going to stop pronouncing it that way because I'm very keen that nobody thinks I'm talking about legal stuff and sues me for bad advice on poltergeists. Bad advice on poltergeists. My new spin-off podcast coming this week. Francing the Ponserter podcast without me. Help, I have a poltergeist.

It's fine, don't worry about it. Bad advice on poltergeists. I will say as well, I'm being super gender-specific here and that's purely because I'm non-binary, but I still remember what it was like to be an 11-year-old girl. I don't know if it's the same for guys. I don't know if they go through an experience of really establishing identity in the same way and what's cool. As far as I'm aware, all 11-year-old boys are just football stickers.

Going by the stereotypes, I've been led to believe that that just comes a couple of years later for boys to know. Right in, tell us. Yes. When did you first become susceptible to poltergeist activity? Don't worry about it, it's fine. That's my contribution to your podcast, just a little sound of it. Thank you, Joanna.

We're running wildly off-topic. That's fine because a topic is not a straight line, it is more like a sea we float in, like the KELDA and memory. Nice. Yeah, I just... I liked very much the contrast between the Hiva being all these identities at once of subsuming Tiffany's and there's these horrible moments of trying to be this cup overflowing with a thousand identities and this very planned natural connection with all of your ancestors and your descendants

and feeling at home in that incredible... Swimming in the sea of it. Yeah, just something that would be really unfathomable to anybody but a KELDA. Yeah, so only they know the Hidlins. Yeah, and just the comfort of that and the knowledge she gets from it and just the complete opposite to what Tiffany's going through. And that contrast helps present the horror in a starker light. Yeah.

You know, that's very prattish. I think it was a pretty good author. Yeah, I think that's a good summation. Right, it's good books. Francine, do you have an obscure reference for Neil for me? Yeah, I do. So, the King's Legs is a pub of this book. Tragically, I'll just let you down right away.

I couldn't find a King's Legs pub apart from a mobile bar that definitely postates this book. Right. But just to cheer myself up, I looked up some less common King's pub names. There's one called the King's Fee in Hereford, which is sadly weather films but whatever. And that's a fee was kind of an area of property. And so the central area around the cathedral in Hereford was the Bishop's Fee and the rest within the city walls was the King's Fee.

There's also the King's Tun, T-U-N in Kingston, which is T-O-N. Apparently, Kingston used to be called King's Tun. Just realizing how bad this is for an audio format. Which is like an old name for an enclosure amount of land or something, again. I'm assuming that's some of the etymology of town. Yeah. And then I got really bored with this, so I just started looking up weird pub names. Obviously, there's a lot and I'll link some fun articles, but just a couple.

There's the Aeronaut. Amazing. I know, which is in Acton, named after George Lee Temple, who was the first English person to fly a plane upside down. Yeah. Sure, because why not? And there's one called The Bucket of Blood, which apparently is from when the landlord went to get water from a well

brought it up and had only blood in the bucket because of a badly injured smuggler at the bottom. A less gory and more realistic origin theory is that there used to be a red runoff from a local mine that died the water from the well red. Is that in Yorkshire? Oh, could be. I don't think I wrote that down. I feel like I've been to that pub. Oh, cool.

Yeah. I feel like you'd remember that, but maybe not if it was not the first pub. I've been to a lot of pubs, Francine. There's been a lot of pubs. There has been a lot of pubs. And then just a bonus fun fact from anthropologist Marianne Okota. Many pubs have changed names in their history. In the 16th century, following King Henry VIII's split with the Catholic Church

and the decades of anti-Catholic sentiment that followed, the Pope's head pubs, which was quite a common name for pubs, were frequently renamed the King's head, which was a safer way to name your pub at the time. I would have thought the Pope's head in an anti-Catholic thing would kind of work, as like a, hey, we decapitated the Pope vibe. Yeah. I think that's more desk world. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I get that. It's also how I think of like the head on a thing now. Yep. That's my obscure reference, Fineal, which is barely a reference. I enjoyed it nonetheless. Right. I think that's everything we've got to say about Part Two of A Hatful of Sky.

We are going to obviously be back this time next week with Part Three, which will begin in Chapter Nine and go all the way to the end. Yeah. It's a long section, considering we've got like a couple days to read it. Yeah. No, we've had like no time to sort this out. By note that you've still got time. This is coming out on Monday.

So you can still buy tickets to see us and Mark Burroughs, more importantly, doing his one-man comic lecture, The Magic of Terry Pratchett, based on his marvelous book at the Hunter Club on the 19th of May. Tickets are still available. Very significant for people who don't automatically know where the Hunter Club is. Yeah. I've got all the information mostly there. Buy tickets.

Come see us. It'll be fun. We're going to hang around, do a Q&A afterwards, which will probably just turn into us holding court in the bar. We're being realistic about who we are as people. And yeah, it's going to be a good night. They've still got pool table. They've still got pool table.

Noise. In fact, they might even let us have a couple free games on that. Oh, wow. Star treatment. No, I just think they hardly ever remember to turn it on, so it needs money. So yes, you can watch Francine and I be really bad at pool. Oh, we're so bad. Your father once said to us,

entire civilizations have come to fruition and died again in the time it takes us to finish a pool game. We've got a pool table at work and I'm still bad at work. I'm still bad at work. I'm still bad at work and pool. Right. Okay. Let me get this out of this fucking episode.

Yeah, please do. Sorry. I need to not be talking. Right. Until next week, dear listeners, you can follow us on Instagram at true shall make you fret on Twitter at make you fret pod, on Facebook at the true shall make you fret.

Join our subreddit community r slash t t s m y f. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, thoughts about Nightwatch, thoughts about good Omen series twos for our bonus episode on the 25th of May. Thoughts about barricades. Thoughts about barricades. Honestly, thoughts about anything you want us to talk about

on a bonus episode of the podcast. Please do. So I don't have to come up with content, guys. The true shall make you fret pod at gmail.com. If you want to support this bollocks financially, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the true shall make you fret and exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. If I get time, guys, the rabbit hole this month is going to be extensive.

Oh, yeah. And a bit silly. Oh, good. And until next time, dear listener, don't let us detain you. Yay, we did it. Sorry, I don't know. My brain just completely spanned off. Yeah, no, that's the wrong dimension near the end there.