The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 132: Wintersmith Pt. 3 (Catch That Metaphor!)

Episode Date: December 18, 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 3  of our recap of “Wintersmith”. Frost! Fire! Marmalade!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Mythical Creatures with Rhianna Pratchett - BBC SoundsFolklands with Tim Downie - PodtailThe Kings Breakfast - A. A. MilneTerry Pratchett in Conversation with Jacqueline Simpson - Folklore SocietyFimbulvetr - Encylopedia Mythica Fire and Ice - Robert Frost - Poetry FoundationThe Snow Man by Wallace Stevens - Poetry FoundationTchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13 "Winter Daydreams" - YouTube Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I don't know how my desk has managed to so thoroughly rearrange itself. Entropy. I haven't done it. I didn't do the thing, but it's done the thing. That's entropy for you. I expect. I can't say for sure. Oh, I'm a fucking idiot slash my postie's a bit of an idiot.

Oh. I've been waiting on a few things, and I was really worried that they hadn't come yet. And earlier this week, I got an email saying, you know, things being delivered. Just a wanky candle I got for my sister. Sure. And it was Royal Mail, but it was like a tracked one. So I didn't hear the knock on the door that morning, because I was lying around in bed like a strumpet.

And I got like an email. Unfortunately not. A bit early in the morning for garlic sausage. I got an email saying, like, we have left your parcel in a safe place, and it just said barbecue. Well, yeah, no. So I thought they meant like on the rack underneath, because packages get left there sometimes, but it wasn't.

There was a sorry we missed you slip as well that didn't have anything written on it. So yeah, I looked in the barbecue and they had put it in that. And there were like four or five other packages in there. They had not all come that day. So every time I've not heard the door, the posty has been putting packages in my barbecue and not telling me. And obviously they were stacking up and the postage didn't feel the need to leave your note saying inside the barbecue. I guess not. Luckily, everything like is fine and my barbecue surprisingly watertight apparently because it's been checking.

it down with rain and everything was dry. But yeah, no, that's that's where all my packages were. Excellent. Now I have all of the things. Now you have all of the things. And it is, it is getting close to Huxwitch time. It's getting close. To the Christmases.

I've got to do the wrappings. Got to do the wrappings, yes. I haven't put the tree up yet. I did my decorations last weekend. It all looks garishly festive. Good, good. I think I'll just put up the small tree I bought last year and I couldn't be asked again. That's probably better considering new dog.

Yes, yes, it will be on the table out of the reach of Darling Little Echo. Will it be how the reach she is quite long? Yeah, no, as I was saying that, she will usually only go for stuff she can eat. Oh, that's good. And she knows she can't eat a tree. There's something about her eyes. She does look like the kind of dog that would try and fight a tree. I mean that very lovingly.

She's very gentle. No, I know. I mean, I don't mean she'd aggressively fight a tree. She would just assume she could take a tree. Yeah, I'm less certain about this the more I think about it. But we'll find out, I guess. Maybe I'll not put the glass decorations on. Yeah.

I feel bad that I've put doubts in your head now. No, no, there's probably a good thing. Yeah, I didn't really think about it because obviously my darling little deer was very short and stout. and not a jumper. She was a surprisingly good jumper, but not so much as she could get on the table to steal the ornaments and they weren't terrible, so it was a point.

She was a stumpy little tank. She was, what a sweet little mini fridge. And I really have swung completely at the other way now and have what is very much a leggy cryptid, I would say. There is definitely a hint of cryptid about that one, especially considering her and stuff. Yeah.

Oh, we haven't talked about this in the podcast. Rihanna Pratchett's got a new folk podcast coming. The first episode's out on Monday and it's in, she recorded it in Suffolk. It's about the black dog and those. Yeah, black shark. Yeah. I'm just sending you a cryptid photo I took earlier. Amazing. Okay. Oh, God. Yeah, no, she's haunted. I love her. She's haunted. Yeah, I accidentally left the flash on. Um, I'll put that in the Discord lessons. But yeah, no, that does sound really good. It's, yeah, it's a radio full show, but it will be a podcast. Yeah, I'll be available worldwide. You can listen to it on BBC sounds. I don't really understand

the difference. At this point between a catch-up radio show and a podcast. I think the only difference is it's not also available on other podcast apps. A lot of the BBC sound stuff is. Yeah, actually, like you're dead to me and stuff. Anyway, we'll link in the show notes. Oh, Tim Downey's got a folklore podcast as well, which I keep meaning to listen to. Tim Downey.

Mr. Brown, chairman of the Wickmer Street, Traders and Shopkeepers Association. Or probably for some of our listeners, better known as Gale, of Waterdeep. Baldus Gate 3 Ah, cool. Yeah. There's been some big news we should probably talk about. God, we're going to prioritising.

We've got, we've gone like the opposite way of. Well, in a roundabout way, I've already talked about it because I did mention Mr. Brown of the Wickma Street Traders and Shopkeepers Association. And what would he have to say about this news? Hooray. Hooray.

Can I get a Wahoo? Can I get a Wahoo? Yeah, Good Omen, season three, has officially been confirmed by Amazon Wankers. we are getting season three. Are we all ready to cry? Always, a drop of a hat.

Are we all ready to look wistful under an awning in the rain? Sure. I already am. You've got an awning in your office? I thought you were just pleased to see me. I do, but it's not raining. Goodness.

It rains indoors quite a lot in my flat, so I probably should get an awning. But yeah, Yeah, we're ready. We're hyped. We're excited. Yeah. I mean, it'll take a while, in it. Oh, yeah, I don't think it's, you know, coming next year. Yeah. But David Tennant's going to be wearing wigs again.

And that's the important thing. Does you wear wigs? I mean, no, the build out the sheer white bit, that was his real hair. Oh, no, that's right. Yes, the historical ones. I was thinking more. Because I'm sure I've seen him with hair extensions. Yes, but I think he wears a lot of wigs. Yes, of course he did. Yeah. Wasn't Doctor?

You've you seen the third of the specials? No, I haven't yet. No, I keep forgetting. I'll watch that. Oh, watch it. It's very good. I won't spoil it for you, and it's lovely. We can do it.

We can do a spoiler section next week after I've watched it. Yay. It'll have been two weeks by then. I think spoilers are fair game. It's still nice to. Joanna, you announced this most ridiculously non-spoilers spoilers for things that came out decades ago. Yes, but usually joking.

That's fair to game. Yeah, but I mean, because it came out two weeks ago, like everyone, people are watching it, like right now. I think it's kind of fair to spoil after two weeks. Where something came out years ago, it might be something people haven't seen. That's a bad with ass reasoning, Joanna. I know, I'm trying to justify my bullshit. But really, she just embrace. No, I'm just like this.

Accept me. Take me for the way out. I do. I do. I'll try and actually watch the Doctor Who because they're quite going to give me twists. And it's fun to guess. It is fun. It is fun.

The problem is obviously we're careful about spoilers on the podcast because that's the thing. But I don't generally mind being spoiled on things. It's why if there's an adaptation of a book, so House of the Dragon came out, I watched the first episode, and immediately it was like, I'm going to go by the book that's based on and find out everything that's meant to happen for the rest of the show. Because then I'm excited to see how they're going to do it. Yeah. My almost equivalent of that, I suppose, is I refuse to watch horror movies, obviously. Yeah. And so I just read the Wikipedia, plot analysis, plot, plot summaries, and then reviews of them are like, no, I've got no idea.

Yeah. I know exactly what happened at that movie. I'm never going to watch it. Feel a bit sick having read it, but much better than it. Yeah, I'm not great with horror movies. I would like to watch them because obviously they're very, you know, people love them. It's a whole very well-respected art form. Yeah, I used to think of them in the same way I do spicy food as in like, oh, I just can't, but I wish I could. But honestly, at this point, I don't, I don't wish I could. It's horrible. I'm not sad about being a kind of person who doesn't like to watch people die.

No, but considering like I write about TV and film and stuff, I feel like I should be embracing more genre. I used to edit articles for a website about horror movies. Oh yeah, good point. Although you would really have to watch the movies to write about them, I suppose. Yeah. See, I could fact check without watching them because of all these helpful. Anyway, do you want to make a podcast?

Yeah, let's make a podcast. About horror movies. No. No, let's do the final part of Win Smith, I think. Hello and welcome to The True Show Make You for a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, won a stime in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll.

And today is part three of Wintersmith. Yay! The end. Gosh, such a good book. That is. Yeah. Yeah. This is chapters 9 through 13. Note on spoilers before we crack on.

We're a spoiler-like podcast. Obviously heavy spoilers for the book, Winter Smith. 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 Shepherds' Crown, until we get there so you dear listeners can come on the journey with us. Saving money on the ferry by threatening to stick around. Excellent. Right, follow up.

I have things from listeners. Cool. Good. Tell us about. We got a great email from Josian. Yosian? Sorry, I tried. About condiments.

My theory of why mustard does not survive the liminal is twofold. Oh, fantastic. Best opening to an email. The first time we hear about it is, and a gentleman dies holding a sandwich, possibly, and death comments on mustard not making it across. At first, I thought this was because condiments, especially mustard, don't really go off.

They don't die, so there wouldn't be a concept of them in the spirit world. Like emotions are no longer a thing after desk, which made me think about the association between condiments and emotion. Condiments are generally not added by recipe, but by feeling, especially to sandwiches. Your emotions decide how much mayo goes on. Emotions are like condiments in life. In depression, one experiences anodonia,

in capacity to enjoy things or feel happy. Without these, you can attend a party or eat a sandwich, but it feels like there's not much point to it. Much like a ham sandwich without mustard is still functional, but one does feel like there's less of a point. As you discussed in the last episode, whether in its representatives don't do emotions, hence no condiments. Fantastic.

Absolutely. I love that. I would like to add to that, actually, that I don't think we've really explored the kind of liminal nature of a condiment. Yeah. It is very much. It's an edge substance, isn't it? It is. It lives in the back part of the fridge in that forgotten space.

It sits between the ham and the bread in much the same way. The witch stands with... Oh, I'm trailing up. Okay, but... I'm going to put dramatic music behind that, so... Cool. Challenge, not just for... but for all of our listeners, in that case, why does jam transport?

What does jam have? I suppose jam's not technically a condiment. Oh. It's a spread. Anyway, can the teller survive the liminal? We would like to hear your long and unhinged theories about condiments listeners. That isn't something I knew I wanted until today, but now I very much do. Thank you very much.

Would you eat it on its own on toast, I think, establishes the difference between between, say, a jam or a spread or a condiment. Because I would not eat mustard on toast, but I would eat jam on toast. I would probably eat mustard on toast. Yeah, I've seen you eat a way of things on toast. Kimchi and mozzarella is a perfectly adequate crumpet topping franzine. Kimchi is a convent, isn't it, though? Kimchi is a convent.

I love kimchi. Anyway, other couple of quick little things. Stacey on Twitter, could Anoya be Angamarad's volcano goddess. Oh. I have accepted this fully. Oh. I don't think it's ever established. I think I'm going to be Angamaraad's volcano goddess.

All right. Well done, Stacey. We've played in this ship wide open, much as Anoya. Clearly did. Yeah. Until someone pissed off at the storm god that day. Yeah. Or Angamarad.

Hopefully he's now a minion. Well, he's happily having a little sit-down, isn't he? I'll tell you what, if anyone can open a stuck drawer. Yeah. It's a golem. Yep. Get yourself a golem, lad. And a couple of suggestions of collective names for our listeners,

Truthers, which I like, but yeah, has some unfortunate connotations. Comrades, again, I like, but a bit overused in lefty spaces, I feel. However, if you want to call each other comrade, I'm not going to stop you. Geeple slash a fret of Geeple. It is obviously Geepel, isn't it? It is Geepel. Yeah, a fright of Geepel. Which I constantly have to remind myself is short-forter-reveal.

for goat people and not geese people. Could be either. I think geese and goats share a lot of characteristics. There's a lovely day in the village and you were a horrible goat friends with a horrible goose. Aw. That would be a nice sequel.

Honk. Oh, weird co-op version of the horrible goose game, the untitled goose game. Yeah, one of you's a goat. You could eat their trousers. We need to get on this shit right away. You need to be millionaires. Before we get on that, actually, Fronstein.

Do you want to tell us what happened previously on Wintersmith? Yes, fine. No, yeah, I do. Previously on Wintersmith. Tiff parts with Miss Treason and a treasured trinket in quick succession. She's lost her mental and the cottage has an Rweege infestation, but more pressingly, Tiffany's attracted the attention of an amorous elemental. As cool as that hot little thought might be,

the Wintersmith's proposal leaves her cold, and, in a nautical nightmare, she finds, that roses were only the tip of the iceberg. Luckily, Tiffany's now with Nanny Og, a witch uniquely positioned to advise her on matters of the icy heart, fertile feet, and rumbling stomach, actually. Past the cornucopia, will you?

Amazing. Joanna, what happened in this last, this final third of the book? In this final third of the book? In Chapter 9, Tiffany heads to the woods for some creative cornucopia ing and wakes up an acorn. Anagramma is learning slowly and things are getting colder as the snows deepen.

The witches are overworked and the wintersmith gets a nail. Granny tells Tiffany that it's time to go home after a visit to the beginnings of an oak tree. The wintersmith stops for sausage and Tiffany visits anagramma and finds prayers to mistreason. The wintersmith arrives and asks for a dance, but a whole new anagrammer interrupts with a fireball and destroys his snowman. And Tiffany takes flight. In chapter 10, a watching Granny sends the Fegals to pick up a hero and head down to the underworld, while Tiffany flies through a blizzard and stops in two shirts. In Chapter 11, Tiffany gets a belated mail and a gift from Roland.

The Fegals go over the falls and Tiffany flies over the chalk. She's home and as she paints, she becomes herself just a little bit more. In Chapter 12, strange things happen. Are you going round the twist? Anyway, the Fegals wake up, Roland. They want him to save Tiffany by fetching the Summer Queen from the underworld. While they engage in some weapons practice, Tiffany cleans and plans and thinks about Roland. who's still engaging in hero lessons in the armoury.

Wentworth has caught a big fish, and Tiffany finds her horse. As the snows get heavier, Tiffany seized to the flock. In Chapter 13, and now, this is now, and the fire has gone out. Tiffany wakes in a castle of ice, and she's dressed by the light. The winter smith gets a slap for the lambs and promises her an unending life as he shows around a whole new world. We'll take that one as read. Meanwhile, the Fiegel's and Roland are down in the dark,

and Roland faces down his first bogal. He promises to pay the ferryman and ditches his sword for the sake of a place. plan. The summer lady looks like Tiffany and Roland kisses her and makes a run for it. The Wintersmith is promising summer on the chalk and eventually, no more deaths. Back at the ferry, the Fegles finagle their way out and Roland cuts through the bogals with a sword from his thoughts. The Wintersmith gives Tiffany a crown and she tells him the truth about Bofo and about humans. She sees the end of the story and she kisses the wintersmith and brings down the sun. Lastly, Tiffany returns to the cornucopia to its rightful owner and asks for no reward. Two weeks later, Tiffany

makes visits wearing her new iron ring. She visits the oak and goes with Granny, to see the dancers. As she asks about pain and chooses her life, the ring goes in the hat. Finally, Rob reads a book. Oh, well done, Rob. So, the first episode of these, I mentioned that the intro was a flashback. Flash forward. And you said, but that's not quite what happened.

Yeah, no, I misunderstood it, which is weird. I've read this book a bunch of times. This is the first time I was like, oh, no, it is like, and then it flashes to after the flash forward. Okay, cool, cool. But I thought it was like she made a choice and created a different future instead of that one, where she goes to the ice cast instead. And that was, I'm not sure why I thought that, but I was sure of that until, like, this second

note-taking read-through even. Oh, okay, cool, cool, cool, okay. I thought I'd misunderstood it somehow. No, it was definitely me misunderstanding. Cool. Helicopter and loincloth watch. Morag, the buzzard. Ah.

It's a classic, classic helicopter. just shaped a bit like a bird. And for loincloth, Roland's chain mail flapping about his knees. Very much a loincloth. It does flap, therefore it is a loincloth.

I've got a bonus helicopter, if you don't mind. Yeah, yeah. Just the line, really. The broomstick barreled through the black blizzard. Oh, that is such a good line. A bit of alliteration. It is.

Also, quick checking. I know we've had death in the book already, but the ferryman, do we think that is death? Like, because the capitals are the second. The capital's are smaller in my version, but I don't know if that's, that it's an e-book, so that might be nonsense. Yeah. I don't think it is death, but I think it's like a spare bit of him. Yeah.

Do you remember? Yeah. He got most of himself back, but the rat, maybe he just, you know, chipped a bit off again for I'm sick of hanging around in limbo. Yeah. The door's been heightened now. Possibly my favourite stupid joke in the book. Yeah. Something to chew on.

There's so many groans in this book as well as like, oh, it's beautiful. It's how like beautiful and stunning and terrifying the whole book in, there is also just some fantastic puns. Yeah. At Terry Pratchett, what a writer. Quotes, do you want to go first? Yeah. This is when Tiffany is having a bit of a moment in the winter woods. There was life down there in the white webs of fungi and pale new roots,

A half-frozen worm crawled slowly away and burrowed under a leaf skeleton, fine as lace. Beside it was an acorn. Just a lovely bit of very vivid imagery of a small thing. It's like a tiny little photograph in the middle of the book. Yeah, it's like a haiku. Yeah, that was nearly mine, so I'm very glad it was yours. Oh, good, excellent.

I think you've got some similarly beautiful prose. Yes, this is when Tiffany's back on the chalk and getting out her paintbox. Against the whiteness of the snow, all colours seem bright, as if the fact that they were even here gave them some special brilliance. Old harness on the stable wall gleamed like silver. Even the brown and greys that once might have appeared so drab seemed now to have a life of their own. Lovely.

It is lovely. It's beautiful. All right into characters because so much to talk about. Tiffany. She is having a day. She is. She is. We see her finally overwhelmed.

I'd say for the, like really overwhelmed for the first time in this book, certainly, when she's frightened into babbling. Yes. There's so much at her. I think we see it a couple times in this book. We saw it a bit with Miss Truson's Funeral and we see her getting angry a lot. And I think whenever with the witches and with the learning witches, there's this undercurrent of I've got to keep an eye on my anger because it's a cousin's cackling.

That's true. But it, you know, it can be productive, I think, I'm like, muttering to oneself, iron enough to make a nail. Yes. The scene where Tiffany cleans her entire home is relatable. Yeah. Under the fucking table. Under the table. Yeah.

Under the table legs. Mom's like, she'll know what, I'll leave you to it. That's fine. It's not going to hurt. Yeah, it's very grounding activity. Yeah. No, that one really hit me. there's this nice running theme of acceptance with her through the section as well

and accepting as herself and accepting that she is not taking the summer lady mantle that's not how she's going to deal with this situation she's not the summer lady which has there's a really great line I'm not the summer lady she told herself she'll walk across the world and oceans of sap will rise in these dead trees and a million tons of grass will grow in a second can I do that no I'm just a stupid child with a handful of tricks A little heart on oneself, but probably better that way than thinking you can be the queen. Yes. I'm a lady rather.

Yeah. I mean, speaking of acceptance, you've seen it through the book that it's more spelled out in this one, that empathising with the monster, the baddie is what saves her again. And, you know, that's what's, I think that's been a running theme through the Tiffany books. It was the same with the queen and with the Haver. Yeah, very much so. It is, yeah, learning to go, things aren't black and white. Let's work out what's going on here.

You have a motivation. I think that's a lovely thing especially to make a thing of in the children's books because in the adult books there are a few villains that are just, not many, but a few that are just straight up horrible like cars and car syrin, yeah. Reach a guilt.

Yeah, but I think in a children's book it is nice not to Yeah, not to make it black and white, not to have this is the bad guy, this is not the bad guy we must destroy, this is the bad guy we must understand to make the bad things stop. Yeah.

There's a great moment when she's outside the It's still early in the section of the Wintersmiths asking her to dance. The third thoughts tell her, if you dance now, that'll be the end of it. You'll be believing in yourself and trusting in your star, which is a nice callback to We Free Men. And big twinkly things, thousands of miles up in the sky, don't care if they twinkle on everlasting snow. Yes, absolutely.

And I think that's just as she's about to head back to the chalk and it's a really good pivot point for her of like, I think that's almost like where she's choosing. Okay, I need to understand this because I need to know how to deal with that as me and not as the accidental avatar of summer. Whoopsie. One of it I've got about her anger actually was I liked the Griebo parallel, the Griebo and You parallel

when she attacks the Wintersmith and she says something like she wanted to send him scuttling to hide behind the cabinet, so to speak. Yes. She wanted to claw him on the nose. Yeah, yeah. And when she wakes up in the ice castle and she slaps him,

like a wave of colour came flooding back into her mind, it was mostly the redness of rage. How dare he to kill the lambs? Yes. Also, I just really enjoy when the lights turn into a dress. And she was shocked, then angry and wanted a mirror and felt guilty. And then decided if she did find a mirror, she'd only look in it to check how angry she was.

Exactly. And then she spent a long time looking for a while. But you would though, wouldn't you? If you're wearing the norther lights. Obviously you would. Obviously you would. But yeah, when you're still 13, maybe you try and justify it to yourself in the way you don't when you're 30. Yes. I think you have to spend some time searching for mirrors to accept that actually you just want to see yourself. Yeah. She's very weather wax, actually, isn't she? I think weather wax never grew up to that. Ah, wonderful. Well, no one could accuse me, really. all right

so the wintersmith the wind oh one last thing on Tiffany actually there's always one last thing I never move on at the right time

go on she finds the horse in the fish yes and there's this lovely there should have been a role of thunder and there was just

Wentworth in the next room and it's a really great moment because it is this kind of of course this happens because we're in a story and everything is very story-shaped and of course

that's how he finds her I mean this particular story has been referenced in Pratchett before. Is that? I can't, yeah, I can't remember which witcher's book it was that I think Nanny Ogg said something like, oh, you know what, there's things like, yeah, you drop a ring in the ocean, and months later a fisherman comes up and guts it and there's your ring, it happens all the time. Granny's like, does it?

He's like, yeah, I've heard about it. Have you? Doesn't sound like something that happens. Sounds like something you hear about happening. And in this it does because it's all the story. Wintersmith, yeah. So he sort of becomes a man. He tries his best.

He does, he does. He gets the darkness behind the eyes, which is a theme we've had in other books. Yeah, that was a big thief of time thing. Ah, there we go. This idea of figuring out humanity. There's a lot of kind of auditorishness, I think, around the Winter Smith.

Yes, although, not in the same reluctant way. It's not, I feel like the auditors come off as more malevolent, although they don't think of themselves as malevolent. Like they think they're doing what's for the best, but I think it's a different flavour of it. Yeah, and they don't embrace it like the wintersmith does. The point is they feel guilty the whole time.

And the wintersmith is to smell the trees, to feel the pull of the ground, to be solid. And, you know, this is what he's trying to do. he's trying to become more and more a man through the whole thing. I love when he's learning to speak. Oh, yeah. There were a variety of noises

from the roar of a gale to the rattle of the sucking of the surf on a shingled shore after a wrecking storm at sea. Oh, that was a tang twister. Somewhere among them was a tone that seemed right. But yes, just imagining like a man sitting there mouth open, making nature noises.

And then he sings a beautiful opera that he heard once when he was blowing around near the opera house and doesn't know he's not meant to sing the orchestra as well. Well, well. But no one told him. No, who would? It's really fun how he, despite claiming humanity, he remains quite terrifying, both actively and as well as sort of in his naivety.

Yes. Well, I say it is in the way that, you know, Pratchett's tried to lay out. He's terrifying in an enhanced. enhanced way, but in the same way that a storm is terrifying, in the same way that the winter is terrifying. Yeah. In the same way that we look at an AI that would be all-powerful and think it's terrifying. Here is something with far more power than us who would let us go as collateral damage to making the planet peaceful. And it is very order to react to here. Yeah, that was what it was thinking with the, but without that malevolence of stuff.

But there's a moment where he's almost flexing to Tiffany with at this moment. I am a gale wrecking ships a thousand miles away and freezing water pipes in a snowbound town freezing the sweat on a dying man lost in a terrible blizzard which is like there's just I wouldn't be into someone if they started saying that to me

you know yeah but you know that's what he's good at so you can see I know he's good at watercolours he's good at freezing the sweat on a dying man in a blizzard yeah we've all got our niches

you got to find your niche Yeah, yeah, and the Summer Lady, I'm sure, finds it a little more, if not impressive, then part of the ritual. Yes, very much so. You know, in the same way that you do have to wonder if some of those female birds of paradise really rape those odd little dancers, or whether they're just like, I can see you've made an effort here. Yeah, that's lovely, thank you. I appreciate the thought you put into this, even if perhaps the moonwalk wasn't necessary. As I said, every Friday night for several years, it might you? Went some weird clubs, didn't we?

But yes, the terrifying with the naivacy, you know, he's offering this stuff to Tiffany, and he doesn't realize what he's offering is horrific. He doesn't know what horrors he's planning, she thinks, to herself. Yeah. Because it will make everything clean and new and theirs. Yeah.

And so they're like, oh, you don't want it to be all. Well, yeah, you know, a little bit of summer. A little bit of just there. Just for you. Yeah, everything will die once and then it'll be over with. Yeah, and then they won't be dead. Everything will die eventually anyway. So if we do it all at once, then, you know, the net amount of deaths over the eternity will definitely go down.

So what's the problem? I can just see him with a whiteboard pointing at things, explaining this in a corporate meeting. Isicle is the... What's that used? Don't worry about it. Look. corporate wintersmith the terrible the terrible sequel we're glad we didn't get oh we made it so much worse summer oh yeah much better yeah we're not want to see her in the summer snakey yeah we love we love the summer she is absolutely fucking terrifying in a much more

obvious not not more much more obvious in a much in a much hot hot of a not in that sense term, but also in that sense, I guess. But yeah. There's a lot of, there's a great moment where Tiffany like sees the personness in summer humanity, a lot more than she sees it in the Wintersmith. She's beginning to remind Tiffany a lot of anagrama, which is a comparison.

I think you made earlier bit of the book, the sheep girl, pig witch. She didn't sound wise or nice. She was just another person who happened to be very powerful, but not frighteningly smart and frankly, a bit annoying. Yeah, I like how Pratchett points this out with quite a lot of gods, doesn't he? Or see for natural beings. He, you know, all the way back to colour of magic, like fantastic, I think.

Definitely last hero. You just, you learn about these, you know, really charismatic and beautiful and powerful beings, obviously. And then he's like, they are a bit dim. Yeah. Just so you know. Lights not all on. Yeah. A few sandwiches short.

Flap, flap. Her voice as well gets described as a voice full of unpleasant echoes and hisses. Yeah, so summer is very much a snake, hasn't she? Yeah, really leans into that. What do you think the winter animal would be? I'm surprised we didn't get an immediate parallel, or if we did, I haven't. Yeah, they do seem very different shapes. I feel like the winter is, I mean, there's bits in that, but I was reading it earlier.

you know, I stroke the fur of the sleeping bed, even her cave and coarsing the blood of the fishes under the ice. And I think there's something in there. Yeah. Yeah. Because, yeah. I'd say something cold-blooded, but obviously snakes got blood and summer's got that. I think the thing about the Wintersmith is that he doesn't feel alive in the same way. Because summer is about life.

It's about green and lusciousness. So even in the heart of her death space, there is life. Yeah. Whereas Wintersmith is just, is not. It's a frozen robin. Yeah. Speaking of the heart of her desk space, you took out the bit where you were going to read the summer scene and then I made you put it back in. Oh, yeah.

Do you want to read us that most, honestly one of the most beautiful bits in the book, even though it's like a massive contrast to the rest? Although, because maybe. Yes. Although and because. Although and because. God, I'm eloquent. And then the summer filled her up. It must have been only for a few seconds, but inside them it went on for much longer.

She felt what it was like to be. that breeze through green corn on a spring day, to ripen an apple, to make the salmon leap the rapids, the sensations came all at once and merged into one great big, glistening, golden yellow feeling of summer, which grew hotter. Now the sun turned red in a burning sky, and Tiffany drifted through the air like warm oil into the searing calm of deep deserts where even camels die. There was no living thing. Nothing moved except ash. She drifted down a dried-up riverbed with pure white animal bones on the banks. There was no mud, not one drop of moisture in this oven of a land. This was a river of stones. Agates banded like a cat's eye, garnets lying loose, thunder eggs with their rings of colour.

Stones of brown, orange, creamy white, some with black veins all polished by the heat. Here is the heart of summer. It's the voice of the summer lady. Fear me as much the winter smith. Yeah. And that I feel like, that's a really good example of why a lot of this warmth three And I think if you're reading practice and you come across a paragraph like that that you think is beautiful, read it aloud because... Yeah, just take some time to read it aloud to yourself. It's so fun. It's like, yeah, in the same way that poetry, I feel, is almost always best if you can, you know, find a quiet spot and read it aloud to yourself. It's like a fucking great big listening golden yellow or Tiffany drifted, just these internal rhymes and alliterations and the care Pratchett put in. these sentences. It's so

apparent and just absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, that's reading the work of a master. That's someone who's crafted this paragraph, not just written it. Yeah. And there's bits like that all through Discworld, but I think we really are at the peak of that in these

few books. Yeah. You know, that's done going postal in this one. And yeah. It's wonderful moments. So Granny. Granny. Granny.

Oh, geez. so nice in this one in comparison. She is nice, but... Gentle, I should say, not nice, she wouldn't like nice. Actually, speaking of gentleness right at the beginning when she finds the oak chute, the shoot from the acorn, a pair of skinny but powerful hands gently dragged and sculpted the snow and dead leaves together

to make a tall, thin wall around the chute. And then I like, she leaves no footprints. You never teach anyone else everything, you know. Can I say, rather lovely bit of symbolism. Tiffany doing something cool and granny coming along to build a little protection around it. Very much, very much a little, a tree version

of what's going on between the two of them, I would say. And just as with the two of them, not letting it be seen, not letting Tiffany know that she hands that protective wall around her and not letting Tiffany know right away what she's doing with the acorn until it's better for her. And not letting deer nibble a branch

No, wait, no, never mind, no, I've gone too far. Our metaphors are sprinting off, aren't they? So I like Tiffany's final twig of the, like, the final layer of the anagramma plan after, you know, Granny says, I would expect no less of you. And Tiffany realizes that she was going, expected to help all along. Oh, no. I have to say, though, I think even so, she's being a little uncharitable towards Granny. And I think there's room for us to interpret, not another layer, but a slightly tweaked layer.

and that Granny might not love Anna Grammar, but I think Granny does not want to see Anna Grammar come to harm, and I think part of it was protecting her, because this was really the only way that Anna Grandma was going to grow up to be a competent witch. Yeah, she needed that help, and she needed to accept it from people. She was never going to accept that sort of help from someone like Granny Weatherwax,

because she was Awijesians until... She had to get out from under Awish to them be helped. Are we still I die? and it's also about protecting the village, making sure there is someone there who can care for those people. Yeah. The studying. What I like about, you know, depending on how,

what granny's motivations were, but I like, you know, as Tiffany thinks about it, it looked good, all the witches would know, Mrs. Earwig's pupil couldn't cope, but Tiffany Aking organized all the other girls to help out and didn't tell anyone. Yeah. It kind of relies on everyone knowing that Tiffany's grannies,

despite not a fish She's not grannies But you know what I mean She is Despite not official She doesn't live with her She's not training with her in that sense But she's she's granny's witch

Yeah Yeah Yeah And I think people do you know Don't they Because once you've heard about the chalk Supporting her against the Queen of the Ferry's and the Hiver Yeah

I think you know that she's grannies Don't you? Granny calls the mountains And Granny makes a certain show of it at the witch trials, you know, giving Tiffany her hat, being there as part of it. Yeah. But I like that as a detail.

And yes, speaking of the horse coming back, Granny, understanding all along that it was going to. Pike, was it? Usually a salmon. There are obviously real world, not real world, but round world stories about the fish and the thing. I'll try and remember to link a couple of the nice ones. Ah, yes, the fish and the thing, my favourite favourite. The fish and the thing. one of Aesop's lesser known works

there's no moral to the story he just didn't know what jewellery was called but I like the payoff of when Granny says I see you got your little trinket back it's right after Tiffany's had a go at her and so yeah with the absolute lack of response to it it was like having a bolt of lightning

and not getting any thunder and that is the share one of the shared characteristics of Nanioggan Grading Weather works, of course, and as the tension is building, there you go, nope. Yeah. It's going to be much more effective.

Don't rise to it. I think Nanny generally does it a little bit better than Granny. Granny's a little bit more easily baited sometimes, I'd say. I'd say so. Yeah. Speaking of Granny, babe, let's talk about Anna Grandma. Yeah, all right. This whole thing of being taught while refusing to acknowledge that you are

being taught is like a tough read because it's kind of relatable. Like I've known people like that, but I'm sure I've also occasionally been like that. Yeah, I expect so. Yeah, it's a teenager. It is very teenager. I like Miss Hawking is a good witchy name. That's more Lanker witch than Anna Grammar is. They're calling her Miss Hawking by the end.

Miss Hawken, be careful. She turns into a terrible monster when she's angry. I've seen her. She's all right with us. I think that's a very good compromise she's found there become the Bofo monster on demand

Yes I think she'll have She'll get to have a bit more of a normal life than mistreason Because of that Yes I love when she appears

As the Bofo monster For the first time It was a witch You could not mistake it She It was probably a she But some things are so horrible That worrying about

How to address a letter To them is silly Had a hat with a point It curled like a snake Like hard relate Big gender mood there But are you going for too horrific to address a letter to properly, are you? Yes.

That's the gender of the day. I like that. That is the gender of the day. Somewhere around 18 Macbys. And the just nice, funny little thudding joke, she runs off the Winter Smith in her horrifying witchy things. Practically, you know, she sends Tiffany home, oh, and I'll be down tomorrow with some physics for your little boy, Mrs. Carter. Yeah. I mean, even her attack on the Wintersmith is a nice little thud thing, isn't it?

She threw a fireball. His leg fell off. That was a very funny line in the middle of that scene. Also, a fucking good on her, you know? Yeah, I know. I love her story arc in this. She's done really well here. And I think this is a really good example of when confidence,

when the kind of confidence that Anagrama has really does win out because Tiffany is having a massive crisis and doubts herself quite a lot. And at this point is all catching up with her a bit. And Anagrama is able to go, well, fucking. run then. Take the decent broomstick. Get the fuck out. Also, also, I will say, I will say I feel like she kind of lavoured on this boy's rain a little bit.

By a little parallel there, she threw the fireball at the water. Fantastic. As is correct. I think. Lava on the rain, not the other way around. Yeah. Oh, God, that sounds like a 90s song, isn't it? A little solid cooking advice.

Wait Don't trust me Roland What are in? He's having a bit of a day of it as well It is His whole thing is Some of the funniest day on the saddest bits in the book

So many sad bits in the book Yes I better go and see my father It's well past lunchtime If I don't see him every day He forgets who I am Oh I'm followed by the extremely obvious parallel of hating the...

I hate things that try to take away what you are. I want to kill all of them. When you take away memories, you take away the person, everything they are. Yeah. Which is a particular tough read as well, because you can't ignore the full context of this is before Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's, but... Yeah, it was very oof moment there.

Very oof moment. And the limbo underworld thing is very much reminiscent of a, you know, a horrible ward of old times, you know. Yeah, yeah. And a scene in the Magnus Archives, if anybody can... Oh, yeah. If anyone got to be one of the seasons that that's in. Anyway.

But I like these idea of him as a real hero, and Granny explains it to Robbers, you're too brave. He must do it in fear and terror, like a real hero should, because he's got to overcome the monsters in its head, the ones he brings with him. and when he does face down the Bogle he sort of whispers to Rob,

I was too scared to run. I was like, yeah, that's fine, but you didn't run. That's what matters. Yeah, it's fine. Don't worry why. Yeah, it'd be fine if you got your feet stuck in tar. The point is we're okay. Yeah, but on the next bit of story.

And Roland has to. But it's funny because we know it's the opposite. I have that moment of self-doubt that because he's scared, he can't be the hero. And when he was standing there with his two heavy sword just before he went down, it was very Bilbo vibes to me. Oh, yeah.

And then eventually he got his sting, of course. Yes, he did. And goes absolutely apeship with it until Rob has to promise they can come down with some sandwiches and make a date of it. Absolutely. I will also say, he went closer with a glow crackling around him because no man wants to be a coward in front of a cheese. It was a wonderful part of that particular arc. Yeah. Yeah.

And him realizing that he does remember the Fegals, they are real. Okay, one of them was a cheese that rolled around of its own accord. Nobody was perfect. Cheese jokes always good. I love Horace. Oh, blue cheese and humming. Sorry, I've got to acknowledge the worst, best pun in the book. Nah, nah, nah, nah.

Fnar, fernivele magazine. Oh, no, I was doing a horace impression. Oh, I see. I thought you were just doing a terrible pun laugh. No. He crooned to himself. Cheesy croon. Also, Roland sends Tiffany watercolours.

Watercolours. Watercolors. With different punctuation. Watercolors brackets emotional. He thought she was jealous of having watercolours maybe. Yeah, he sort of thought she'd like to try them. He didn't hear back about the watercolours and he thought maybe, oh no, that was insensitive of me. She doesn't have any nice things up there.

She'll be cross about that. I'll send her some watercolours. And it's got turquoise. That's a fancy one. That is expensive. He's right. But Tiffany is delighted. by the watercolours.

Yes. Big vibes from Monstrous Regiment. The brother, what's his name? Oh, her brother Paul who paints. Someone had found her box of paints. It's very her. It's very him.

Yeah. It is. And then just quickly, before we move on, Wentworth. Wentworth. He's grown up a bit. I like that he's completely unaffected by the experience of being bait for Jenny Green Team. and he's now a very good fisherman.

He seems like he's got a touch of the magic around him, isn't he? Just enough to drop the lure right in the mouth of the pike. And I love the... And it weighs at least 20... It weighs at least 30 pounds! Tiffany putting a hand on the scale a bit, gosh, yes. Yes, 23 pounds. Mum will do it and lovely ginger sauce.

Yes. And just lastly, Dimfney Astute. Dimfney snoot Dimfney stout Who I want to acknowledge I'm not sure Is this Dymphony or Dymphony era I might have written it down wrong

On one of these large sets of notes Oh who cares It's fine, it's lovely Whichever way This is a sort of one of I'm not going to read out the whole thing Obviously Thank you

Because that would be silly But this is one of my favourite things That Pratchett does Which is just the very long run on story With little interjections Yeah So he walked funny You know lifting his legs

Like a trotting horse and also who was kind of like shiny but we get all sorts in here it does not pay to make personal remarks we had a bunch of werewolves in here last week and they were just like you and me except we had to put their plates on the floor right yes this human will he sat down at a table and you've already got the comedy of the wintersmith sitting down and saying i am human i have eaten human sausage by with owel and our curtsies because you never know I've eaten sausage that's very death yes that's similar that's that hot father, isn't it?

Gosh, he does the same thing a lot. This is when he goes off to have a curry in my head. Ah, yeah. Mort. Yeah, but that's the thing. He does know him to eat a curry. He enjoys it and does it regularly. So there are little bits of being human that death does understand.

But then there's lots of other stuff. He tries to get drunk and he doesn't quite manage it. Yes. That was an interesting one. There's a lot of death stories where he's sort of trying to learn more little bits of humanity. Whackiness ensues. No.

His rag tag here's our rag tag bunch of anthropomorphic personifications with a complex about not being able to eat normal food. Auditors. Wintersmith. Death.

Considering Sammer's the one with the cornucopia, she seems pretty chill about you know, not experiencing things like human sausage. I should not have put that like that. I'm so sorry. locations. Quite a rather skim past that. Big fucking ice palace.

Big fucking ice palace. Which I like that Tiffany is immediately not impressed, but classously offended because only rich knobs have all these space for not doing stuff in. That's true. That's true. And chairs that exist. Yeah, at least this one has a bit of furniture. Yes, chairs that exist for ladies to lounge in.

But yeah, this is very. very, perhaps it's good at this, building places that have been built by not quite humans. Like death domain with the furniture that's attached to the wall and you can't use it. Yeah, like the bar of soap you can't use. And then the actual used bar of soap next to it, all the solid towels. Yeah, and yeah, they know the shape of it. Or in Ruperman, the mall that comes out of. Yeah.

And everything's the right shape. The uncanny valley thing where it's just there's bits you can see and it's not, right, but it's so close to being right that it makes all the bits that aren't right more wrong. Yeah. But good try. I could try on interior design then, bud. Oh, and Tiffany, in the spirit of inquiry, seeing if the fig leaves come off the new statues. God, goddess. Is it tart? It does sound like there were quite a lot of earns.

Okay, no, that's fine. That's fine. As long as there were enough earned, then it's suitable for a 13-year-old girl. And yes, the underworld, which we've talked about a bit already. Gone to rack and ruin. Wonderfully horrible. I like the detail that Fegals have been there before and knew it when it was a proper underworld and had the three-headed dog and whatever before the bogals moved in. Yes. And now it's all done.

If you don't supervise it, you know, wear and tear on your underworld. Yeah. This is what happened. This is the liminal equivalent of brambles growing up in your garden. what you need to do, you need to get a man in. Well, the imaginary sword. Yep, every couple of the termities. Have a good clear out.

Have a good clear out. Before it gets to this state and that's important because now they're in the foundations. Yep, there's not much. They're coming across the river. Why have you gone Australian? I don't know. France and the metaphors run away again. Quick, catch it.

Catch it. Get it with a sword. Catch that metaphor, driver. Let's take a break. Yeah, all right. I think that's for the best. Little bits we liked. Little bits we liked.

The first ones are a little bit sad, I suppose. But after reading and kind of being briefly annoyed by the shrine of treason that the villagers have set up, Tiffany kind of realizes that what they're doing is similar to the tobacco packets that are left on. Granny King's sheep hut, shove it up. It says, Granny King, who hurts the clouds in the blue sky, please watch my sheep. Granny aching, kill my son, granny aching, find my lambs. They were the priors of small people, too afraid to bother the gods in their high places. They trusted them what they knew.

They weren't right or wrong. They were just hopeful. And it's so wonderful because it comes at a point where Tiffany is dealing with a god. Yeah. I was very reminiscent as well of the kind of, Catholic especially, but I think a lot of monotheistic religions that end up with people worshiping saints or other smaller people. Or like a monstrous regiment where they worship the Duchess instead of Nuggan because she's more relatable. In Catholicism, it's the idea of intercession.

You pray to a saint and ask them to intercede with God on your behalf. Ah, right. But it's also been written about as a form of. of paganism that's survived, basically. Yeah, and all the ideas of Terry Pratchett, these ideas of small gods that come about from just hope and the prayer. Marmalade. So Granny is getting robbed her face his fears,

and so she makes him spell marmalade. Mramlad. Ramlad. Mram lad. And there's just, it's a little running Pratchety joke. it's not the first time it's come up of marmalade being a particularly difficult word word is an amazing morris don't expect me to pronounce tricky words like marmalade yes and i was like i i'm sure it's turned up in other disquired books as well the amazing morris example was the one that came

straight to mind but i was also sure it was a joke from like the original winnie the pooh the a mllum books and it's not i i i checked okay um i was conflating two different things which is a joke about owl not being the best at spelling so he spells happy birthday hippie pappy bethuth yeah that sounds right and uh and a little a mien poem about um called the king's breakfast which is about marmalade huh which is one of my favourite little i love aa miln poems i had a lovely little time trying to find that and instead just reminding myself the dairymaid said fancy and went to tell his majesty oh marmalade it's just a funny word isn't it yeah It adds into our whole right to us about condiments and jams, but why is marmalade funny?

Yeah, do they? Yeah. Don't tell us that joke if you know it. Yeah, no, please, we've heard it. Oh, so the Iron Enough to Make a Nail song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A, so the full poem is in the book, as much as I always highly recommend the Steel Ice Band, Winter Smith, concept album,

skip that song or it will get fucking stuck in your head and every time you read this book it will come back into your head it's totally disagree i absolutely love that song listen to it live with it in your head as i have done for the last month okay it is beautiful it just it won't go well with marmalade it does go well with marmalade um but i was i was looking for origins of the poem as we do because we like to look at these things there's uh conversate terry pratchit in conversation with dr jacklin Simpson, which you've linked to before. It's on Folklore Society website. It's recorded in 2010 at

the Disquil Convention. But little excerpt from that that relates to this. So Jacqueline Simpson, one of the things I like about folklore and Disgueld, it's not only rural, it's all over the chalk, but you also have urban folklore. You have children's games and beliefs. And then Terry Pratch says, oh, the rhyme I made up for Wintersmith.

And Jacqueline Simpson says, oh, the thing about iron enough to make a nail. I can't remember if that had a real. You asked me about it at the time and I've never found a source for it, but like you, I'm convinced that it was real or at any rate something like it was real. I think I remember it being in a sort of science for kids' book back in the 30s.

And Pratchett, you know, remsy definitely invented the ends of it, hands enough to hold a child, but I don't think that's quite it, but that's what it is in that conversation he was having with Jacqueline Simpson. And you had a bit of a further quick look to this which got not quick. Yeah. So I did my usual

winter smith searches through the old dot found up project site, the old newsboards. And somebody mentioned that iron enough to make a nail. Google suggested to them that it originated with Professor CEM Jod, which by the way,

if you don't know anything about him, a fascinating character. I'll link something about him. But my Google fool, says the commenter doesn't extend to where he said it. The last three nines mentioned by Tiffany later don't seem to be fair. Pratchett says in reply, believe me or not, but I've never heard that version when I was a kid, and still now, you get slash got these,

the human body contains enough iron to make half an ale articles to make an ale article. So I dug up a list of ingredients and assembled the song from scratch, finding suitable uses that would work on Tiffany's world. The farm self would be a pest control and fumigant, for example. an Edwardian version says it would take iron in the blood of, it would take the iron in the blood of a thousand men to make a plowshare. Grimmer, I would say. But yeah.

So this person's Google foo may not have extended. And I took that as a challenge. So first of all, I'm guessing where he saw it and somebody else below says was that Jode was quoted, me using scarecoy. there by a few religious sites who were basically saying he was some kind of, you know, they were using him as a bad example, saying that he was saying that humans are only made up of these things, you know, enough fat for seven bars of soap and enough potash to blow up a toy crane was one of the quotes. And I don't know if he said this on the radio, but it's not where I found it. It wasn't in the list that I found anyway. I potash enough to blow up a small crane or whatever it was. What? Anyway.

So it had been lazily taken out of context and misreferenced by a bunch of religious sites. There was one Christian book as well that put it down to a 1951 book called Rediscovering Faith or something. And it wasn't in that fucking book. I went to read a fucking book. It was in a book from a few years earlier called Philosophy for Our Tebrosephemy for Our time, it is quoting B.A. Howard's list, and the list in the subsequent paragraph from B.A. Howard's book, the proper study of mankind, it's called. He says he is quoting a Dr. T.E. Lawrence, and I didn't go any further back, so we're going with this book. Enough water to fill

a 10 gallon barrel, enough fat for seven bars of soap, carbon for 9,000 lead pencils, phosphorus for 2,200 matchheads, iron for one medium-sized nail, lime enough to whitewash a chicken coop, and small quantities of magnesium and sulphur. It's not very poetic.

And these talking about this, none of them are talking about it in the context that these are the ingredients to make a human. Yeah. They all go on to talk about, these are philosophers. Yeah. They're talking about out there

is this secret ingredient that makes life basically, that makes a person. behind the eyes. Yes, the dark behind the eyes, the soul, whatever they're calling it, and different people call it different things. But there was one paragraph in this chapter of Howard's book, which I thought was very practically pretty pratchety.

So it is with man. He is certainly a compound of carbon and iron, but he is more than that. He is also a bundle of inherited dispositions, a student, a citizen, an artist, a shipwright, a statesman and a dreamer. Some people regard him as an enterprising ape, others are a fallen angel. Still others think that both ape and angel are inextricably mixed in him that he is at once a quarrelsome bit of protoplasm

and the image of God Quarlesome bit of protoplasm going on my business of God. Externally he is a member of a complicated human society eking out his living on the surface of a globe. Internally he is a mass of swarming fears and hopes. In short, he is a living thing and as such he is in a state of flux

he is evolving. What he was once he is not now, he is now, he will not be in a million years hence. This time of entity does not yield up its secrets under chemical analysis. Wow. Which I think is perfect for this book. Yeah. And if Pratchett never read this and like subconsciously internalised it,

I'm sure he would have enjoyed it. It's a very hymn book. Yeah. This is less a look at the origin of that poem by way and more a look at what happens if you allow Francine on Google unfettered. It's fascinating. I really take it as a challenge if someone says they couldn't find something. Well done.

Thank you. That was really interesting. Patrons, you may get something a little more in depth written up because, believe it or not, I stop myself there. One last little bit from me. Yes, please. When the Fegals are preparing to go over the falls, and Nanny says, you know, no man has ever gone over these falls and lived to tell the tale. And just the fun thudding humor of Mr. Parkinson's. like, all right, yeah, but he had a really bad stutter.

Yeah, but he wrote it down, I fall over the falls. It's quite interesting. Such which is a broad bickering. It is. We haven't had a lot of nanny and granny banter in a while, and that brought me a lot of joy. Yeah, absolutely. Ridiculous.

The last little bit I've got is the shape of summer. Tiffany is talking to the summer lady. Yes. What's your real shape? And the summer lady says, the shape of heat on a road, the shape of the smell of apples. Nice reply to any thought. We're not helpful as such.

But still, I enjoyed it. And I thought, again, what's the parallel here? What's the, A, we could all think of fun shapes of summer and winter for ages. So please listeners, send them to us. Yes. Answers carved into the smell of an apple. Thank you. Or on the label on a jar of mammalade.

So for me, I reckon the shape of winter. What's it going to be? It's the crunch of frozen grass on the foot probably or the crunch of ice on a puddle. That squeak, you know. That bruise from the first time I fall over on the ice. Not the last. The first one is very winter.

The last one is just despair. Yeah. The over fuck's sake of winter. The whole fucking hell. I think there's something in the smell of the last leaves. dying. I was thinking about it. I was walking today and obviously the leaves have all fallen but they're still I don't want to say rotting, they are rotting but it's not nasty

but they're dying and they're damp on the paths and we don't really go into decay do we as part of this season, their cycle of seasons in this book which is interesting because would decay be a winter or a summer event? I think of decay is autumn. Yeah. Not in a bad way, you know, it's part of of a cycle, but I think of autumn's decay and spring as growth and summer as established and winter is what happens after the decay. Yeah.

So they both have a part in it, we think. Yeah. I think they are the in-betweens, which is why they're my favourite seasons. Yeah. Because, you know, I love a bit of liminal, liminal seasons. Well, into the bigger stuff. From the little shapes of winter, into the bigger ideas of winter. Very nice.

Thank you. Yeah, just kind of the effective way that Fratchett invokes winter, invokes evokes, both, I suppose. Provokes even. I am glad to be reading this in winter, by the way, as a note. I think it definitely helps us get into the field of it well-sheduled. Thank you. As always, it's very hard to imagine being warm, and I think that's the kind of way you need to be when you're reading this book, or it helps. I wonder, maybe it's an experiment we should try reading a bit of it in July and see if it helps.

Cool us down. Quite probably. But anyway. What's the Pratchett book we should bring to Walmart? Oh. One of the, oh, probably small gods, right? There's a lot of desert. Oh, yeah.

And it makes you glad you're not there. Good idea. Anyway, sorry, sorry. But anyway, he kind of, because this is in these tiny rural communities, as far. I think it does really good job of kind of capturing the desperation and the bleakness of the winter. Like, before we had modern amenities to make it as bearable as it is. And things like the wolves entering the tunnels that they'd have to dig between the houses, I thought was a wonderful kind of example of that, oh my God. Like, I thought that was a really good way to show how bad stuff

had got. The wolves entering the tunnels and the birds freezing out of the sky. And the, you using the cornucopia because otherwise people will just go unfed. Yeah. I was fucking lucky it was there. And it was there in that village and those villages. But, you know, actually, it's a good point. I mean, it's not really explored how many people died. No.

But, yeah. And writing wise as well, I kind of wanted to highlight the contrasts that he does really well between saturation and desaturation. And your quote went into this really well, the kind of... the intense colours against the white snow exactly and there's a few of these throughout so when the oak tree is first growing

the green seemed to reflect off the snow around it winter stole colour but the tree glowed and like you said also like a wave colour came flooding back into her mind this is when she's arguing more than arguing with the winter smith when she's waking because she's sort of

temporarily in the land underway the white chalk. Yeah. Yes. And yeah, but it is, I would say, the bright colors returning through the winter desaturation. That's kind of the imagery you're getting there. And I love it because I'm very affected by the idea of spring returning. Just like, it's plucking at the heartstrings ones.

Like, here comes the sun, the Beatles song, makes me very emotional. and more so now because I listen to it a lot during lockdown number one. But yeah. No, I'm hard really. I mean, there's a reason I've got a cherry blossom tattoo. There's a really beautiful line from her Philip Larking poem. The trees are coming into leaf like something almost being said.

Lovely. And yet there is a lot of very good poetry about winter and about spring, obviously. The Snowman by Wallace Stevens. One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees, pine trees crusted with snow, and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruce is rough in the distant glitter of the January sun and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind. I kind of go something like that. It's very, um, that's lovely. Yeah. But just the bleak and the sparse and the lack of life is quite an impressive thing to write so effectively.

and a few writers do it very well and Pratchett is definitely one of them. I also just wanted to acknowledge how very narnia quite a lot of this is. Now, I'm not sure we really went into the CS Lewis of it all, but especially in this one, the room of statues in the Ice Palace was very Lion Witchmored, very Ice Queen.

I did read a little bit of the Lion, The Witch in the Wardrobe this afternoon, just to reacquaint myself. Oh, it's charming. By gum, one of them says at one point. Just on the bleakness I'd be remiss if I didn't mention one of my very favourite poem slash Christmas songs in the bleak midwinter by Christina Rossetti, which go and find a beautiful version of it to listen to or go and read it aloud to yourself and it's just there's something very warm at the heart of the bleakness that that poem captures perfectly. Also, just a little shout out to Fimble Vetter, the winter that proceeds. the end of the world in Norse mythology.

Oh, yeah. One you'll be familiar with because you performed a monologue. I don't know if it mentioned the winter that you'd have read around it because I know you. There was definitely a bit of fimbleda that are in there. Yeah. And just a little sniff that I found to do with that. The mythology might apparently be related to the volcanic winter of 536, which resulted in a notable drop in temperature across northern Europe.

and makes me think of the winters like this in wintersmith and how many particularly bad ones we've had over the millennia and what people in different time periods put it down to. Yeah. What if this year we did not kill the king of the bean properly? Or what if this year we didn't dance the right dance? The year the Morris didn't come and winter turned into a miserable autumn. And of course, we like a volcanic winter because we've talked before about that volcanic summer winter

with all the writers and the Byron and the Shelley's and the... Yeah, the Villar-Diottie. In the nipple nightmare. In the year without winter and the eyeball nipples. I really hope people listening to this... Year without summer. Year without summer, I really hope people listen to this. Actually, I'm amazed this doesn't come up before.

Yeah. When we're talking about year without summer. Volcanic winters are one of my favorite little things I like to read lots about. Nuclear winter, does that count? I mean, it's a different flavour. Yeah, less fun. Yeah, understandable. Yeah, so the kind of the scariness of a winter like that, as I said, is very well done as well.

and I think that's particularly in the bit about the birds freezing. So birds froze into their twigs, horses and cows standing still in the field, frozen grass like daggers, no smoke from any chimney, a world without death because there was nothing left to die and everything glittering like tinsel. Yeah. It's like the White House decorations when Melania Trump was involved, wasn't it? Oh, yeah. Horrifying.

And speaking of horror. Yes. Yeah. So I nearly had a good segue with scariness, and then I just thought of the white house. There we go. To jump on your saturation, the colour point, there's to jump on your saturation, Dad, I say. When the wintersmith settles into his physical form, colours crept in, always pale, never bright. And there was a rider shining in the comfortless light of the mid-sum, winter sun.

And there's the thing, this book has some incredible horror elements and it does it so well. It does a slow build in a short amount of time because the prologue opening chapter, the flash forward thing establishes what Tiffany is eventually going to have to face. And it's scary and it's horrifying. But you've almost forgotten it by this point. Yeah, exactly. You know, her father almost throwing himself on the fire. But because that's been established early on, then yeah, the book doesn't have to keep,

ramping to it because we already know it's coming. So the sort of beginning and middle section of the book is relaxed and it's funny. You know, you have the chickens and the ham sandwiches and watch it. It found your feet. And the book relaxes for a bit until you start getting into the section and it's building towards that happening and the fire going out. And it starts bringing in these horror elements. So we're racing towards the confusion and you get this amazing ominous tension building. The italic text.

Oh, yeah, these little interludes, sometimes it would thaw just a little and then freeze again, that fringed every roof with icicles. And at the next door, they stamp to the ground like daggers. Daggers. Diggers. Such a great word and he uses it a couple of times. It's such a good, terrifying winter word. Absolutely. And there's right at the very beginning, like the opening pages of Chapter 9, once the forest had been pretty, now it was hateful.

Dark trunks against snowdrifts, a striped. world of black and white she longed for horizons. Very snow white, the Disney animation, reminded me of. Oh yeah. That used to really freak me out when I was a kid. Yeah, I can see it. I haven't watched it in many, many, many years, but I can see those scenes very clearly. And yeah, and like I said, the descriptions of the winter smith.

We talked about the dark behind the eyes thing. Him being like this auditor-like creature, the finding his voice and the way it does relevant to all these things. And what you said, the birds froze into their twigs. And it's everything glittering. Yeah. It's the fact that this, this horrifying end will be pretty.

Yes. And that's the thing, tinsel's not, tinsel's not beautiful. Tinsul's not gorgeous. Tinsle's not, tinslet's pretty. It's pretty. It's a tini word. It's a tini word and it's a tini,

horrible, sharp feeling. Yeah, this whole kind of flavor of description in this part of the book is my justification for hating minimalist Christmas deneration. Yeah, that's fair. I respect that. Speaking as a maximalist. There's just something underlying about the whole thing.

The whole book reminds me of Hawfrost, which is one of my favourite parts of winter, and it was so amazing, like being in the South West when it was really frosty a few days ago, I'm being up on crunching through it. But there's something about how it's all these tiny, sharp pieces. It's so evocative. Yeah, and you can spend, it takes me twice as long to do a dog walking hawfrosse because I will just stop and look and take photos of every little bit of nature covered in these tiny daggers. And it's harsh and it's uncaring.

The uncariness. And yeah, and beautiful within that. And then, yeah, the book has all these little moments, Tiffany resting in two shirts. It was a dark sleep. And then as we start heading towards that flash forward, the chapter that ends with Dad. we must see to the flock. You get next day was a good day right up to the point

where it became a tight little bowl of terror. And something little something that's perhaps it uses a couple of times like hot little thought. There's just something really like sharply, quickly poetic about it. It's like staccato rhythm that builds up to this horror stuff.

Yeah. And then sort of as a contrastic but equally horrifying, you get limbo where everything is slow and blurred and fuzzy around the edges and... Yeah, much scarier for me. Unreal.

Shadows parted and a very old woman in tattered threadbare clothes shuffled past, dragging a large cardboard box behind her. It bounced awkwardly as she tugged at it. That, to me, sounds like something that Fratchett has seen. And it's equally horrifying in a completely different texture. Yeah. And it's kind of... There are two types of horror in that underworld as well, right?

Because you've got the needle teeth and the... Yeah. And you have this... There might be sharp edges and I don't know where they are and what they are. Yeah, yeah. It's not confronted. It's around the corner and it's in the shadows and it's in the corner of your eye, but you can't really see it.

Yeah, yeah. Gov. God, it's good, right? But having... like really evoking that feeling of that harshness, that dagger like cold, makes the calmer and the happier moments even more contrasting. The prayers, you know, the prayers of small people to afraid to bother the gods. There's something sweet and calm about that moment right before everything kicks off.

Yeah. Like a quiet moment of acceptance that this is what the people need. This is a successor to a lot of Hogfather, isn't it? Oh, yeah. and there's when Tiffany's painting and she realizes, and I thought you'd like this as an artist. Oh, thanks. It was all about light and dark. If you could get down on paper, the shadow and the shine, the shape that any creature left in the world, then you could get the thing itself. Yes.

It's a very witty way to think about it, I think. Try to capture the thing on the paper. It is. And it's gorgeous. And it, like, there's so much of the book in just that one little phrase of creating. the thing itself and needing to understand the shape of the things. Yeah, to do it in writing. Yeah.

Another thing entirely. And all of this pulls together, you know, this horror, this ramping up, these great little thudding moments of comedy in it, by being this gorgeous story-shaped story. And, you know, exactly what I'm going to say, the power of belief. The power of belief. Oh, we love the power of belief on this book.

Oh, we should have had a little sound effect for the power of belief. We need a little power of belief fanfare. I'll see if I can find a beautiful. But the Wintersmith's being defeated not by being beaten, but just by the very human nature of belief. You know, Tiffany explains to him this idea of Bofo, how humans change the world by fooling themselves. And to go back to Hogfather, it's believing that, you know, a mere ball of flaming gas would illuminate the sky versus the sun coming up.

And you get this sweet moment she'd cry later for the Wintersmith who wanted to be. human. I cried there. That was my little over the edge moment. Just Tiffany knowing she would cry for the Wintersmith because he the empathy she shows

after showing so much terror. She's a wonderful character Tiffany. I think part of what makes it so wonderful and makes the empathy so possible is, you know, if you think back to We Free Men when she kind of feels she becomes one with the chalk and has the power of it all within her and just for a second gets to understand everything.

And, you know, the other side of that coin is knowing it for a second and having to give it up. She knows how to give things up. She could if she wanted to, you know, try and have the power of a goddess and dance with the winter's myth, but she doesn't. Yeah. And she's given up power before. She starts tapping her foot again, though.

Granny puts her boot on. No. Nope. I like the granny nose to look for that as well because Granny would have. And there's a very sweet moment. You get this payoff to this theme of balance that was introduced at the beginning, the centre of the seesaw. She's pulling the sundown, and she has to maintain the balance,

and she remembers what the old Kelder said. There's a wee bit of you that will know Melton Flo, in my best Scottish accent. And she kisses the wintersmith. And brings the sundown. That is so me. Speaking of poetry, because obviously there's the really, really obvious thing that calls to mind as well

Frost to flame which is the Fire and Ice poem by Robert Frost Do you have it in front of you? Of course I have it in front of me I also haven't memorized

It's a very short poem It's one of my favourists Some say the world will end in fire Some say an ice From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favour fire But if it had to perish twice

I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction Ice is also great And would suffice We could do an episode On that poem I am an episode episode on that poem.

Wow. I like that. Anthroponic personification of a Robert Frost poem on your business card. Yeah. Honestly, there's no one going to go from here. What a fucking book. Francine, have you got an obscure reference video for me? Yeah.

You sound really sad about it. I am because I don't want to move on from that scene. I just want to live in it. Obviously, I don't want to live in it. But it's just, oh, fucking hell. You've already. listeners, I hope, you know, we don't need to agonise over every single word of it. So, Uber Vold Vinter.

Uber Vold Vinter. Obivald Vinter. Yeah, the winter threw back his head and sung the overture to Uber Vld Vinter by the composer. What are you doing of? I hadn't read that one out to myself before. So the composition itself is likely, I got this from one of the Discworld Fandemned wikis, likely drawn from. Piotr Ilyitch, Chikovsky.

Chikovsky. Why did I just struggle with the one word I know? Piotr Ilovich Tchaikovsky. Piotr Iliich Chikovsky. Symphony number one in G minor, I think, called that in English. Winter day dreams. And so it is, the bit of Russian there translates briefly to

it's got colder again or the colds come back. Yeah. So, yeah. Beautiful. We'll link to Chikovsky's Symphony number one. And everybody can have a good, doing better Russian than me. I might go and have a listen. I love a bit of Chikovsky.

Everything should have more cannons. I doubt this symphony does. No, but score more things for cannons. Now we're with David Arnold about the Good Omen score. Could he put some cannons in? Celestial cannons. I go by many names. Right, we're just going to run away with another metaphor if we keep talking.

Catch that metaphor! Catch that metaphor, driver! That is everything we are. Right, no. That is everything we are going to say about Winter Smith. We could go on a lot longer, but I'm sure we've all got things to do with our days. We're sorry to have kept you so long. thank you for being here

this could have been an email this podcast could have been an email that would have been a hell of an email absolutely we do not need written proof that we're like this this is why I stopped doing the

transcripts no other reason no other reason right we are going to be back sometime around we are sometime around Christmas Eve also

with our special hogs watch episode you are have until Friday, Friday, the, literally just 22nd, to get in your letters to the Hogfather, as well as any questions you might have for us,

so we can do a little Q&A bit. Send us stuff. We need you guys to make content for us, basically. Yeah, no, come on, it's Christmas. We've got a bit to do. We need material for the bit. Yeah, send us your letters to the Hogfather. We promise they will get to the Hogfather. fourth hogfather bit.

What? Is this a fourth hogfather bit? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, amazing. God, we've been doing this too long. Send us whatever you want, basically. Send us stuff. Send us stuff, send us marmalade thoughts,

Natala thoughts, any condiment or spread you want, the difference between a condiment and a spread. Philosophical treatise on the liminal nature of mustard. Thank you again for that email. It's beautiful. I suppose you want to know how you can contact this. until... I can't imagine they do it at this point.

I go for it. Until Hogswatch, dear listeners, you can... You can do it afterwards as well. Join our Discord, link down below. You can follow us on Instagram with the true show Make You fret on Twitter and Blue Sky at Make Ye Frat Pod

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And if you want to support any of this nonsense financially and why would you go to patreon.com forward slash the two show make you fret where you can exchange your hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. Yeah. And until next time, dear listener, just to make it interesting, he put lots of dragons in it. Dragons! In the Marmalade! I've just realised we got through that whole podcast without mentioning that it was Where's My Cow that Rob was reading.

Where's my coo? Where's my coo?