The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 48: Lords and Ladies pt.3 (Abstract Concept, Spiky Chariot)

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

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 “Lords and Ladies”. Confusion! Contradictions! Confrontation! CW: At 45:06 We discuss the ballad of Tam Lin and from 47:00 we discuss abortion.This conversation ends at 49:34.Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:The Boss series (writing as Abigail Barnette) – Trout NationThe AMPire DiariesCold iron - TV TropesRagtag - Merriam WebsterYou're Dead To Me, Boudica  - BBC Radio 4The Wizard's Knob - Dave Hodges Interview & DWM pieceTerry Pratchett Discworld Clarecraft Hodgesaargh - Dw107 - WorthpointYarrow (Folklore) - WikipediaTonker - Collins DictionaryTam Lin - WikipediaTam Lin - Steel Eye Span - YoutubeTam Lin - Coyote Run - YoutubeNorthanger Abbey by Jane Austen - GoodreadsCorridor Gothic (PDF) - Birkbeck Institutional ResearchThe St Crispins Day Speech from Henry V - Poetry FoundationThe screaming bat (Magnetoreception) - Wiki Ogham ᚛ᚑᚌᚐᚋ᚜ - WikiMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I'm sorry, I shouldn't speak out loud. No, it's okay. It's good for the audio recording, if you do. Lamidas on the clacks went pretty well, I thought. It did. That was very fun. Thank you for... We had a panel. We did a panel. We did a panel and we said words and nothing was humiliating. I believe there were talks of it perhaps being released as a recording at some point. Yeah, if we're able to put it somewhere where our listeners can watch or listen to it,

then we will do so, or at least a few fun clips from it. But it was nice to meet some of the other Pratchett podcasters. We had Al from Desert Island Discworld, and Colm from Radio Moorpork, Ben and Liz from Pratchett. Yes. Who watches the Bad Boys of Discworld podcasting, unfortunately, were there. But they were there in spirit. I think if they were there in spirit, the audio would have gone off or something. My flippering lights kind of.

Are we saying who watches the Watcher Now the Poltergeist of Discworld podcasting? Because I think they quite like that. Yes, I'm saying that. That's exactly what I'm saying. I had a thing I wanted to run by you. I was reading in that massive tumblr thread, somebody wrote something about how media creators from now on are going to have to choose between including the pandemic and the canon or skipping it. What do you think about that? Do you think? I think it's really hard. I was having this conversation the other day

with some of my theatre friends about writing theatre now. If I write anything set modern day, do we say that it's just pre-pandemic or do you call it post-pandemic and have them? It doesn't need to be a huge acknowledgement, but admit that they all lost a year of their lives and they all carry masks around now and things like that. I think, honestly, for TV, especially the kind of TV I watch, and I don't watch a lot of new things, but quite a few of them, I would rather they just skipped it. Just kind of move one universe along and everything's the same except we didn't have to do that. We all lived through it. We know what it was like. TV and film, for me, are escapism.

Yeah. But at the same time, I don't need to see the pandemic on TV, on film. Anything set in the real world is going, but post-pandemic, I think, is going to have to have that in its memory. It's almost going to be a new sub-genre, though, isn't it? Because it's going to be real-world brackets, but not the pandemic. But the pandemic can happen. Like, nearly real-world. And books as well. There's a romance series I really love that just came out with its Jenny Trout's boss series. Very kinky-filled for any of our listeners who like that sort of thing. Very well-written and feminist and inclusive and what have you.

And she just brought out the last one, and that's very much set modern-day, but at no point acknowledged the pandemic, because I guess it was kind of written pre and that's fine. I didn't need to see what those characters did during a lockdown. Yeah. Yeah. I guess a lot of books kind of skirt around things anyway, don't they? I mean, I haven't read, unless they're to do with politics, I haven't read much that included Brexit or any of the other all-consuming political nonsensees we've done in the last few years. Yeah. When I say fiction needs to include it in its history, it doesn't need to be an exposition conversation where two people walked down a corridor and talk about last year

when they were doing this on Zoom. Yeah. It's more just that is in the history, the same way certain wars are in the history. It never needs to be set out right. I'm trying to think of a really, really random example now. Okay, so Gilmore Girls exists in a post-911 world. At no point is 9-11 mentioned in Gilmore Girls. Yeah. But that doesn't mean you assume it's not a part of the show's history. Yes. Good point. And the same thing with the pandemic. Shows will exist in a post-pandemic world. The pandemic will be part of fairly recent history. That doesn't mean everyone needs to be talking about the pandemic. It just means like maybe some people keep a mask in their pocket. Yeah. It just adds another layer of complexity, doesn't it? But it's like we were

talking about like back at the start of the pandemic, when we both listened to podcasts, we were very much enjoying listening to podcasts that were coming out at the time because it was nice to hear other people going through the same thing as us. And now a year later, it's a bit like actually I want the escapism and I don't really want to hear about it anymore. Yeah. And I think probably around the same time, most of these conversational podcasts transitioned from that being the main topic of conversation to... Okay, it's just here now. This is the reality. Let's go back to talking about the time I walked across Europe and Mick Jagger, whatever. I just watched the episode of New Girl last night where Cici talks about how

she slept with Mick Jagger, so... Oh, okay. I'm on... So I'm re-watching New Girl as well now, but I'm earlier than you, I'm series two. I'm influential. You are. You're an influencer. The Empire Diaries, which is the Vampire Diaries podcast I listen to, always... They talk about other stuff they're watching and they talk about New Girl a lot. New Girl and Gossip Girl are both heavily mentioned on this podcast. And I only made the connection at the end of the day that the reason they call Wolves Worfs is because Schmidt calls Wolves Worfs. Oh, yeah. Wolf. Wolf. Worf. Right. It's a lot of nonsense. Should we make a podcast? Yes, let's make a podcast. Hello, and welcome to the True Xiaomi Key Fract, a podcast in which we are reading and

recapping every book from Terry Bratchett's Discworld series, one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is the final part of our discussion of Lords and Ladies. Yes. What a good book. It is a good book, isn't it, Jo? Night on spoilers before we crack on. We're a spoiler-like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book we're on, Lords and Ladies. 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. In a cloud of bees. Bees. Which we're journeying across the Lanke landscape. Yes. Excellent. That's right, with the Piccolo piping of the

Queen in front. I rather liked that. Oh, that was a good one. Yeah. I have follow-up. Do you? Follow-up for me? I do. First of all, somebody on Twitter whose handle I have forgotten pointed out that Hicks and Schuss. Hicks and Schuss. Hicks and Schuss. Hicks and Schuss means whip shot in German. So, like, similarly to L-Shot. And it means like snapping back pains and stuff. And it's more commonly used still. Yes. Than ours is. That was from fairy underscore Glenn on Twitter. Thank you. Fairy underscore Glenn. And I have as a follow-up, we were talking about iron affecting the fair folk. TV Tropes has a really good page on it that I'll link in the show notes, which I wish I'd found for last episode. Awesome. But yeah, they pointed out that as I kind of

very clumsily did, the trope comes up as like a particularly old form of magic versus technology symbolism. Quite a lot when you're talking about the fair folk. So the logic behind these mythos is that metallic iron, being a man-made substance never found in nature, is anathema to the nature inclined thing. Oh, right. There was something I noticed in this section, actually, which is the elves bleeding blue and green, which of course they would because they wouldn't have hemoglobin in their blood because that's iron. Ah, smart. Haha. That's how you scratch it. Yes. Smart cookie. Yeah. So proper aristocrats. Yes. Of the old wives tale variety. Yes. Also, almost full up, not really. On page 339, we hear about a rag bag army. And so that's because you

like the word rag tag. I do. I was like, oh, I wonder if that's where it originally comes from? No, it doesn't. Originally, tag and rag was a relatively common expression in the 16th and 17th centuries. And then it became expanded to rag tag and bobtail, which kind of meant the lower classes, or the entire lot of something. So like and the kitchen sink would today. Then it got obviously shortened to rag tag, which can, you know, describe an odd mixture of whatever. Like a rag tag band of bandits. Exactly. So we learned things. We do. And that's all of my trivia follow up. Excellent. Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on Lords and Ladies? I would. Well, I kind of would. I had a really hard time summarizing that middle part in like a

paragraph. Now you understand why my summary was so long last week. Yeah, no, I, yeah, I didn't even call you out on it last week. Oh, I just assumed you did. Yeah, no, I think it was the week before. Yeah. But yeah. So previously on Lords and Ladies, while Lanker prepares for a royal wedding, Diamander gets a bee in her bonnet and sulks off into Elfland. Granny hauls her back to Lanker and awaiting nanny, but not before our silly young witch has taken Elfshot to the shoulder. Diamander and a captured elf are taken to the castle and delivered to a skeptical magrat. Meanwhile, the wizards are on their way, only slightly delayed by trolls, bandits, and an amorous dwarf. We leave Magrat making a scandalous discovery, nanny going on a date, granny reckoning

with her cells, and Diamander waking up. Excellent. So this time, the Lords and Ladies in the final section. Wow, yeah. With almost everyone at the disastrous entertainment, Magrat packs to leave, but hears singing in the halls of the castle. An ironclad shornog sneaks out to get help as man's her bedroom barricade. Elves attack and Magrat fights back before running to the long gallery and discovering the portrait of the warrior queen, Incy. She collects a growling grimoire and takes shelter in the armory. Ridcully and Granny are lost in the woods, and as they find themselves surrounded by elves, Ridcully snaps back to get help. Brooks and Hodzah fight with their unique skill sets. The elves capture shorn and attempt terrible torture to bring Magrat out,

but she's found her in a warrior queen and fights them off and sets off well armored to find the verance, the source of her ardour. Jason and the gang find each other in the forest, resolve to Morris dance their way out of this mess. In the debris of their dinner, nanny and Casananda result get help. Nanny knows just the man. After a quick visit to Jason's forge, they head for the long man and find themselves spiraling down. Nanny threatens the elf king and demands his assistance against his wicked wife. Her and the hunted fights back. Magrat starts experiencing doubt as she heads for the dancers, ponder the librarian and a rigid bursar save her from elven attack and she continues on with their support. Ridcully finds himself back at the castle along with many of

the lanker population. Nanny arrives back at the castle and shorn pussikes the town to go and face there. I'm glad you got that. As Magrat reaches the fairy camp, Granny confronts the queen who plans to marry verance. Our motley bunch of Morris dancers stick and bucket their way back to the town. The queen wides out with Granny and the ragtag rabble of Lanker arrive to back up Magrat as she faces down the fairy queen. But unfortunately the glamour of the elves takes over. Granny in the queen fight bees arrive to assist and Magrat takes the queen down before the king arrives to take her home. The town awakes but Esme Weatherwax appears to have waned. Nanny and Magrat look at Granny's will as Magrat vents her last frustrations about Granny's letter to verance, the scandalous

discovery. And Nanny makes an important realisation. Granny ate and dead. Granny gets her brain back from the bees, the wedding goes ahead and Magrat finally gets her crown with a little bit of permission. As Granny and Nanny walk home, the unicorn makes one last appearance and Jason does his duty by shooing it with silver. Nanny and Casananda take one last visit to the earthworks. Granny and Ridcully go for one last stroll and on a summer night couples go their own ways. Very nice. Yeah, there's another one with like three endings. Yeah, Pratcha likes his multiple endings, which I enjoy. I always like an epilogue, but I've seen some grumblings about it on Tintinette. Oh, I enjoy an epilogue. I like to know that everyone's had a little moment.

So, helicopters, any? Broomsticks and Yarrow Storks. Okay, yeah, sure. Yarrow Storks, a new version of helicopter. Yeah, Yarrow Storks, definitely a new version of helicopter. I did look into the folklore around elves using Yarrow Storks to fly on, but everything I found was very like herbal medicine, hippy, grow Yarrow for headaches. I found one reference to witches putting sprigs of Yarrow in their hats that would help them fly, but I couldn't find any source of that apart from a blog. And I did find something about Yarrow that was amusing. That's not about flying, but it's local to us. Apparently, there's quite a lot of myths on the folklore surrounding Yarrow. I'm sure you found it, but it just wasn't

anything to do with flying. But in Suffolk, a leaf was placed in the nose so it would bleed while reciting, green arrow, green arrow, you bears a white blow. If my love love me, my nose will bleed now. If my love don't love me, it don't bleed a drop. If my love do love me, twill bleed every drop. So basically, people in Suffolk used to put leaves up their nose, and if they got nosebleeds, they'd crush like the back. This is the thing I found is that Yarrow is generally associated with like, that is very fucking Suffolk to be fair. But Yarrow is associated. There's lots of folklore around England and Scotland with something to do with Yarrow and whether or not your crush

fancies you. There's a lot of old Scottish poetry about going out to pick Yarrow to find someone to marry. The only other thing I put this in helicopter and loincloth watch, I think this book is the first time we hear the phrase Millennium Hand and Trimp. And in this, the birds are, yeah, yeah. Well, look out for that potent phrase. I don't mean potent, but I like it in this context. We'll go with it. That pungent phrase. Meaningful. Yes. Important. Not impotent. I thought the birds are was charming. The birds had a lovely time, really. He did. What a lovely accidental hero. That's a trope in itself, isn't it? Yeah. He did get a lovely, oh, this is a lovely wedding. I wish I was here. Yeah. I thought that was very sweet. So quotes. Quotes. I believe

I'm first. I believe you are. And I love this. This is when Granny is confronting the Queen. My lady, old I may be and hag I may be, but stupid I ain't. You're no kind of goddess. I ain't against gods and goddesses in their place, but they've got to be the ones we make ourselves. Then we can take them to bits for the parts when we don't need them anymore. See, an Elm's far away in Fairyland. Well, maybe that's something people need to get themselves through the Iron Times. But I ain't having elves here. You make us want what we can't have. And what you give us is worth nothing. And what you take is everything. And all there is left for us is the cold hillside emptiness and the laughter of elves. She took a deep breath. So bugger off.

Good old Granny. I think you could really tell that Pratchett like really just enjoyed writing for Granny. Yeah, I mean, this is the second and not a very long time word heavy showdown we've heard was granny and another matriarchal figure. Yes, obviously she was showing down with Lilith back in which is abroad, which we didn't cover that long ago. Yeah. And she's definitely improved her ad lib speeches. I would say she does do a good dramatic speech. And that's why I look for in a woman. And bees, of course. And bees. Bees are very much what I look for in a woman. Yeah, excellent. I've also got a granny where that's quite... Excellent. It's not quite so... What is the word I mean here? Like I'm being full quote. What's... Help me, Joanna.

No idea. Begin to the pee. It's not powerful. No, never mind. Anyway. Come back to it. Yes. Yes. After Granny has returned. Oh, sorry. Profound. Thank you. I haven't slept a lot this week, listen. I know I say that every week, but this week has been very bad. Anyway, after she's returned to her body. I've done it with bees. No one can do it with bees. And I've done it. You ends up with your mind all flying in different directions. You've got to be good to do it with bees. You're alive. Rid Cully managed. That's what a university education does for you, said Granny. You've only got to be sitting up and talking for five minutes and they can work out you're alive.

Granny throwing serious shade there and I love it. It's just I always read that bit aloud to myself when I get to it in the book. So that's going to sound really good for a microphone shit. I didn't think it would happen. I apologise to the listeners, but I feel like they all enjoyed that as much as I did. Oh, good. It's like anti-ISMR. I think that sums up our podcast quite well. Characters. Let's check back in with Granny Nanny and Magrat first, because Granny in this section, as we've said, is just fucking brilliant. And I love, I'm going to talk more about her confrontation with the Queen later, but when she the Queen is sort of trying to threaten her

with the obscurity and things. And one of the things she says is me who I'm becoming old. And it's this big acceptance of who she is and that she is old and that she is a crone. I think she refers to herself as a crone at one point. Yeah, which is the Queen definitely yells her yells that she's a crone out her. Yes. And I think she's very accepting of it. So I love this moment of her accepting of her age. Yeah. Then there's also the death fake out. A foreshadowed brilliantly because we had the we ate and dead earlier in the book. Yeah. And there's a line when they realized that she's not actually dead and Magrat saying, but, but, but and Nanny saying, do you not remember the time

you came crying to me? Because you thought she was, which is like sort of a fun little retcon of the Esk moment. Yeah. But there's a line right after the bees in the confrontation where they realized that she's dead and Nanny just says she wouldn't go and do a thing like that. Yeah. And it's a perfect summation of Granny Weatherwax's character of she wouldn't just go like that. But it's also that such a powerful grief thing where your first response is the denial and going, of course, she's not dead. That's not what Granny Weatherwax does. Yeah. Don't be silly. That is not the way that the world has been so far. I can't see why it would change now. That's not me. Yeah. And the other thing, appropriately, I'm doing the unicorn look

today. Yeah, very good. Don't stab yourself in the face. God, that's a bad mug, Joe. I know we've talked about this on the podcast before, but just the fact that it's got a pointy bit near your eye just seems like a massive design flaw. I've not stabbed myself in the face with it so far. But hopefully, if it happens, it'll be on camera for the listeners. Fingers crossed. You've got a journalist instinct, your animal, then. So I never noticed this in previous readings of the books. The first time I picked up on it, which is, obviously, when the unicorn shows up at the end, Granny captures it with a single strand of hair. Yes. And when Nanny is saying, you can't hold it with that,

and Granny says, you know perfectly well I can hold it. Yeah. And it's further explained slightly later on, she always ran a bit too fast for boys to catch up with her. And so the idea is that she's a virgin, and that's where she can hold on to the unicorn. Yes. And just somehow I'd never picked up that that's what was being implied there. I don't know why. Me neither. Yeah. Again, it's one of those things we're reading through this time looking for things. Things, yeah. So that was nearly my obscure reference, actually. Unicorns in folklore were captured by maidens on behalf of hunting parties. Yeah. Apparently, everyone knew about me. That's how you catch a unicorn. I don't really know. We'll save my virginity as a social

construct for another day. So, like, Red Cully threatening to shoot it, and everyone like, no, just put your fucking crossbow down, lad. You can't shoot that. You can't shoot pan. Stop fucking shooting. There's a very sort of balance of masculine and feminine there, obviously. The witches look at capturing it, and Granny shoes it in a kind way. Yeah. She shoes it so it's domesticated, but with silver, so it won't suffer from iron. Yeah. Whereas, yeah, Red Cully wants to shoot first and ask questions later. Yeah. Although it was quite a good little action movie moment where he shot too well through the chest with a crossbow. Yeah. I would love to see, like, a proper full-budget

adaptation of this. So, yes, that was Granny. Nanny. Oh, fucking Nanny does a good thing, doesn't she? When Nanny's confronting the king in the earthworks down at the Long Man, she is terrifying. Casually threatening a god, holding death's horseshoe. Fine. Yeah, why not? There's, the king gets the great line of, you have a way of showing respect to your god that would make the average atheist green with envy. It does seem to be a little bit of mutual disdain and respect between those two, doesn't that? Like, I like the relationship there. That seems to be a good masculine feminine balance, actually, with the Long Man being, like, the ultimate masculine presence and Nanny being the ultimate feminine presence.

Nanny's distinct femininity is something I'm very much a fan of, as is Casinanda. That's one of the many things Casinanda and I have in common. That and the tendency to carry a stepladder around everywhere you go. I need to be able to reach cupboards, Francine. That moment definitely kind of added to the points in your favour for Nanny as perhaps the more powerful witch, after all, secretly kind of looking. Yeah. She doesn't fully take the queen down, obviously, but her influence with the king certainly helps. Yeah, I mean, she kind of did take the queen down. Yeah. I mean, it was him turning up, so did it. Magrat might have cut her head off or something, but who knows how that would

have ended? Yeah. Nanny's influence means the queen is taken down, but survives. Yes. Whereas I don't think she would have stayed alive under Magrat's onslaught much longer. No. And yeah, Magrat. Magrat had a great... Well done, Magrat. Well done, Magrat. What a good third of a book for Magrat. I really like her relationship to the helmet specifically, the Queen Nancy helmet. Yeah, big, big playing on the hats of things, vibes, important things, vibes. But at one point, she sort of almost abdicates when she's going through the town and she finds the side of the Carter family or the Weaver family. Yeah. She sort of abdicates responsibility for her anger by blaming it all on the helmet. And then she comes full circle, finds herself

without the helmet and realises that at the core of her is very much Magrat. That was a lovely little passage where it's like stripped away all the things and whatever, and she became more and more anxious until finally she was stripped to her core and turned out like the core is the one that jumps off and grabs the queen around the waist and body slams. It's like, yeah, it's called a Magrat. It's a nice callback to which is abroad where it's like, okay, yes, she's a rodent, but that rodent might be a mongoose. Ah, yeah. So I'm glad that she once again found her in a mongoose. May we all find out in a mongoose on this blessed day. But I also thought she got a great moment when Nanny sort of commending her on dealing with the Queen. And Nanny says, I didn't

think you had it in you to survive an attack like that. And Magrat says, I've had practice. But it's true, you know, she has had someone prod and poke at her self-esteem. And that was kind of highlighted when Granny had that bit where she was like, nodding to appreciate the craftsmanship of the Queen's nastiness when she turned to look like Magrat. Yeah, which, by the way, gave me a thought. It's like that whole, oh, it's like you, but looks slightly better, which is like the ultimate form of nastiness. That's very much come to life today with things like filters, hasn't it? It's like, we do that to ourselves now. Oh, it's the horrible thing where I like, someone else takes a photograph of me and I'll look at

it and go, but that's not what I look like. And I'm very used to taking photographs of myself, very carefully angled without my chins of Kimbo. Exactly. Yeah, like same. And the fact that he was kind of, and he was like, oh, yeah, when I, when the Elf Queen was like, when I look in the mirror, I see what I want, you know, that blah, blah, blah. And like, oh, it was a very accidentally foreshadowing the Instagram. Yeah, without wanting to go into a discourse about that, because obviously, most people who do seem to put a weird misogynistic bent on it. But yeah, I do feel like filters and things may be damaging self-esteem somewhat in the long run. They might be damaging self-esteem somewhat in the long run, but I want to look really hot all

the time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, exactly. I'm not saying I rise above it. I do not. I'm very into looking hot. Sosca, Soslads. I've got a ring light now. There's a reason for that. Same, although I'm not using it right now. Where else are we? So we've got onto the sort of newer characters and other characters, Queen Incy. Wincy, Spider. Incy, Wincy, Spider. Climbed up. So this is like obvious parallels to Boudica. Yeah. She, I'm assuming the name Incy is a play on Isini, which is the tribe that Boudica ruled. Well done, yeah. And just like Boudica, she's a little bit made up. Yeah. Boudica is less made up. She's a concept. Yeah.

She's an abstract concept, which is, again, what I look for in a woman, abstract concept, spiky chariot. Do you have a video anywhere if you're doing that monologue as Boudica? I don't know if there's still video. I would offer to just re-perform it, but I don't have the wig anymore. And the headgear is the important part. So for listeners, a long time ago, one of the first theater things I did when I got back into theater was perform this. It's quite short. It was only a five-minute monologue as Boudica. But there's a very posh jolly hockey sticks. I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid we're going to

have to burn down Colchester, Boudica. I enjoyed it a lot. It was great fun. I got to threaten people with a sword and scream at them. I'll ask Andrew if he's still got it somewhere. So yes, that was a joy. Yes. Sorry, I interrupted your... Yeah. So the whole idea of whether or not Boudica's history is fictionalized is quite an interesting one in history. And I think I might have talked about this on the podcast before. If you are more interested in the history of Boudica, the podcast I recommend a lot. You're Dead To Me has a very good Boudica episode.

She was around, obviously, the time of the ancient Romans, because this was the whole thing. She was Roman. She was fighting. And she sort of thought of as this cool feminist history hashtag girl boss. But she committed like a lot of fucking atrocities. I mean, so did the Romans. Like, you know, it was war crimes all around back then. You're saying both sides, Joanna? I'm saying that maybe it was not a hashtag girl boss, but someone who needs to get off the internet for a bit. But also a lot of the history of Boudica, especially the motivation, the whole thing

with her daughters potentially being raped and murdered by Roman soldiers. At the time, history was more of an art form than a science, as it were. And a lot of histories were, there were stories, and it was quite often the same story told with different characters. So there's lots of parallels between the commonly known history of Boudica and its main Roman source. There's lots of parallels between that and the story of the rape of Lucretia. So there's this idea that this is not all historically accurate, just because I wrote it down 50 years later. You don't say. But there definitely was a Boudica.

Somehow Herodotus wrote about it. Cool. And then moving on to Hodgesach. Hodgesach, as we now know, it's pronounced. Hodgesach. Yeah, I know we've already talked about him, but I didn't realise when we talked about him in the first episode. I learned, I overheard someone mention at Clamados on the Glax that he is named after an actual bloke, Dave Hodges. So Dave runs or ran a project called The Real Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A big Terry Pratchett fan, one of the entries into this real hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy was a virus called Terry that would autograph all other viruses and files near it. But he also worked for a firm that specialised in things

like keeping birds away from airports. So for this purpose, he actually had a falcon named Lady Jane Gray, who did indeed like biting lots of people. So Hodgesach is named for a real person, Dave Hodges. Yes. And you've done some interviews with him, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, I've got a couple of links to that. He did write a book as Hodgesach for Terry, the art of falconry and something. Yeah, but there's no way of getting a copy of it that I can buy now. They were like 500 made and they were sold at Cannes, not in shops. So if anyone's got one, please take pictures because apparently the illustration is very good. They're by Tsingami. Tsingami? Yep. That's who I mean. Claire Croft made a figure of Hodgesach and

Lady Jane even. Oh, cool. I quite like to quote from Dave Hodges in the Discworld Monthly issue 21, going back quite some time. As he would be a semi-literate peasant, I could get away with quite a lot of deliberate mistakes and nobody would know. Excellent. Yeah. I support that. So yeah, so that's cool. And the name Hodgesach, apparently, comes from that was how people would greet him when he came up to the Macons and stuff because he was always asking people to do little bits of writing and stuff where he was like, ah, it's Hodgesach. Oh, brilliant. That makes me how much of that is retconning, but I enjoy it anyway. And then, yeah, Ponder has a lovely little moment near the end where he sat there trying to work out what the fuck just happened.

Bless him. I love Ponder. He's my second favourite wizard, third favourite, Ridcully Librarian Ponder. Okay, cool, cool, cool. You like him on the rinse when you break my heart? You know, I'm not like a big rinse win fangirl. We're not going to start ranking characters because that way madness lies, but rinse win might move up in the rankings when we get to later books. Anyway, one of my favourite descriptions of Ponder is when he sat there trying to work out why the nails stick to the magnetic stones. Oh, yeah, yeah. He turned to the others with the agonised expression of a man who has the whole great wearing machinery of the universe to dismantle and only a bent paperclip to do it with.

I know that feeling. Well, not really, because I've never tried to work out the mechanics of the universe. But there's also, you found the origin of this quote for me. He says, I think there's a great ocean of truth out there, and I'm just sitting on the beach playing with stones. And this, you found the reference. It's Isaac Newton. Yeah, I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself and now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth I all undiscovered before me. Excellent. I also like the kind of little subversion there where

the librarian is like, somehow manages to convey that looking at the pebbles closely can tell you a lot. And I think that's then echoed when they look in Granny Weatherworks' little box and there's like a little fossil. And it's the seashell thing. And I think this is a very, very early bit of foreshadowing of like Terry Pratchett very much likes the power of the land and how oceans come into that as well. Like how the, you know, the historical oceans that used to be on the mountains kind of thing. That was a good moment. Yeah. And yeah, because there's a part of Granny's confrontation thing she talks about, you know, I had to learn from everything I learned from pebbles. Yes, yes, yes. Wasn't Terry Pratchett a good writer? Yeah, he's pretty good, isn't he?

Just well, really. Otherwise, this would be boring as fuck. This would be a shit. So we've got one more. We've got the king. The king, the king. I think we haven't bothered with the actual Lanka king because he's just sat around looking vacant quite right here. Verence does very little in this book, which is what again, that's what I look for in a man. Absolutely. I want a woman who's an abstract concert with a spike chariot and a man who sits in the background looking vacant and being quiet. So yeah, I thought the king was interesting. Well, alongside the whole long man thing. Yeah, I'm kind of folding this into character and locations is how we're bridging the gap. Nice. I mean, the long man itself is quite

interesting. But yeah, the king, I like the antagonistic relationship with the queen. I like this is a very different kind of Elf land where the queen's Elf land is permanent snow. He is heat and earthworks and the extreme version of couples who can't agree on the thermostat. I'd say I love living alone because I don't have to have that argument, but all they have is bad storage heaters that don't put out any heat. It's fine. It's nearly spring. But in principle, you in principle, it's great. But yes, the long man is basically a giant earthworks shape like a willy, isn't it? Yeah. And then some kind of the king himself is like a concept of quite a lot of

different pagan gods and things folded into one, isn't he? Yeah, he's sort of got the goat legs and the thorns and the hints. And the, yes. And the, yes. But so that I couldn't find anything about similar burial mound shapes in the UK, at least. But there are large chalk things on hillsides. There's a couple of large chalk things. Also, you know about, I don't know how much our listeners know about the concept of these chalk portraits, which is the turf is cut away in the hillside to create a picture. Which can only really be appreciated from above, funnily enough, considering they're quite old. Although not as old as previously imagined, I think. Yeah. There's, they're also, the grass grows back over them, so they have to be recut

very consistently. So there's a couple of long men in the UK, but one of them no longer has the great big Tonka because during the late 19th century, I think people were quite proper and decided to let that grow over. Oh, see, another one has a much bigger, great big Tonka than he did to start with. Yeah. Because some generation or another, I can't remember exactly one, thought it was not quite big enough. Yeah. And decided to give them a hello. That's the one in you know what, I'm not pregnant after spending a night here. I'm just, I think we should make this a bit bigger ladies. That's the one in Dorset, which also has like a small kind of depression in the earth cut out earlier. That's like a place for maypole dances and such.

That's obviously been there. Can you get more phallic than doing a maypole dance on top of a giant drawing of a cock? Oh, I love it. Granny would not be happy. Granny would be. Probably would. Granny wouldn't be having with any of this. But there's, Casanunda gets the great line of, I thought all these old burial mounds and things were really sacred. And it turns out it's just people who drew on the privy walls with 200,000 tons of earth. But people have always been like this. This is great, like their old preserved wall inscriptions from Pompeii that say things like, I like it in the bum now, Gaius was here. Yep. Yep. A lot of very gay ones. A lot of very gay ones. But then things like,

you know, Callus shags horses, I shagged your mum. People have always been dickheads and it makes me really happy. The history is just. People have always find bums and private thoughts funny and wish to express that in various media. I enjoy a millennia of dick jokes. Makes me very happy. I did look up the, because they're talking about the word Tonka. Yeah. And Casanunda says it's a dwarfish word. I did have a look, because I've not heard the word Tonka as a euphemism for Willie. I mean, no. Admittedly, 90% of the English language, if you say it in a British accent, sounds like you could be talking about genitals. Did you look up the etymology and find anything? I looked up the etymology and all I could find is that a Tonka is someone who Tonks and a Tonk

means to strike with a heavy blow. And that's origins in 20th century English. I couldn't find anything about it being used as a term for Willys, although I'm sure it has been. It's possible that I just know it through Pratchett. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it might be a play on Todger. So I did look up Todger as well. The things I do for you listeners, the things I have googled. I feel like they didn't ask you to, you know? Yeah, I know. Anyway, so I looked up Todgers. But again, no one's really sure about the origin of it. It had a weird, because you know you can get these graphs that show the usage of a word. Yeah, a Google thingy. Yeah. It had a weird spike in the early 18th century, but that's been attested to it was a misprint. It was meant to be

Lodger. Oh, good. It's actual common usage. One of the earliest written down things where it's used as a euphemism for penis is actually from the 1950s. How long did you spend researching Todgers instead of one of the subjects we were talking about? I would rather not answer that question. Okay, fine. Factual. It's usage before that as mostly as a name. So it appears like it's someone's name and became a euphemism for penis. Same way that Dirk did. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. And the only other bit from that section I also liked was there's a king and an army sleeping. And Nanny says, oh, they're supposed to wake up when something big happens, a wolf eats the sun, which is two separate myths combined. Our theory and and something else.

Norse. The wolf eating the sun is from the story of Ragnarok. It is, I could be wrong, don't shout at me. Not you obviously listeners. Loki's son Fenris the wolf who eats the sun. Loki himself is attending Ragnarok and a ship of fingernails. Ragnarok is weird. Not very Loki of him. A delight. Right. And yeah, the sleeping king is a common British legend in pre Arthurian potentially. There's lots and lots of old British stories that involve a sleeping king in an army that will wake when something happens. What bloody time do you call this then? And yeah, the only other sort of location thing obviously we're not actually going anywhere else new, but the Lanker landscape. And granny talks about how the landscape is fighting back

against the influence of the elves. Yes. And that's a and she talks about yes, people put iron into the landscape, but they put back love, they take things from the land, but they put back love and they tell the land what it is. It's a bit of a call back to weird sisters, isn't it? I think that's where they're referring to the land like it's an animal. Yeah, that was what I was going to say. So when I saw in weird sisters, the land is so human or personified or anthropomorphized that granny can borrow it. Oh, yeah. And they end up moving it into three time and what have you. And here, yeah, the land is almost is anthropomorphized again, but it's being made that way by people.

Yeah, and she kind of takes power from it. Yes, I'd forgotten to borrow it. So yes, just enjoyed that. Nice little call back. Speaking of things we just enjoy, little bits we like. So Francine, talk to me about the death of iron. Oh, yeah. No, that was a proper just a little bit I liked. In the armory, I believe it was, everything was rusting because it's an old armory. And rust was just referred to as the death of iron there. And I thought it was a nice counterposition of the love of iron for magnets. And just the, yeah, I like Pratchett's kind of imagery of those two scientific things in a folkloric way.

Yeah, now I enjoyed that. And it's got the nice parallel with when nanny is threatening the king. Yes, maybe one day it will be your time again when even the iron in the head is rusty. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Which quick clarification on that, but because some people like to point out, oh, there's a mistake in this. Obviously, it's revealed that incisama was actually hammered out out of an old tin bath. And lots of people say, well, if it's tin, it's not iron. Why did it hurt the elves? But tin baths were actually made out of a weird mix of stuff that would have included iron. That makes sense because tin was actually not that strong, more expensive. I don't know. There

wasn't a lot of stuff that was that big that was just made of tin. I know that. Yeah, I can't, I'm not sure if it was rarer or more expensive or not very strong. So an old tin bath would have contained iron. Good to know. And also, shut up, it's a fun imagery. Yeah. Pratchett just clearly thought the first thing that was about the right shape. And then you also had clean kills. Really don't have much scope to tell pedants to shut up, do I? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, considering what our podcast is, this is basically just two hours of pedantry. Yeah. Yeah, the clean kills thing. It's just a thing that came up a couple of times and it kind of runs parallel to the

slagging off of cats throughout this book. But at one point, Magrat shoots an elf through the head and it's kind of made obvious that this is not what the elf would have done. And I don't think we've come across this yet, but it's a concept Pratchett quite likes and that good people just get it over with. They don't draw around horrible death. And then there's a good line about that dwarves versus elves and it says something along the lines of dwarves will just take an axe to you because they're much nicer. Yeah, exactly. Yes. And that, yes. And I can't remember if it was that bit or a little bit later where they expand them like the elf will chase you until you drop. Considering Pratchett likes cats, there's definitely an anti cat

thread through this, isn't there? I thought. There is definitely a hint of it. Yeah, Grebo, by the way. I did notice this. I thought it was a nice little callback to weird sisters, again, that Magrat finds him by the armory because that's where he got locked in and weird sisters, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, it is. So I guess that's like his little haunt now. He knows it. Well, it implies, you know, he sort of haunts around the castle kitchens quite a lot which makes sense because rats and things. Yeah, well, she thought she would be near the kitchens, didn't she? Because that's why Grebo would be, but she was by the armory because that's where Grebo actually is. And we also get Shrodinger's Grebo, which is the third state of

the cat in the box, Bloody Furious. Yeah, and then Nanny's exposition of the theory of whatever it's called, the Uncertainty Principle, we're calling it the Uncertainty Principle of Og, is that you don't know until you look when Granny's not dead. Yes. And then you've got folk songs. I have. There's obviously just like with the last section, there's a million folk songs referenced in this, but one that I've got quite into and listened to various versions of and learned how to sing and is the Ballad of Tam Lin. Okay. So this is when Margaret says, I remember a folk song where a woman's husband was taken by the elves and she didn't wait around for him to be rescued. She damn well went and did it herself. And this is a reference to the

Ballad of Tam Lin, which I've heard already. I know the Steel Eye Span version, which I'll link to a couple of different arrangements of it in the show notes. Obviously, there's lots of different versions and arrangements because it's from, it's a Scottish folk song from the 15th, 16th century. But the actual story of it is really quite feminist, but starts with, and this is different in different versions, obviously, but the king or the landowner, the Thane, whatever, warning the girls, don't go to this place, Carter Hall, because there's this fairy guy, Tam Lin that hangs out there. And he quite likes taking maidens, virginities. And he's very much got a thing for blondes, especially blondes wearing green. So Jenny, who in various tellings is like

the kings or Janet, various tellings, she's like the king's daughter or some sort of subject or the Thane's daughter or whatever. Yeah. Who is blonde decides to put on a green dress and go to Carter Hall. And while she's plucking roses, Tam Lin turns up and says, did I say you could have those? And she says, I don't need leave of you. I basically own this place. Anyway, so then she goes home and she's pregnant. And that's a piece of paper black there, was that? Tam Lin likes taking maidenhoods. And she's turned up in the green dress. Nice, nice, consensual bit of folkloric maidenhood taking, which is unusual. Yeah, this is why I'm clarifying the opening, because it does all seem to be very consensual. So she goes home, realises she's pregnant.

And to be fair, the king isn't a dick about it. He basically says, well, which of my nights was it? Is he going to be a good dad? Like, obviously, we'll get it all sorted. Who's going to have his who's going to give him give the child the name. And she pretty much turns around says, as if I would shag any of your nights, any way I don't want to keep it. And her logic is like, she doesn't want to keep it because the father isn't going to be around to help out because he's off fucking about in fairyland because he's a fey. So she goes back to Carter Hall where she can pick a certain herb that will help her not keep it. Oh, and Tam Lin shows up and says, well, why? And she's like, well, because you're not around to be a decent dad, because you're,

you know, off in fairyland. And he's like, okay, right. So the thing is, not actually a fairy was human seven years ago, I got taken by the fairy queen. So if you can rescue me from the fairy queen, then I quite a reputation seven years, isn't it? Exactly. What else are you going to do? So he's like, he's like, if you can rescue me from the fairy queen, then I'll marry you and I'll be a good husband and a good father to our child. By the way, though, the fairy queen's kind of got this deal where she sacrifices someone to hell on Halloween once every seven years. And that's like tomorrow and I'm 90% sure I'm going to be sacrificed. So if you could rescue me tomorrow, that would be great. The way of like signing off an email was sorry, sorry, sorry about the short

notice. But so the next night, all Hallows Eve, the fey, including Tam Lin, ride out to the cross where the sacrifice will take place and Janet shows up and tries to take Tam Lin. She pulls him off his horse, which is what the fairy queen did seven years ago and to reclaim him. So the fairy queen is like, I'm going to freak you out then and turns him into all manner of beasts, like a bear and a deer and a snake and eventually just a flame or a coal. And again, sort of tellings vary, but the idea is Janet holds on to him through all of that until eventually he turns into a man, the queen's like, right, fair play, you can keep him then. You obviously really want him. And then she gets to keep Tam Lin and therefore decides to keep her

child. I don't hate anyone in this story. Yeah, that's very unusual. I mean, it's generally left a bit ominous because we don't know who the queen is going to sacrifice instead. But yeah, so slightly feminist folk tale pro choice. Oh, I get and you're going to sing that for me and I'm going to put the recording into the episode. Yes. Excellent. If it doesn't sound terrible when I sing it. And yeah, I'll also link to a couple of arrangements in the show notes because it's a cool song. Sweet. That is a good little bit we liked. And then the other thing, obviously, back on Shakespeare references. So obviously, we've got the Midsummer Night Stream stuff. We've even got the line,

they can put a girdle on the world in 40 minutes. So back to our first episode on this when I mentioned that quote, what Puck says to Oberon. And then obviously the king and queen, you've got the kind of to turn your Oberon parallel where they are the rulers of the fairies, but they don't get on very well. Oh, okay. And when someone says, you know, what did the queen say to her, this is something about meeting by moonlight. I wrote that down. I was hoping you'd know what that was. Yeah, this is the first thing Oberon says to Tanya in Midsummer Night Stream. He says ill met by moonlight proud to Tanya. Because they're sort of fighting over this. Oberon does, but beg a little changeling boy to be his henchmen. Oh, that's what their main conflict is in

Night Stream. Okay. Granny also calls one of the elves Fairy Pease Blossom. Yeah, I did. I got that one. And to Tanya's attendance are Cobsweb, Pease Blossom, Mustard's Said and Bollocks. I can't remember. Cobsweb, Pease Blossom, Mustard's Said and Bollocks. Oh, shit. I was going to make a good point then. Sorry. Yes, because Nanny calls Pease Blossom and then she's like, that's not his name. And she's like, well, it's whatever we wanted to be. It's our belief that shapes them kind of thing. And that's quite good because Shakespeare's portrayal of elves in Midsummer Night Stream was a big part

of why they started being seen in this silly, happy way instead of as the terrible bastards they are. Yeah. Obviously, we're overlapping elves and fairies, the same thing here. Yeah, the fair folk is how I've seen elves as this kind of elf referenced. Yeah, as I said, Tolkien elves. The final footnote, obviously, well returns, learns of the events and writes it out, but takes out all the silliness and calls it the taming of the vol. But my favorite Shakespeare reference into the whole thing is when Sean is giving his speech to Pussycup the lads. I did not look up the word Pussyc. I'm not proud of how many times I read that before I realized it was meant to be psych. Oh, was it? Yeah. Okay. Well, that's where I'm learning it for the first

time. Really? Yeah, it's just he can't pronounce psych. It's Pussycup the lads. Right. Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Thank you. Oh, this is I don't read like allowed in my head. So I don't usually buy stuttered on that one. And so I just said it. Okay, there we are. But while Sean is giving his speech, he advised people to imitate the action of the Lanca reciprocating fox and stiffen some sinews while leaving them flexible enough so they could move their arms and legs. No, that's the ocelot. Sorry. And this is a reference to the famous St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry the Fifth, which if you're ever in a bit of a grump and you need to, you know, just yourself up for that one. Yeah, which I won't do the whole thing,

but the bit that that references once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more or close the wall up with our English dead in peace. There's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then irritate the action of the tiger, stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard favoured rage, then lend the eye a terrible aspect. So yeah, if you're ever in a grump and need to psych yourself or psych yourself up for something, do the full actors pose from the third series of Blackadder legs akimbo hands on hips, otherwise known as the Tory conference pose, also known as the Tory conference pose, and then shout once more unto the breach, dear

friends, once more, might do that might do that for going to the dentist today. Excellent. I have done a bit dramatic, but I have started doing that when we've had like very busy dinner services, lots of bookings or special events or something at work, and I'm trying to psych everyone up, I'll stand there and go once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, and they'll look at me like I'm completely mad. But it takes their mind off it, so it's fine. Well, yes. And then I make sure everyone's sort of gone for a wee and had a little sit down. Oh, you're a good chip. Okay, yeah, so bigger stuff. Bigger stuff. Talk to me about horror. Horror writing, yes. So the first bit of this section really is what I'm on about, although

there's a couple of other bits. I thought it was just fantastically written Gothic horror. The opening sort of Margaret running from the Elms. Yeah. So you've got start with you've got a main locked in a castle tower and a silent night, there's a long scream, then silence again, there's scrabbling at the door and like ethereal scary voices. There's like fucking a excellent Gothic horror bit there, you can take that from any number of books or movies that you pick. And then you've got the running to get away and to the keep. And as I mentioned before, and they mentioned later, they'll chase you until your blood curdled, someone said. And that kind of that particular

kind of horror kind of always very much resonated with me, the kind of stuff nipping at your heels as a big nightmare fuel for me. And like that hysterical clumsiness of not being able to get the key in the door and all of that. There's the moment where she is waiting in the room and she realizes the candles going to burn down. Yes. Yeah, that was so good. Yeah. Yeah, that moment of and this is suspense, isn't it? It's giving her the suspense. And that's the suspense. Yeah. And then just a couple of other bits that are like taken probably on purpose because it's practice, but could just be because there are so many bits of media, it makes sense to have them. You've got the scared cat, which is very horror movie thing.

You've got the running down a corridor into light into dark into light into dark. He described that and scan it. I've definitely seen that in a movie. I'm not sure exactly which one. This section is very much like a brief homage to Gothic horror within a Shakespeare parody. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like the shining, I know there's a lot of corridor action in that. I haven't seen enough horror movies, basically. And I haven't really read enough gothic horror. I like me some Victorian ghost stories when I'm doing horror. But I should probably go back and read some of these really old ones. I did a bit of study on Gothic literature, and this is all very much yeah. I found an entire study called Gothic corridor. Excellent. Which I'll link to because

it's very good, actually. But yeah, just I was really impressed by if you let yourself fall into it as well, because I think when you're reading Pratchett, sometimes you kind of miss the feel of some of the out of character passages. So if you kind of read it with an eye for horror, you kind of get the heartbeat. It's such a well written section. It's really cleverly done. There was another, as you mentioned to me, you were looking at some of the horror tropes of it. And there was another moment that when Margaret's climbing the wall outside, and obviously she is running, but the mental image of the woman climbing the wall is straight out of Dracula. Yes, of course. Yeah. Which is obviously in that case, it's the evil women doing the crawling at

some of the sort of Dracula, Ponkevine vampire ladies. Ah, yes. But in a flowing dress, yeah? Yeah. So yeah, the imagery perfectly correct. She's still in her wedding dress then, yeah. Yeah, the mental image there is very much Margaret and is very much Dracula. And again, that's one of the big Gothic horror classics. And I like how we took it and then just kind of flipped it because we had the classic damsel and distress running all the way. And then she got to the armoury, put on the armour, and now she's the action hero. Now she's. Yes. And the crossbow bolt through the eye, which was a fantastic hammered home, just how much Margaret had found something else within her there.

Yes. What a lovely hat. Do you like reading horror? I'm not sure. It depends on the horror. I like Gothic literature. Apart from Dracula, I have a strange loathing of that book that I think comes from having to study it. I would say if you want to read one piece of like classic Gothic literature, read North Anger Abbey by Jane Austin, which is actually, it's a piss take. She was writing a parody of Gothic literature, but that means it hits the tropes so hard. Really clever and funny. Yeah, I came across that in the Gothic corridor thing, in Corridor Gothic, because they, yeah, they mentioned like she was disappointed that the protagonist was disappointed when she turned up

and there were no dank corridors. It was all night everywhere. And then if you want more modern interpretations of Gothic horror, Angela Carter's Bloody Chamber anthology is also just beautiful, incredible writing. So that sort of horror I quite like. Modern horror, I'm not a big fan of. I've read the odd Stephen King. See, I've still not read much, any Stephen King. I think I started a Stephen King book once in school. But yeah, Dean Coontz I liked. I went to a big Dean Coontz phase, read a lot of that. That was when I was easily getting through a couple of books a week. So like you just got pulp, whatever. It's like pulp horror stuff. And it's good. I liked it. I liked some of the

weird ass imagery. But I think the thing for me with horror that I don't like is I don't like the endings. I quite like a neat little wrapped up ending. And obviously horror doesn't really have that because it's horror. But one writer who does do endings very well that makes me enjoy horror books is Joe Hill, who also happens to be Stephen King's son. Oh. And it's really lovely. I see a bit nicer about describing women. Yes, but that's not saying much. Which is not the worst men writing women I have read. Good, good. The bar is on the floor. Yeah, Pratchett, actually, do you know if we're keeping track of things, isn't this a wonderful example of how far we've come in the disc world?

Oh, yeah. No one is breasting boobily. I don't think they ever did quite, but the armour certainly we've now managed to cover the midriff. I love the mental image of Magra in sort of wedding dress and armour. Yeah, it is a very solid look. Absolutely. And we didn't even have to linger on the fact that Diamanda's a very pretty girl or anything like that. Yeah, no, we would have done in the early book. Yeah. Oh, well, we're on the women being portrayed. Didn't you think the description of the queen was like an anime character, like the queen without her? Oh, yeah, that was very much triangle face, two big eyes, mouth and nose that were almost not there. Yeah, there's kind of a creepy anime vibe to that.

Cool, cool. And then, sorry, I'm holding my notes instead of the plan. There we go. Oh, yeah, you've got a slightly more, more, more critical point, actually. More critical point. And I don't have a million things to say on this because I am not the most educated person to talk about this. But there's looking at the wrecked town that says it looked as though it had been visited by Genghis Cohen, which in itself, not massively an appropriate joke. I mean, we've got Cohen the barbarian already. Yeah, his name is Genghis. Yeah. Yes, we don't officially find that out until the later book. Oh, do we not? Okay. No. We don't learn his first name in Life Fantastic. But then there's the footnote, hence the term

wholesale destruction. Yeah, which just passed me by completely. So Cohen is very much a popular Jewish name and combining that with wholesale destruction. The joke is obviously based on a certain stereotype that is not okay. Because stereotyping people based on things like race and religion is generally not okay. Thumbs down in the Truthful Mighty Fright Handbook. Unless it's Catholics. Unless it's Catholics. Oh, my God, we're the worst. Okay. As a next Catholic, I'm allowed to say that. Okay, cool. Oh, am I allowed to have a go at Methodists then? Yeah, I think I have done, actually. Definitely have done. Anyway, yeah, so that's an anti-Semitic joke. Yeah, the very charitable interpretation is that the founder

of the wholesale shop in England, Tesco, was Cohen. But I think that's a bit of a fucking stretch. So I think that's having now learned that Cohen is a common Jewish name, which I didn't know before he told me. Yeah, I'm going to say, yeah, hint of anti-Semitism there. So we point these things out when we see them. Yes. And I don't, that joke would not be made today. No, and probably wouldn't have been made by Pratchett 10 years later. But no, we are still in. We're in process. And I mean, let's be honest, he never becomes perfect. But I think at least we see a trend. Yes, of learning and growing. This is not us saying, right, we'll actually Pratchett's cancelled. And this is how we announced that. Yeah, sorry. We're just going to cut off

now. This is okay. We won't cancel ourselves. But yeah, let's not have more of those. No, none of these. What shall we have instead, perhaps a very good climax to the book? Oh, my God. Like this is the, it's just so good. It is, it is this big confrontation between the Queen and Granny and Magra. It's also love that it's three female characters. And three very different ones. Three very different. And while the Queen is the antagonist, there's no, there's no Madonna Hall thing going on. Yeah. No, the Madonna Hall complex just doesn't work with the three witches because you've got nanny over there tipping the scale. The all powerful nanny. Oh, there's a few amazing, well, the whole thing's amazing,

but a couple of incredible lines. The Queen's threats that what she's going to do to Granny. Yeah. This idea that she'll be old and dribbling and no one will care for her. But there'll be just enough left inside of her to know. So basically saying, I'll give you dementia, isn't it? Yeah. She's threatening to show Granny her other lives and saying, well, in this one, you have no friends, no one will care that when you die and you never touched a heart. Now, in this bit, Granny does seem to like react in an emotional way. Do you think that was like a bluff thing to? No, I think she had some reality to it because she's just been dealing with the deja vu of all of her past lives, including the ones where she potentially married Ridcully.

And you sort of get the impression as she's talking to Ridcully before she's taken everything. A bit of herself has, she's let herself wander a little bit and think fondly on the fact that she probably has touched a heart that someone remembers her all these years later. And of course, you know, we find out later with her box that she did actually get the letters and kept them. And yeah. And also, like, it's worth pointing out that the Queens are like, oh, and you never touched a heart, whatever. Like, obviously she did. Like, this is getting at Granny's irrational insecurities or like some of it, obviously, like she never did find a partner, whatever. But she's got friends. Even if Magrat's like in a huff with her, I don't think Magrat for a second thought

they'd never be friends again, really, in a heart of hearts. And like Nanny, obviously, cares. Yeah. Her relationship with Nanny is based on them hating each other and loving each other and the bees love her and the bees. It is very important to have bees loving you. It is very important to be loved by the bees. Maybe we should start saying that. Embrace the love of the bee. Yeah. Yeah. What other bits did you like the best? When the Queen is making this threat will be inside your head, you could have been great. But you won't, you'll be old and dribbling and you'll see what you'll have to eat to survive.

Yeah. And Granny, that's almost what gives Granny the power to then fight back. This is what I mentioned earlier. You threatened me with that me who I'm becoming old. And this is where Granny realises this is where her power lies. She says, what doesn't die can't live. What doesn't live can't change. What doesn't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you. And she realises that the Queen may have lived longer, but she is older and therefore better. Yeah. And I thought that was quite a cool little realisation because like a page or two earlier, when the Queen kind of loses her cool finally and starts like just

tirading, we get the better than I knew, stupid old hag, you stupid child who's grown older and done nothing and been nothing. And A, that sounds just very childish. And B is a direct opposite to Granny's. Well, no, it kind of supports Granny's realisation, but in the opposite intent, which I quite liked. And what the Queen is threatening Granny with is what the Queen is most afraid of. The elves are motivated again by wanting to be believed in. And the Queen is threatening Granny with obscurity, with not being believed in. What the Queen is threatening Granny with is not what Granny is really most afraid of. And as an old woman, it's something she's reckoning with already.

Yeah, she's a very nice acknowledgement of the fact that old women are in some societies to be eventually ignored and not listened to. Well, this is the whole theme of a bunch of stuff I've written about women losing social currency as they get older. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, the imagery of the kind of ruined granny weather that's going from house to house, eating whatever to survive is another look at that thing that I think I mentioned during which the broad that practice very, that's clearly something deep there that he just hates that image. And it comes off again and again through the books of a neglected old woman. Yeah, a neglected old woman who's not careful, who's been left behind

by society. Yeah. Yeah. I liked the bees turning up to the ending. What a great image that is, the funnels with the queens in front. Yeah. And the idea of all the fields left empty and the plants left unpollinated because all the bees have come to do this instead. Left to go fertilize themselves, it was put, which I rather liked. Yeah, that did make me giggle. Also, it said they left the hives and the scepts, which I did look up, which is a straw or a wicker beehive. Interesting. But I think honestly, this is the best climax of a book we've had so far. I agree. I think also the bit where she's kind of going on about on my turf on Lanker, I know we talked about the personification of the land already, but it was brought up in a very

powerful way, you know? Yeah, this is mine. You don't get this. You cannot do this. It's very, you have no power here. Yeah, it was cool. Which just as I've got the page open, one of the lines about bees, they emerged like steam colliding one another in their rush to get airborne, the deep gunship hum of the drones underpinned the frantic rules of the workers. God, it's good. And then, like I mentioned earlier, Magret, her confrontation with the queen, her stripping herself down to the barest core of herself. And when she finally realizes, the queen says, you know, why don't you try some Magret? Why don't you try some magic? Magret just kicks her. And it's the thing that, you know, Granny has been trying to teach her and try

and teach these young witches, there is a time for magic and there is a time to just kick someone in the fucking shins. Yeah. And this came quite after she was like, oh, fuck, what if my sack full of occult stuff was like, like making sure stuff didn't get worse. But it was kind of confirmation she really didn't need all the accessories. No. Just a steel boot. And I'm happy for Magret realizing this about herself. The bit about the iron actually, I did look into this a little bit. I didn't put it down as a talking point in the end. The idea of elves navigating by magnetic field? Yeah. Just if anyone is interested in that, the word on this world, because it did mention

there wasn't a word for it in this world, because everyone used magic, is magneto reception. And obviously, some animals can do it. And we don't really quite know how it's done. So is this why you sent me a picture of a screaming bat yesterday? Yes. Okay, that is why I sent you a picture of a screaming bat. There are some bats that can navigate by magnetic field. Yeah. I could have gone on for a little while about what we think maybe it is, but it's not as interesting as talking about how badass Granny is. So Granny is the best. I think this is one of the best Granny moments we've had so far as well. And obviously, we've talked a lot about we're very much the Granny Weatherwax Fan Club and the Nanny Oak Fan Club. And she manages to kind of pass the bat

on to Magret to finish it off as well, which is not like her. Yeah. So she's growing as a person somehow. She's growing as a person, but I think she's also acknowledged that this is what Magret needed to do all along. Yeah. And that it would be folly to not give her the chance to learn this lesson. Yeah. It was interesting, like the second ending, when Migrat's going off about the letter to Nanny. And Nanny just very calmly was like, but you did want to marry him, didn't you? And you did get the strength to do all this from that. Okay, well, that's nice, then dear. It kind of goes on continuing like she doesn't rub it in. Makes it very clear that what's happened is, you know, probably pretty good in the end. So let's go and deal with Granny and stop worrying about this

silly thing. And Magret has last really lovely, powerful moments like Granny's been put in this room full of stained glass and red colours, but candles and flowers around her because her blessing me is a bit soppy. Such a soap, isn't it? And then Nanny versed in and she's like, fuck, you need to open a window and goes to smash one. And Magret's like, uh, hang on, this is my castle, grabs a candlestick, that window. Smash my own windows. Thank you ever so much. Yeah, because you have the half second of thinking, oh, she's not going to be a twat about this again, is she? But no. I'm getting very good at this. I couldn't get a candlestick through a stained glass window. Oh, I don't know. Have you ever tried? That seems like a very X

Catholic thing to do. If you aren't, if you aren't communicated yet, you soon will be. I'm not going to destroy stained glass windows. They're all very pretty. Yeah, that's true. Was that tapestry mentioned here near the Armory? I feel like that was. Oh, I think tapestry implied. Yeah, tapestry strongly implied, yeah. Yeah, so I think that's all I've really got. It's just, it's such a good book. That is. It's brought me a lot of joy. Me too. Me too. I have a finial. You do, you've got an obscure reference finial for me. I do. Ogham. Ogham. When they're going into the Longman, there is some stuff scratched into the ball or something that Nanny can read,

and that's because it is Ogham, which is the ancient language that the Ogs have clearly been around for a long time is the point. And Ogham is actually in ancient language. It's spelt with one G, not two, but it is an early medieval alphabet use, which was for the Irish language. So in the like 4th, 5th, 6th century. You've watched a lot of depiction in the show. I did. Yeah, I think that says Ogham. Okay. I'm not like 100%, but I think that's. Learned to fluently read. I didn't. No, I did not because I was going to do the unicorn bit. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, that's fine. So obviously, I learned all of the folklore from Arthurian legend and that to do with unicorns, but I'm not going to talk about that now.

I did not. But yeah, it's quite a cool little, I'll put that in show notes as well. Cool little thing there. Yeah. And there was like lots of different varieties of it. And there's some very cool looking documents from several hundred years later where people have done a Rosetta Stone like thing and yeah. Sweet. Awesome. So Nanny Og's been, Nanny Og's influence has spanned universes, I think is the moral of that story. I mean, I personally am very influenced by Nanny Og. Yeah, I know. Oh, there is one other fun little callback moment where there's a thing about in the first section about death being picking up unconsidered trifles. And then at the end, Nanny's nicked a trifle from

the wedding. And she's also a picker up of unconsidered trifles. He liked that fun so much, he put it in twice. I respect it. Yeah, yeah. It's a, it is commitment to the, to the trifle pun. He got it to come mental with the puns on this one, didn't he? The fallacy, the trifles, the, I think there were a few more, but yeah. It was a good book. It was a good book. Yeah. I've got, for this section, literally three times as many notes I did for the other two, so. I took a lot of notes for this section, which is also exciting. So I bought this notebook when we started the podcast, to be my podcast note-taking notebook. And with this, I've officially filmed it. And I managed to. Oh, I'm glad you managed to get it. Yeah. It was, it was touching though.

Yeah, so I, I've got one that I've been using for a few books now, although the first two sections of this book I did on a bigger notepad, because that was what was closer to me on the sofa. I'm not as completionist as you say. But I have come up with a nice format for my notes now, which is to use a note, I don't know how well you can see it, use a notepad and then have two ruled lines either side. So I can put the page number and then what it pertains to. So like a possible obscure reference or a talking point. See because mine are colour coded. Yeah. I don't need to do that. Also, I just like chaos. Yes. But yeah. So it has taken 14 books plus a six episode TV series, an episode of Game of Thrones, as I was guessing on for another

podcast and a six episode animated series. It's been sullied with another podcast. There's also a Buffy quiz at the back because I think this was closest when I was doing some kind of zoom Buffy pub quiz thing. Cool. Has that got your, choose your own adventure stuff in from the crystal thingy, Rihanna Pratchett as well. But yeah. So I've, this is my first filled notebook for the podcast. I'm going to put this on the shelf with all the posterity books. You're going to put a little label on it, like a proper archival label with a colour of magic. Nice. Good. Plus. So yeah, so that's fun. You know, I like archives. So I'm going to start a fresh notebook for next month. Speaking of, I think that's all we have to

say about. Oh yeah, sorry. We're just going to talk about admin for a while now guys. I'll get the post. It's out for the lads for the lads. So yeah, that's, I'm pretty sure that's all we have to say on Laws and Nades. What a good book. Very good book. What are we doing next month, Rihanna? Next month, we are going to be talking about Men at Arms, the next book in the Discworld series. Yes, for anyone who didn't catch our mid episode admin last month, the watch still isn't a thing at the moment. So yeah, we still don't have a UK release date, which is why we don't have a big public schedule because yeah, that might shift things. So yeah, Men at Arms, pretty much to hope we know which page numbers we're going to do for the first

section. I have no idea. We'll tweet it. We'll tweet it. Yes, so next month we're going to be talking about Men at Arms, but before then, there might be a cheeky little bit of bonus content coming your way. A little bonus, a little cheeky bonus. There might also be some exciting news from us. Might be some news. Yes, news. Sorry, it took me a while to remember what you were on about. Shadowing. News and bonus content and all sorts of marvellous things. But in the meantime, dear listener, thank you for listening to The True Xiaomi Keyfret. You can follow us on Instagram at The True Xiaomi Keyfret, on Twitter at MakeyFretPod, on Facebook at The True Xiaomi Keyfret. You can join our subreddit, r slash t t s m y f.

You can email us, The True Xiaomi KeyfretPod, at gmail.com and send us your thoughts, queries, castles, albatrosses and snacks. Also, follow us on social media to get an idea of what we're doing next, because we have no idea ever. Please don't forget to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, because it helps other people find us, because algorithms, and of course, do tell other people about us. And until next month, dear listener, where does it end? On a summer night, with couples going their own ways and silky purple twilight growing between the trees, from the castle long after the celebrations had ended, faint laughter in the ringing of little silver bells, and from the empty hillside, only the silence of the elves.

All maidens know for them to go to castle halls for bit. Never mind what old men say, that's just what Janet did. She had not bought a single rose when upset young Tamlin said, no man comes to castle hall, and a maid returns again. Janet kills your castle green and braids your golden hair right. Get she gone from castle hall, for young Tamlin is there. An earthly night, or once per se, so one fell day, did a ride. Now seven years in the land of famous young Tamlin, to her home did Janet fly back to a lady's fair. They saw the look, her Russian face, and knew that she'd been there. On us will be the blame, one said, and thus replied, she, a father my bane, on whom I will, and that's no leave achieved. And nerve there was at

castle hall, she knew it changed their tide. Back to the darkling forest there, she said herself too right. She had not bought a single leaf when upset young Tamlin said, how can you escape the bonny babe that we get us between? And the Hallows' evil win me less, and I'll your husband be. She's told me fast and fear me, not no matter what she see. As on the merc and midnight hour, the very folk did ride. And there she was, his seated say at miles cross be tight. She pulled him from his milk white steed, and a serpent he became. Then in her arms he was a bear, and finally a flame. And then he turned a simple man, she'd won him from the fey. Their angry queen said, I, Tamlin, you're fairly one away. Janet killed your cattle green, and braided

your golden hair right. Get she gone from castle hall, for young Tamlin is there. And at the night of once with sea, so one fell day did a ride. Now seven years in the land of famous young Tamlin abide. I resisted the urge to shove in the fact that that doesn't parallel the end of midsummer night's dream, because the end of midsummer night's dream is in catalytic trocaic tetrometer. Bless you. Watch once that then. If we shadows have offended, think that it's not as mended, it's tetrometer means it's four pairs of stress patterns per line rather than a trokey means

it's a trokey as opposed to an I am so an I am is dada. I'll say dada, dada, dada, dada. If we shadows have offended, and catalytic means that it's an odd number of syllables per line, so there's an extra d at the end of the line. Cool. Yeah, so if we shadows have offended, see why I didn't shoe on that in the episode. Kind of, I like it anyway. Cool. I might put that after the outro. Awesome.