Turtle Recall Part 6

Travels in the Dark Hinterland (Lady Alice Venturi) [DM]

True Arte of Levitatione [P]

Trumpet of Equestrianism (Spout) [UA]

Twenty-Four Years Without Eyebrows (Col. Charles Augustus Makepeace) [SN]

Twurp's Peerage [LL, MA]

Unusual Days, Book of (Waspmire) [W]

Use of Pliers in Warfare, The (Sir Roderick Purdeigh) [DM]

Veni, Vidi, Vici: A Soldier's Life (Gen. A. Tacitus) [J]

Vicar Is Coming To Tea, The, and 127 Other Warnings of Social Embarra.s.sment [Dr Bentley Purchase, UU Press) [SN]

Walking in the Koom Valley (Eric Wheelbrace) [T!]

War With the Snot Goblins, The (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

Way of the Scorpion, The [WA]

Wee (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

Wee Wee Men (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

Wen the Eternally Surprised, The Life of [TOT]

Wesentlichen Ungewissheiten Zugehorig der Offenkundigen Mannlichkeit, Das (Ofleberger) [UA]

What I Did On My Holidays (Twoflower) [IT]

Where's My Cow? [T!]

Whom's Whom [MM]

Why Men Get Under Your Feet (Releventia Flout) [MM]

Why Things Are Not Otherwise (Crumberry) [W]

Woddeley's Basic G.o.ds [H]

World of Poo, The (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

Wormold's Steerage [NOCB]

(See also PLAYS, MAGAZINES) HISTORY BOOKS.

The books from which history is derived. Guarded by the History Monks, in their monastery in a hidden valley in the high RAMTOPS. There are over 20,000 of them, each 10 feet high, bound in lead, and the letters are so small that they have to be read with a magnifying gla.s.s. When people say 'It is written', it is written here. [SG]

MAGICAL BOOKS.

Magical books are more than just pulp and paper; their curly magical writing moves around the page, twisting and writhing in an attempt not to be read by a non-wizard.

All books of magic have a life of their own. In the LIBRARY of Unseen University some of the really energetic ones can't simply be chained to the bookshelves; they have to be nailed shut or kept between steel plates. Or in the case of the volumes on tantric s.e.x magic for the serious connoisseur kept under very cold water to stop them bursting into flames and scorching their severely plain covers.

Things can happen to browsers in magical libraries that make having your face pulled off by tentacled monstrosities from the DUNGEON DIMENSIONS seem a mere light ma.s.sage by comparison. No one in possession of a complete set of marbles would like to settle down with a book of magic, because even the individual words have a private and vindictive life of their own and reading them, in short, is a kind of mental Indian wrestling. Many a young wizard has tried to read a grimoire that is too strong for him, and people who hear the screams find only his pointy shoes with a wisp of smoke coming out of them.

After the first Age of Magic the disposal of grimoires became a severe problem on the Discworld. A spell is still a spell even when imprisoned temporarily in parchment and ink. It has potency. This is not a problem while the book's owner still lives, but on his death the spell book becomes a source of uncontrolled power that cannot easily be defused. In short, spell books leak magic. Various solutions have been tried. Countries near the Rim simply took the books and threw them over the Edge. Near the Hub, less satisfactory alternatives were available. Inserting the offending books in canisters of negatively polarised OCTIRON and sinking them in the fathomless depths of the sea was one (burial in deep caves on land was earlier ruled out after some districts complained of walking trees and five-headed cats), but before long the magic seeped out and eventually fishermen complained of shoals of invisible fish and psychic clams.

A temporary solution was the construction, in various centres of magical lore, of large rooms made of denatured octiron, which is impervious to most forms of magic. Here the more critical grimoires can be stored until their potency has attenuated. That was how there came to be, at the Library of Unseen University, the OCTAVO, greatest of all grimoires. At least one legend suggests that it has always been there and that the University grew up around it.

Bookworm, .303. The fastest insect on the Discworld. It evolved in magical libraries, where it is necessary to eat extremely quickly to avoid being affected by the thaumic radiations. An adult .303 bookworm can eat through a shelf of books so fast that it ricochets off the wall. [P, GG]

Borgle, Nodar. The Klatchian who ran a large canteen in Holy Wood, with a cuisine very nearly on a par with that of C.M.O.T. DIBBLER himself. [MP]

Borogravia. In its own view, a peace-loving country in the midst of treacherous, devious, warlike enemies. Borogravia fights with everyone. It is ruled by the Grand d.u.c.h.ess ANNAGOVIA. Borogravia's capital, (PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJosephBerhardtWilhelmsberg), is 2300 miles from Ankh-Morpork by broomstick. Its princ.i.p.al river, the meandering Kneck, separates it from its warlike neighbour, Zlobenia. The Kneck wanders across a wide rich, silty plain like a piece of dropped string. The country does have some tallow mines, Borogravians are not bad farmers, but the country has no great architecture, no big libraries, no famous composers, no very high mountains, no wonderful views. It has many small towns, mostly with names such as Lipz, Drok, Plotz, Crotz, Pln (a dump, allegedly) and Tbz (watch out for the troll bridge).

Its national anthem (in translation) runs: 'Awake, ye sons of the Motherland Taste no more the wine of the sour apples Woodsman, grasp your choppers!

Farmers, slaughter with the tool formerly used for lifting beets the foe!

Frustrate the endless wiles of our enemies We into the darkness march singing Against the whole world in arms coming But see the golden light upon the mountain tops!

The new day is a great big fis.h.!.+'

The last line, it seems, is a literal translation. It means something like 'an amazing opportunity' or 'a glittering prize'. [MR]

Borrowing. Magical technique employed by some witches to enter the mind of other living creatures. The witch reaches out to share a mind with a forest creature, while her body remains behind in a sleep so deep that it can be mistaken for death (which is why when Granny Weatherwax, a very skilled exponent of the craft, goes borrowing, her apparently lifeless hands hold a piece of card on which is written 'I ATE'NT DEAD'). The witch rides on the animal's mind, steering it gently; it is important not to upset the owner, who would undoubtedly panic if it realised that the witch's mind was there as well. There is a price for this skill: no one asks you to pay it, but the very absence of a demand is a moral obligation to a witch. The borrower's motto is: Leave nothing but memories, take nothing but experience.

The more apparently complex a mind is, the harder it is to borrow. For the purposes of most witches the 'best' minds are those of small uncomplicated creatures, like rabbits and most birds. Humans, with their interweaving parallel streams of thought, are very hard. Hardest of all, though, is a hive mind; borrowing the mind of a swarm of bees, for example, when all its components might be travelling in various directions and at varying speeds, is the Everest of borrowing. It is known to have been achieved once.

A built-in danger is that a witch, by accident or design, will become so immersed in the mind of the 'borrowed' creature that she will not return. Indeed, it has sometimes been suggested that witches never die they merely don't come back.

Borvorius. Imperiator of the Tsortean army. [SG]

Bottler, Violet. See Violet Bottomley, Duke. Leather-skinned farm worker who also helps out with the harvest at Miss FLITWORTH'S. Duke's parents have upwardly mobile if rather simplistic ideas about cla.s.s structure his brothers are called Squire, Earl and King. [RM]

Bra.s.s Neck. Village in the RAMTOPS, under Leaping Mountain and in the next valley to BAD a.s.s. [ER]

Brattsley. Member of VITOLLER'S troupe of players. [WS]

Bravd (the Hublander). Big, strong barbarian. Thick as two short planks, if the planks are extremely thick (see STANDARDS). [COM]

Breccia. Troll actor in the clicks. Also the name of an oft-alluded-to secret society of trolls, similar to the popular images of the Mafia or the Chinese Tongs or the Rotary Club. [MP, SM]

Brian (1). A wizard who works at ZakZak Stronginthearm's. You could tell he was a wizard. Wizards never want you to have to guess. He has long flowing robes, with stars and magical symbols on them; there are even some sequins. His beard would have been long and flowing if indeed he'd been the kind of young man who could really grow a beard. Instead, it's ragged and wispy and not very clean. And the general effect is also spoiled by the fact that he is normally found smoking a cigarette, with a mug of tea in his hand and a face that looks a bit like something that lives under damp logs.

The mug is chipped and on it are the jolly words 'You Don't Have To Be Magic To Work Here But It Helps!!!!!'

He is actually not really a wizard he just did the evening clases at UU in fretwork. He read a few of the magic books and pinched the robes. [AHFOS]

Brian (2). Brian Roberts. Sergeant of the Baron's guard over on the Chalk. Brian taught the Baron's son to ride a horse, and taught him how to hold a sword and how to hunt. He is married to Millie and he writes poetry, such as 'What Good Is The Sky Without Stars?' [ISWM]

Brick. A young troll in Ankh-Morpork. When we first meet him, he is over-fond of banned substances such as Sc.r.a.pe. He was a loser's loser a troll without a clan or a gang. He was considered thick even by other trolls. He does not look very prepossessing emaciated, with watery, fried-egg eyes and scarred k.n.o.bbly arms. He was called Brick because he had been born in the city and trolls, being made of metamorphorical rock, often take on the nature of the local rocks. His hide was a dirty orange, with a network of horizontal and vertical lines; if Brick stood up close to a wall, he was quite hard to see. But most people didn't see Brick anyway. He was the kind of person whose mere existence is an affront to the litter laws. [T!]

Broadman. Former landlord of the Broken DRUM, Ankh-Morpork. A fat little man with small black beady eyes. He was killed while setting fire to his own pub shortly after learning the strange new concept of 'insurance'. [COM]

Broken Drum. (See DRUM).

Bronze Psepha. One of the dragons of the WYRMBERG. This dragon, with its long, equine head and bronze-gold wings, is ridden by K!SDRA. Like all the dragons of the Wyrmberg, he was imaginary and given solid existence by the very high level of ambient magic (see MAGIC) in the area. [COM]

Brooks, Mr. Royal Beekeeper in LANCRE. Although most of the Castle staff are known by their surname, Mr Brooks, like the cook and the butler, has the privilege of an honorific. He treats everyone as an equal not his equal, but equal to everyone else and slightly inferior to him. This is perhaps because he deals with royalty in his hives every day. A truly skilled man, and probably as near to being a witch as you can be while wearing trousers. Hates wasps. [LL]

Brown Islands. Land of big waves and men who surf, rumoured to be the place where bread grows on trees and young women find little white b.a.l.l.s in oysters. Located somewhere between the CIRCLE SEA and the COUNTERWEIGHT CONTINENT. Insofar as there is any trading official between the two continents, it takes place here. [COM, SG]

Brown, Mr. Locksmith in Ankh-Morpork. A neat, elderly, skinny man with a neat little voice and properly-polished shoes. He was a very skilled locksmith a skill which led inevitably to his unfortunate demise. [H]

Brunt, Ossie. A bit of a loner. Friends would have called him a quiet sort who kept himself to himself but they didn't because he didn't have any friends. Or relatives. He used to do odd jobs. He was implicated in the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of the Prince KHUFURAH. He was described as 'a weird little twerp, as impressionable as wet clay'. [J]

Brutha. First seen as a loyal and devout novice in the Omnian church, wearing huge sandals and a grubby robe, tending the Temple garden. He was then about seventeen years old, with a big, round, red, honest face and ham-sized hands, a body like a barrel, and tree-trunk legs ending in splay-feet and knock-ankles.

Brutha didn't leave his small village until he was twelve. He was by nature kind, generous and therefore marked down by FATE as a natural target. The other novices called him the Big Dumb Ox. Brutha mastered neither reading nor writing, but he had an absolutely perfect memory, which more or less compensated; all he needed to do was glance at a text in order to be able to write it or, from his point of view, draw it in its entirety. When the Great G.o.d OM was trapped in the form of a tortoise, Brutha whose quiet and unquestioning belief meant he was the only person left in the entire country who could hear the G.o.d speak carried him round in a wickerwork box slung over his shoulder. After many adventures, both prospered in their chosen spheres.

Although Brutha was made a bishop by VORBIS, he was later personally appointed CEn.o.bIARCH by the Great G.o.d OM. He died after having reached a great age.

Brutha's reinterpretation of the Omnian religion as one of peace and love almost immediately fractured it into a thousand different sects, who have subsequently spent their time arguing about what he said, what it meant, or if he really existed, or if any of them really existed, or if it meant anything, or if anything really meant anything when you got right down to it . . . thus leaving large parts of the world free to amble through history without being put to the sword every other week. [SG]

Bucket, Seldom. Proprietor and owner of the Ankh-Morpork Opera House. A moustached, self-made man, and proud of his handiwork. He confuses bluffness and honesty with merely being rude. He bought the Opera House with the a.s.sistance of money borrowed from CHRISTINE'S father. He made his money in the cheese and milk derivatives business. His companies include Bucket's Cheese Factory, Bucket's Dairy Products, Bucket's Spreads and Bucket's Bovine, Ovine and Caprine-Based Drinks, ALC. [M!, CWD]

Bucket, the. A tavern, of sorts, in Gleam Street, Ankh-Morpork. The Bucket, which lacks charm, ambience or even many customers, is now the bar of choice for the City WATCH. Watchmen don't like to see things that'd put them back on duty when they just want a quiet drink. There's little pa.s.sing trade in Gleam Steet. The street is, if not a dead end, then seriously wounded by the area's change of fortunes.

Bugarup. Major university city of x.x.xx. Famous for its Opera House, which looks like a box of tissues, its harbour, and for its wizards' university. [TLC]

Bugarup University. The corrugated iron x.x.xx equivalent of Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork. The iron sheets around its gates (also corrugated iron, nailed to bits of wood with second-hand nails) have been bent and hammered into the shape of a stone arch. Over it, burned into the thin metal, are the words 'Nullus Anxietas', the university's motto. The walls incorporate a loose sheet to get in after hours. Alongside this loose sheet is a chalked message, 'Nulli Sheilae Sanguineae', a wizardly philosophy. Inside the walls, there is a short, pleasant lawn illuminated at night by the light from a large, low building. In fact, all the buildings are low with wide roofs like a lot of square mushrooms that've been stepped on, according to the wizard Rincewind. There is also a tower, which is twenty feet high from the outside, although it is half a mile high at the top. The tower's base is stonework, but about halfway the builders got fed up and resorted to rusted tin sheets nailed onto a wooden framework, telling the Archchancellor of the time 'No worries, mate, she'll be right!' If you brave the rickety ladder leading to the top, you'll find a plank flooring surrounded by corrugated battlements. [TLC]

Bunty. A friend of Sybil Vimes' in Quirm. Berenice Waynesbury, nee Mouse-father. She has a daughter who lives outside Quirm and a son who had to go to Fourecks in a hurry. [T!]

Burleigh. President of the Guild of Armourers and proprietor of Burleigh and Stronginthearm, crossbowmakers to the n.o.bility.

Bustle, Simplicity. Sensibility Bustle, D.M. Phil.,B.El L.,Patricius Professor of Magic, Author of Hivers: A Dissertation Upon A Device Of Amazing Cunning. All that could be found of Professor Bustle was buried in a jar in the old Rose Garden at UU. UU advises all research students to spend some time there, and reflect upon the manner of his death. [HFOS]

Butch. A dog in Ankh-Morpork. His top and bottom set of fangs have grown so large that he appears to be looking at the world through bars, and he is bow-legged; this is what calling a dog 'Butch' does to it. A member of the DOG GUILD. [MAA]

b.u.t.terfly, Quantum Weather. Papilio Tempestae. So called because of its ability to create weather. The Quantum Weather b.u.t.terfly is an undistinguished yellow colour, with mandelbrot patterns on its wings. The wings are slightly more ragged than those of the common fritillary; the ragged edges are infinite therefore, if their edges are infinitely long, the wings must be infinitely big. They only look about the right size because human beings have always preferred common sense to logic. [IT]

b.u.t.ts, Eulalie. Miss b.u.t.ts co-founded and runs the QUIRM COLLEGE FOR YOUNG LADIES, a large boarding school which is single-s.e.x although she would probably prefer it to be no s.e.x whatsoever. She is short, but with a bearing and manner that make people think she is tall even while they're looking down at her. She is not unkind, despite a lifetime of being gently dried out on the stove of education. She is conscientious and a stickler for propriety, and did not deserve to have SUSAN Sto Helit as a pupil. [SM]

B'zugda-Hiara. Dwarfish insult. Means 'Lawn Ornament'. [WA]

Cable Street Particulars. A plain-clothes branch of the police force re-introduced by Commander VIMES, although in practice it is merely a front for the occasional training and employment of specialists who have skills, talents or knowledge unavailable to the average copper. In old Ankh-Morpork, it was an unpleasant force, working for the then Patricians, using torture, coercion and subterfuge to manipulate the city. It almost certainly led to the young Sam Vimes's deep distrust of plain-clothes policemen. Unfortunately, though, secret crimes sometimes need secret policemen. [M!!!!!, NW]

Cake, Mrs Evadne. A small medium, living in Elm Street, Ankh-Morpork. Squat and short-sighted, she is almost perfectly circular; in spite of this she looms tremendously, largely because of her hat, which she wears at all times. It is huge and black and covered with stuffed birds, wax fruit and other a.s.sorted decorative items, all painted black. Carrying an enormous handbag, she travels under her hat like a basket travels under a balloon, grumbling away to herself her mouth is constantly moving.

Mrs Cake is a very religious woman: there isn't a temple, church, mosque or small group of standing stones anywhere in the city that she hasn't attended at one time or another. Strait-laced and intolerant in most respects she is, in fact, exactly the kind of person who disapproves of people like her. Apart from church work, her main hobby is dress-making.

She is not a bead curtain and incense medium. She is actually very good at her profession, with a lifetime of involvement in the spirit world, an involvement which it must be said the spirits feel they could well have done without. With her precognition switched on, she has a disconcerting tendency to respond to questions before they're asked.

Mrs Cake has a daughter, Ludmilla, who is a werewolf. It is because of this that she has a surprisingly understanding att.i.tude to the undead and morphically challenged, and by the time of Men At Arms (when Ludmilla had left home) she had opened her home as a lodging house for those of a nocturnal and fur-growing persuasion.

It is very clear that Mrs Cake is, at least in practical terms, a witch.

Cake, Ludmilla. Daughter of Mrs Evadne CAKE. A werewolf. When in human form, Ludmilla is still built to a scale slightly larger than normal: she is the sort of person who goes through life crouching slightly and looking apologetic in case she inadvertently looms. She has magnificent hair, which crowns her head and flows out behind her like a cloak. She also has slightly pointed ears and teeth which, while white and beautiful, catch the light in a disturbing way. Like all werewolves, her habit of staring at people's throats while she talks to them tends to put a damper on conversation. [RM]

Cakebread. Person once cursed by Nanny OGG for kicking her cat. Since her cat is GREEBO, it is amazing that Cakebread survived long enough to be cursed. [WS]

Caleb (the Ripper). A member of the Silver Horde of COHEN the Barbarian. He killed more than 400 men with his bare hands, and two with their bare hands. Caleb was known to be over 85 years old at his death if, indeed, he died. [IT, TLH]

Calendars: THE DISCWORLD YEAR:.

The calendar on a planet which is flat and revolves on the back of four giants elephants is always difficult to establish.

It can be derived, though, by starting with the fact that the spin year defined by the time taken for a point on the Rim to turn one full circle is about 800 days long. The tiny sun orbits in a fairly flat ellipse, being rather closer to the surface of the disc at the rim than at the Hub (thus making the Hub rather cooler than the rim). This ellipse is stable and stationary with respect to the Turtle the sun pa.s.ses between two of the elephants.

The effect of all this is that the 'spin year' contains two of each season two summers, two winters and so on. The winters occur when our theoretical point is at 90 to the orbit of the sun, and the summers when it is directly under the orbit.

In theory this should mean that the point on the rim should be extremely cold during the 'winters', whereas it has been established that the climate on the Rim is quite mild all year round. It has been suggested by wizards at UU that this is caused by the scatter effect of the very high magical flux around the edge of the disc, which tends to equalise temperatures all around the circ.u.mference.

In the days of the Ankh-Morpork Empire this was fully understood and the Great Year was divided into eight seasons Winterprime, Spring Prime, Summer Prime, Autumn Prime, Winter Secundus, Spring Secundus and so on. But this was always a purist's view of the calendar, of interest only to wizards and astrologers. Most people and certainly most rural areas really dealt quite sensibly in what were technically half-years, a little longer than a terrestrial year, but noted that some years the sun rose on your left as you faced the Hub, and on others it rose on your right. Apart from that, they follow the natural year. You plough, you sow, it grows, you harvest that's a year, no matter what some daft old man in Ankh-Morpork says.

This has caused some confusion over the naming of various festivals. Hogswatchnight and Crueltide are, from the farmer's point of view, the 'same' festival, although in fact they are the middle and end of the year. Midsummer Eve and Small G.o.ds Eve are also 'the same' for practical purposes. In rural areas Hogwatchnight and Midsummer Eve tend to be used to refer to both festivals, since they refer to natural, homely things (the beginning of summer and the killing of animals).

There are thirteen months in the year Offle, February, March, April, May, June, Grune, August, Spune, Sektober, Ember, December and Ick. There are eight days in a week, Octeday being the eighth.

Centuries and years are given names, usually chosen by astrologers. The action in most of the books is set in the final years of the Century of the Fruitbat, and the early years of the Century of the Anchovy.

Ankh-Morpork also numbers its years for governmental purposes, although the numbering system has been tinkered with as the fortunes of the city have changed. Initially, they dated from the founding of the city, but Ankh-Morpork has been burned, razed, rebuilt lost and founded, as it were many times, and various rulers with more pride than sense have started the numbering from 1 all over again, usually from some vitally important event such as their accession to power. But the recent calendar can be deduced as follows.

Unseen University is known to be two thousand years old in its present form (although in one form or another there has been some kind of magical presence on the site since the creation of Discworld). It was founded in what was then known as AM 1282 by Alberto Malich, during the closing days of the Ankh-Morpork Empire (This lasted from AM 1, the building of one of the first cities in what is now the Shades area, until shortly after the founding of UU).

The wizards began numbering their years from that date, since it didn't matter much to them what the year was called on the other side of the walls. And, as the civil calendar was tinkered with, and revised when people lost count, or found nineteen days that shouldn't have been there, or mislaid the whole of Grune, the city eventually took to using the University's Ankh-Morpork Years, which at least were reliable and happened one after the other, apart from 1256, which for some reason happened twice.

The fact that there are therefore at least two 'counts' has not really caused confusion historians know their history and don't get confused, and most other people don't need to think much outside the present century.

The Century of the Fruitbat was therefore the twentieth century. The Ankh-Morpork Civil War, which took place in 432 by the city count at the time, took place in AM 1688 by the more reliable University calendar. Students should in any case be wary of references to 'the civil war'; there have been at least seven in the city's recorded history, besides a large number of uncivil or even downright impolite ones. That was, however, the last one, and marked the end of the lengthy monarchical period in the city's history. Since then the city has been ruled by a succession of oligarchies and self-elected dictators of varying degrees of sanity (see PATRICIANS, etc).

Cambric, Miss. Long Tall Short Fat Sally (she suffers from tides). She is being trained as a witch, in Ankh-Morpork, by old Mrs Happenstance. [ISWM]