Read Online The Folklore of Discworld by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson - Free Book Online
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she-dwarfs in Ankh-Morpork soon follow Cheery’s lead and pluck up courage to ‘come out’. But when her duties take her to the old homelands in the mountains, she has to face traditionalists who think it an obscene abomination, a denial of all true dwarfishness, for a female even to admit her gender, let alone to flaunt it by her appearance. The fact that the relatively liberal King Rhys Rhysson accepts her presence, and actually shakes hands with her, is for them a major culture shock.
It is fascinating to compare the way Discworld dwarfs view femininity with the rules, taboos and superstitions about women in many Earthly societies, past and present. At first glance, they seem to be opposites. Dwarfs expect females to conceal their gender, to dress exactly like males, to be warriors, miners, blacksmiths and so forth, just like males. On Earth, on the contrary, societies and religions which feel strongly on questions of gender abominate the idea of a woman dressing like a man. They expect her to wear distinctively female clothing, obeying rules as to what is or is not ‘modest’: the most important concerns usually being the length of the skirt and how much of the hair, head and face should be concealed. In extreme cases, women end up looking more like small perambulating tents than human beings. So, although their garb proclaims their gender, at the same time it hides it, as surely as that of a Discworld she-dwarf.
As regards work practices, however, Discworld dwarfs are not hampered by the same taboos as Earth’s older traditional societies, where it would be out of the question for a woman to take up man’s work. Even in European countries in recent times, in some ultra-masculine occupations it was believed that the mere presence of a woman brought bad luck. Women were not allowed to go down mines or on board fishing boats – indeed, simply to meet a woman on the road down to the beach would make a fisherman give up his plans for the day and head back home.
Behind this, rarely mentioned openly, is a deep-rooted horror of menstruation, regarded as a source of magical harm in primitive societies, and as a pollution in the Bible. Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough gives examples of taboos among the native peoples of Australia, North America and elsewhere: a menstruating woman must not touch a man, or his tools and weapons, or any object he may use, or he will surely die; she must not touch freshly killed meat, or it will go bad; she must not go anywhere near the pastures, or the cows will die. There is a whole list of similar notions in the writings of the Roman naturalist Pliny, who regarded them as proven scientific facts: her touch will turn milk sour, cause plants to wither, blunt razors, cloud mirrors, and so on. Most of them crop up again in relatively modern European folklore. As recently as 1846 Victor Hugo noted that menstruating women were not allowed into parts of the Paris catacombs where mushrooms were grown, as their presence would make the mushrooms rot. And to this day some Orthodox Jews will not shake hands with a gentile woman, for fear she might be having her period (a Jewish woman would know she must keep out of their way at this time).
Dwarfs say of themselves that they are not a religious race. True, they have been heard to utter some rather strange words, which may be the names of gods, if they drop something heavy on their toes. They also talk about Agi Hammerthief, a mischievous sort of sprite who hangs about in mines and makes off with the tool you were quite sure you’d put down just there . Sometimes, in a dark tunnel, you can hear his distant laughter. But they don’t count these things as religion; they don’t take them seriously.
What dwarfs do take very seriously indeed are the Laws, which were called into existence, at the beginning of time, by Tak. Who Tak was or is, is something they do not discuss, but every dwarf knows the Tale of the Things Tak Wrote:
The first thing
It is fascinating to compare the way Discworld dwarfs view femininity with the rules, taboos and superstitions about women in many Earthly societies, past and present. At first glance, they seem to be opposites. Dwarfs expect females to conceal their gender, to dress exactly like males, to be warriors, miners, blacksmiths and so forth, just like males. On Earth, on the contrary, societies and religions which feel strongly on questions of gender abominate the idea of a woman dressing like a man. They expect her to wear distinctively female clothing, obeying rules as to what is or is not ‘modest’: the most important concerns usually being the length of the skirt and how much of the hair, head and face should be concealed. In extreme cases, women end up looking more like small perambulating tents than human beings. So, although their garb proclaims their gender, at the same time it hides it, as surely as that of a Discworld she-dwarf.
As regards work practices, however, Discworld dwarfs are not hampered by the same taboos as Earth’s older traditional societies, where it would be out of the question for a woman to take up man’s work. Even in European countries in recent times, in some ultra-masculine occupations it was believed that the mere presence of a woman brought bad luck. Women were not allowed to go down mines or on board fishing boats – indeed, simply to meet a woman on the road down to the beach would make a fisherman give up his plans for the day and head back home.
Behind this, rarely mentioned openly, is a deep-rooted horror of menstruation, regarded as a source of magical harm in primitive societies, and as a pollution in the Bible. Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough gives examples of taboos among the native peoples of Australia, North America and elsewhere: a menstruating woman must not touch a man, or his tools and weapons, or any object he may use, or he will surely die; she must not touch freshly killed meat, or it will go bad; she must not go anywhere near the pastures, or the cows will die. There is a whole list of similar notions in the writings of the Roman naturalist Pliny, who regarded them as proven scientific facts: her touch will turn milk sour, cause plants to wither, blunt razors, cloud mirrors, and so on. Most of them crop up again in relatively modern European folklore. As recently as 1846 Victor Hugo noted that menstruating women were not allowed into parts of the Paris catacombs where mushrooms were grown, as their presence would make the mushrooms rot. And to this day some Orthodox Jews will not shake hands with a gentile woman, for fear she might be having her period (a Jewish woman would know she must keep out of their way at this time).
Dwarfs say of themselves that they are not a religious race. True, they have been heard to utter some rather strange words, which may be the names of gods, if they drop something heavy on their toes. They also talk about Agi Hammerthief, a mischievous sort of sprite who hangs about in mines and makes off with the tool you were quite sure you’d put down just there . Sometimes, in a dark tunnel, you can hear his distant laughter. But they don’t count these things as religion; they don’t take them seriously.
What dwarfs do take very seriously indeed are the Laws, which were called into existence, at the beginning of time, by Tak. Who Tak was or is, is something they do not discuss, but every dwarf knows the Tale of the Things Tak Wrote:
The first thing
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