Read Online The Folklore of Discworld by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson - Free Book Online Page B
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dwarfs’ understanding, is both the creator of, and immanent in, the fundamental laws of the universe. There is no act of worship, any more than gravity is worshipped, although it may be argued that living a ‘right life’ is such a thing. Even then the dwarf laws seem open to slow change by long argument. Dwarfs are artisans, after all; tools that don’t work are recast.
Chapter 3
THE ELVES
I T ’ S EASY, ALL TOO EASY , for people nowadays to get hold of the wrong end of the stick if you tell them there are ‘elves’ about. And if you say ‘fairies’, that just makes matters worse. People think of tall, shining figures dancing in rings in the moonlight to the loveliest music one could hope to hear; or tiny dainty creatures with butterfly wings, fluttering round flowers.
And in a way, some of this is true. For elves do generally choose to appear tall, beautiful and glamorous to humans. Their real appearance is thin, dull, and grey, with triangular faces and big slanty eyes (oddly, they occasionally let themselves be seen like this by the people of our world, who then label them ‘aliens’ and ‘extraterrestrials’, and get very excited). They do sing and dance, and sometimes they laugh a lot, though you would probably not like it if you knew what they are laughing about. And there are indeed little flying ones, though they have more in common with hornets than with butterflies. In truth, elves and fairies are a predatory, cruel, parasitic race, who will use other living beings, and hurt them, because this is fun. They break into a world through those strange places where the barrier between dimensions is just a bit too thin for safety. Places which are like a door, half open. Places where it’s wise to put a marker of some kind – a solitary tree, say, or some standing stones – to warn everybody to keep away.
And yet, foolish people will go there. In Lancre, for instance, a group of men in a wood, looking for somewhere private to rehearse a play:
‘Let’s go right,’ said Jason.
‘Nah, it’s all briars and thorns that way.’
‘All right, then, left then.’
‘It’s all winding,’ said Weaver.
‘What about the middle road?’ said Carter.
Jason peered ahead.
There was a middle track, hardly more than an animal path, which wound away under shady trees. Ferns grew thickly alongside it. There was a general green, rich, dark feel to it, suggestive of the word ‘bosky’.
His blacksmith’s senses stood up and screamed.
‘Not that way,’ he said.
‘Ah, come on ,’ said Weaver. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Goes up to the Dancers, that path does,’ said Jason. [ Lords and Ladies ]
The blacksmith Jason Ogg knows that the Dancers – a ring of eight stumpy man-sized stones, one of which is The Piper – are to be avoided, though he doesn’t know why. Nor does his conscious mind know why he fears the ferny path; it is his instincts which (as we shall see) have picked up a warning from the lore of another world. These are signs of a gateway, a short cut between dimensions, a place where elves can enter.
One clue that elves have broken in, or are just about to, is that crop circles start appearing in cornfields; the growing wheat bends over sharply, breaks, and lies down in a circle. This strange phenomenon has been observed several times in Lancre, and also on the Earth in recent years.
Earlier generations on Earth got no such warnings, but then they didn’t need them. They knew for sure that there were elves and fairies lurking in pools and streams, in deep woods and inside mounds and rocks, and sweeping across the sky in the wild winter winds. And they knew that these beings were cold-hearted, revengeful, often cruel, however beautiful their faces and however enchanting theirmusic. Any countryman in Ireland or the Scottish Highlands 150 or 200 years ago would have known of a dozen cases of someone who died, or lost his wits, or became paralysed, or simply was
Chapter 3
THE ELVES
I T ’ S EASY, ALL TOO EASY , for people nowadays to get hold of the wrong end of the stick if you tell them there are ‘elves’ about. And if you say ‘fairies’, that just makes matters worse. People think of tall, shining figures dancing in rings in the moonlight to the loveliest music one could hope to hear; or tiny dainty creatures with butterfly wings, fluttering round flowers.
And in a way, some of this is true. For elves do generally choose to appear tall, beautiful and glamorous to humans. Their real appearance is thin, dull, and grey, with triangular faces and big slanty eyes (oddly, they occasionally let themselves be seen like this by the people of our world, who then label them ‘aliens’ and ‘extraterrestrials’, and get very excited). They do sing and dance, and sometimes they laugh a lot, though you would probably not like it if you knew what they are laughing about. And there are indeed little flying ones, though they have more in common with hornets than with butterflies. In truth, elves and fairies are a predatory, cruel, parasitic race, who will use other living beings, and hurt them, because this is fun. They break into a world through those strange places where the barrier between dimensions is just a bit too thin for safety. Places which are like a door, half open. Places where it’s wise to put a marker of some kind – a solitary tree, say, or some standing stones – to warn everybody to keep away.
And yet, foolish people will go there. In Lancre, for instance, a group of men in a wood, looking for somewhere private to rehearse a play:
‘Let’s go right,’ said Jason.
‘Nah, it’s all briars and thorns that way.’
‘All right, then, left then.’
‘It’s all winding,’ said Weaver.
‘What about the middle road?’ said Carter.
Jason peered ahead.
There was a middle track, hardly more than an animal path, which wound away under shady trees. Ferns grew thickly alongside it. There was a general green, rich, dark feel to it, suggestive of the word ‘bosky’.
His blacksmith’s senses stood up and screamed.
‘Not that way,’ he said.
‘Ah, come on ,’ said Weaver. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Goes up to the Dancers, that path does,’ said Jason. [ Lords and Ladies ]
The blacksmith Jason Ogg knows that the Dancers – a ring of eight stumpy man-sized stones, one of which is The Piper – are to be avoided, though he doesn’t know why. Nor does his conscious mind know why he fears the ferny path; it is his instincts which (as we shall see) have picked up a warning from the lore of another world. These are signs of a gateway, a short cut between dimensions, a place where elves can enter.
One clue that elves have broken in, or are just about to, is that crop circles start appearing in cornfields; the growing wheat bends over sharply, breaks, and lies down in a circle. This strange phenomenon has been observed several times in Lancre, and also on the Earth in recent years.
Earlier generations on Earth got no such warnings, but then they didn’t need them. They knew for sure that there were elves and fairies lurking in pools and streams, in deep woods and inside mounds and rocks, and sweeping across the sky in the wild winter winds. And they knew that these beings were cold-hearted, revengeful, often cruel, however beautiful their faces and however enchanting theirmusic. Any countryman in Ireland or the Scottish Highlands 150 or 200 years ago would have known of a dozen cases of someone who died, or lost his wits, or became paralysed, or simply was
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