Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Lords and Ladies annotations
From: gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington)
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 02:09:53 GMT
Organization: Contract to CSC, Victoria Uni, Wellington, New Zealand

From: andyh@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Andy Holyer)
Subject: Re: Lords and Ladies annotations
Organization: University of Sussex

I've tried to post this since Friday, but it keeps falling over... :-(

In article <724076244snx@warren.demon.co.uk> leveret@warren.demon.co.uk writes:
>
>passim: Do crop circles need explaining [*] ? Or are they an
>      international phenomenon ?
>
>      [*] I'm not offering to actually _explain_ them ...

Oh please! can I have a go?

"Crop Circles are circular patches of flattened crops which have appeared
in fields of cerials in the South and West of England over the last few
years. There is no firm evidence pointing to their cause: this has been
taken by certain parties as a prima facie proof that they are of course
caused by either alien spacraft or by some supernatural intelligence,
possibly in an attempt to communicate. In recent years, circle systems
have become increasingly elaborate, most notably in the case of a
notable circle in the shape of the Mandelbrot Set, and another system
which is shown on the cover of the recent Led Zeppelin compilation
album, which in general would indicate that whoever's up there they
probably have long hair and say "Wow!" and "Yeah!" a lot. A number of
staged circle-forging challenges last summer have demonstrated both how
easy it is to produce an impressive circle by mundane, not to say
frivolous methods, and also the surprisingly poor ability of
"ceriologists" to distinguish what they describe as a "genuine" circle
form one "merely made by hoaxers". Anyone with a burning desire to
believe in paranormal explanations is invited to post to sci.skeptic an
article asserting essentually "I believe that crop circles are produced
by UFOs/Sun Spots/The Coservative Government/The Easter Bunny and see
how far you get....

>
>p11:  "... a long time ago, in the past.*"
>      [footnote] *Which is another country.
>
>      "The Past is a strange country: they do things differently there"
>      are the opening words of a book, I *think* "The Go-Between", and I
>      *think* Iris Murdoch - any confirmation, anyone ?
>
Something suggests C.P. Snow to me: I'm sure the quote is from the early
years of the century, and hence pre-Murdoch.

>p222: The sleeping king and his warriors who will awake at the End of
>      Things when a wolf eats the sun - this rings a bell (sorry :-))
>      but for the life of me I can't place it! Is it, perhaps,
>      Charlemagne ? Or Arthur ? But I thought Arthur sleeps alone, and
>      the wolf sounds Nordic not Carolingian ...
The "eating the Sun" bit is from the Norse myth of Ragnarok. Fenris, one
of Loki's monster children will break free from his chains and eat the
sun. At this point the frost giants[*] will cross the rainbow bridge and
fight the final battle with the gods of Asgard and the heroes who have
died and gone to Valhalla. See the last part of Wagner's Ring cycle for
details, amongst other things.

[*] Who presumably have *still* not returned the Gods' lawnmower :-)

Arthur and his warriors "are indeed" sleeping, on the island of
Angelsea. This I would guess is also involved.

The sleeping king is one of the oldest and deepest folk-myths of western
culture: I could go into great depth about this (what do you mean,
could? - Ed.), but I won't. See, however the section about the Fisher
King in Frazer's "The Golden Bough", Weston's "From Ritual to Romance"
and all the stuff that this leads into, such as Elliot's "THe Wasteland"
and David Lodge's "Small World" :-)

-&.
- 
&ndy Holyer, School of Cognitive and     |Due to recent events in the USA,
Computing Studies, University of Sussex, |I find I can no longer use this
JANET: andyh@cogs.sussex.ac.uk           |.sig quote. Normal service will
                                         |be resumed when I find another one.