From: leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart)
Subject: The Annotated Pratchett File, v2.0
Followup-To: alt.fan.pratchett
Summary: This file documents and explains some of the more obscure
    	jokes and references in Terry Pratchett's novels. It is 
    	updated and posted every three weeks.
Originator: leo@galaxy
Supersedes: <annotated-pratchett_713628100@ph.tn.tudelft.nl>
Reply-To: leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl
Organization: Delft University of Technology
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 22:31:37 GMT
Expires: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 22:31:49 GMT

Archive-name: annotated-pratchett
Last-modified: 1992/09/01 21:50:22
Version: 2.0
Maintained-by: Leo Breebaart (leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl)


*** Welcome to the Annotated Pratchett File! ***


 --- What's all this, then?

Discussions in alt.fan.pratchett have made it clear that sometimes people
are not 'getting' all of the jokes and references in Terry Pratchett's
work. If you have never read Tolkien, you won't know when he's parodying
Tolkien. If you are American, you might not understand some of the typically
British references.

This file is an ongoing attempt to document and explain some of these
things, so that we might all enjoy Terry's books even more than we already do.


 --- Great idea, how can I help?

Glad you asked. Input from a.f.pratchett readers is the only thing that
is going to make the APF grow into something truly useful, and earn
it its pretentious 'annotated' claim. You can mail your explanations to:
    
    leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl

if you want to be sure I see them, but I scan a.f.pratchett as well, so
just mentioning something in an article should also work fine.


 --- So, didya notice that "Cohen the Barbarian" is a pun on "Conan the
     Barbarian"?

No kidding. But let's try to avoid explaining the blindingly obvious, 
shall we? Now if Cohen, on page 98 of "The Light Fantastic" did something 
hilariously similar to what Conan did in a 1957 issue of "Conan Comics" --
that would be something else.


 --- Will you get on with it, already?

Ok, ok. Here are the annotations I have collected so far. Note that I am 
merely editor of this stuff: most of it has been supplied by or stolen from 
various Usenet correspondents. All the credits are theirs; all typos and 
other mistakes are mine. Page numbers refer to whatever version of the book 
in question I happen to have. Use them as a rough estimate.


THE COLOUR OF MAGIC:

- [p.9] The two barbarians, Bravd and Weasel, are parodies of Fritz Leiber's
  classic fantasy heroes Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
  Terry has said that Ankh Morpork is *not* derived from Leiber's similar
  sounding city Lankhmar.

- [p.18] The inn called 'The Broken Drum' gets burned down in this book. The
  later Discworld novels all feature an inn called 'The Mended Drum'.
  The novel "Strata" contains an explanation of why you would call a pub
  'The Broken Drum' in the first place: "You can't beat it". I don't
  think this explanation is ever repeated in ColOfMag.

- [p.169] After Rincewind and Twoflower escape from the Wyrmberg they are 
  flying a dragon one moment and a modern jetliner the next. Clearly
  they have been "translated to another plane" (the last few paragraphs
  of that section seem to support this theory). Note also the "powerful
  travelling rune TWA" appearing on the luggage: Trans *World* Airlines.

- [p.171] 'Zweiblumen' is the literal German translation of 'Twoflower'.
  [I don't know if 'Rjinswand' is a similar Scandinavian translation. Anybody?]

- About the name 'Twoflower', Terry Pratchett has this to say:
  "[...] there's no joke in Twoflower.  I just wanted a coherent way of
  making up 'foreign' names and I think I pinched the Mayan construction 
  (Nine Turning Mirrors, Three Rabbits, etc)."


THE LIGHT FANTASTIC:

- [p. 7] The philosopher Ly Tin Weedle, appearing here at a party, was also
  spotted in a "Mort" footnote on p. 24, in a bar. He is rumoured to
  appear a third time somewhere in the Discworld books, but I have not
  been able to track that down.


WYRD SISTERS:

- This whole novel brims with Shakespearian references (to the Scottish
  Play in particular). I am *still* waiting for someone out there to collect
  and submit some of the more obscure ones.

- Throughout the book, Hwel the Playwrite suffers from flashes of inspiration 
  that come from plays and movies in our world. Most of these references are 
  easy to understand (Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, etc.),
  and need not be listed here. Three entries that seem to me (slightly) less 
  obvious are documented in this section.

- [p. 36] The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All. Terry invented the song;
  he has *not* written any complete words to it; but many fans (including a 
  folk singer called Heather Wood) have; and there *did* turn out to exist
  an old Oxford drinking song that also uses the key phrase of the hedgehog
  song. See the end of this file for one netter's version of that song.
  Terry pleads parallel evolution, and observes that:
  "There is a certain, how shall I put it, natural cadence to the words."

- [p. 60] "It was the cats and the rollers skates that were currently giving
  him trouble..."
  Refers to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals Cats and Starlight Express.

- [p. 158] "[...] the hero had been born in a handbag"
  Which is what happened to the protagonist in Oscar Wilde's 
  "The Importance Of Being Earnest".

- [p. 193] "1ST WITCHE: He's late.  (Pause)"
  Refers to Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot".


PYRAMIDS:

- [p. 17] Djelibeybi. A pun on the sweets called Jelly Babies.

- [p. 95] Pteppic's dream about the seven fat and seven thin cows is a
  reference to Jozef's similar dream in the Bible (which does not the bit 
  about the trombone, though). "Pyramids is of course riddled with religious 
  references most of which are too obvious or too incomplete to warrant
  inclusion here.

- [p. 117] Ptraci. Should be pronounced with a silent 'p', of course.
  [Are there really people out there who did not get this one?]

- [p. 127] Notice the sound accompanying the pyramid flares. It phonetically
  spells "Cheops".

- [p. 176] The philosophers shooting arrows at tortoises are discussing their 
  own special version of Zeno's paradox, involving Achilles and a Tortoise. 
  See also Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach". Or Zeno.

- [p. 197] The Tsortean wars refer to the Trojan wars (read also "Eric". Or
  Homer.)

- [p. 197] Philosophers' names. Xeno refers to Zeno, of aforementioned
  paradox. Copolymer ("the greatest storyteller in the history of the world")
  probably refers to Homer. Pthagonal ("a very acute man with an angle")
  to Pythagoras. Iesope ("the greatest teller of fables") to Aesop.
  Ibid is actually short for ibidem, which means, when citing literature 
  references, to mean 'same author as before'. Hence: "Ibid you already know".

  [Anybody know who Antiphon ("the greatest writer of comic plays") is
  supposed to be? Or Endos the Listener? I haven't had a classic education...]


ERIC

- [p. 21] The book Eric uses to summon his demon has the title "Mallificarum 
  Sumpta Diabolicite Occularis Singularum", or the Book of Ultimate Control. 
  But note the initials.

- [p. 51] Ponce da Quirm, looking for the Fountain of Youth is a pun on
  Ponce de Leon, the 15th century Spanish nobleman who did the same.

- [p. 75] Lavaeolus is not only a dog-latin translation of 'Rincewind',
  but the character is also a parody of Ulysses, tragic hero of the Trojan 
  wars.


GUARDS! GUARDS!

Many references to well-known detective novel and cop action movies here.

- [p. 48] The motto of the Night Watch: "FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC" is
  dog-latin for "Make my day, punk", a well-known Clint Eastwood quote. 
  Notice also that the translation Terry supplies ("To protect and to serve")
  is actually the motto of the American police [or just the Los Angeles
  Police Department???? Anybody?]

- [p. 108] "Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however
  improbable, must be the truth. [...] There was also the curious incident of 
  the orangutan in the night-time ..."
  This paraphrases Sherlock Holmes, and refers to "The Hound Of The 
  Baskervilles" [and perhaps also to Edgar Allan Poe. Terry??].


MOVING PICTURES:

This one has uncountable references to classic Hollywood movies and
anecdotes.

- Terry actually meant for Gaspode to die at the end of the book, but
  his editors/publishers/beta-readers made him reconsider.

- People have noticed that the two femme fatales of this novel are called 
  Ginger and Ruby, both names signifying a red color. Terry Pratchett says 
  that he did *not* intend this as a reference to Gone With The Wind's
  Scarlett.

- Instead, Ruby got her name because like all trolls she needed a 
  mineral name. Ginger got her name because Terry wanted to use the
  Fred Astaire quote (see two notes further) about her partner, and so
  Ginger was an obvious choice for the leading lady's name.

- [p. 34] Movie producer Thomas Silverfish is directly modeled on movie
  mogul Samuel Goldwyn, whose real name was Samuel Goldfish.

- [p. 41] "No-one would have believed, in the final years of the Century
  of the Fruitbat, that Discworld affairs were being watched
  keenly and impatiently by intelligences greater than Man's, or
  at least much nastier; that their affairs were being
  scrutinised and studied as a man with a three-day appetite
  might study the All-You-Can-Gobble-For-A-Dollar menu outside
  Harga's House of Ribs..."

  This paragraph is a word-by-word parody of H. G. Wells'
  "War of the Worlds, which begins with:

  "No one would have believed in the last years of the
  nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly
  and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as
  mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their
  various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps
  almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scru-
  tinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a
  drop of water.  

- [p. 47] "Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little".
  Refers to the quote "Can't act. Can't sing. Can dance a little" about
  Fred Astaire [But who said this??]
  
- [p. 62] "[...] Victor fights the dreaded Balgrog". In Tolkien you can
  find a very nasty monster called a Balrog.

- [p. 67] Ginger's real name is Theda Withel, which probably refers to
  Theda Bara, famous movie star of the 1920's, a kind of Elvira, Mistress 
  of the Dark, avant la lettre. Her portrayal of evil women in movies like 
  "The Blue Flame" and "Kiss Of A Vampire" caused the current meaning of
  the word 'Vamp' to be added to the English language.

- [p. 69] The resograph built by Riktor the Tinkerer. Terry says:
  "The reality meter in Moving Pictures is loosely based on a Han dynasty
  (2nd Century AD) seismograph; a pendulum inside the vase moves and causes one
  of eight dragons to spit a ball in the direction of the tremor."

- [p. 132] Film studio names. Untied Alchemists is United Artists. Fir Wood 
  Studios is Pine Tree Studios [?]. Microlithic Pictures is [Anybody?]. Terry 
  says: "I've already gone electronically hoarse explaining that Floating 
  Bladder Productions was just picked out of the air [...]"

- [p. 249] The climactic scene of the novel is not only a king-kong
  reversal spoof. Terry says the 50 ft woman also refers to the protagonist 
  from the 1958 movie "Attack Of The 50 Ft. Woman".

- [p. 266] The Librarian hitting the gong in the underground theatre
  refers to the Rank Organization's man-with-the-gong trademark, which 
  Rank used at the front of each film just as Columbia used the Statue 
  of Liberty and MGM used the roaring lion.  

- As far as the giant statue is concerned: think Academy Awards and
  notice the references to everybody's uncles Oswald and Osric etc.
  sprinkled throughout the book. [I would never have included this one
  myself, I mean it's even less obscure then Cohen the Barbarian,
  but just yesterday someone asked about this on a.f.p, so why not.]

- I am not going to attempt listing the correspondences between the click 
  names in "Moving Pictures" and their movie counterparts in our world --
  even I have better things to do, and most of them are not particularly
  difficult to understand. If somebody else supplies me with a nice, complete 
  list, though...


REAPER MAN:

- The title of this book is a pun on the 1984 cult movie "Repo Man".

- [p. 9] Azrael is not a reference to Gargamel's cat in the Smurfs. Rather, 
  they are both references to the biblical/Islamic Angel of Death, the last
  creature to die.

- [p. 138] "especially if they *do* let the younger wizards build whatever
  that blasted thing is they keep wanting to build in the squash court."
  This is a reference to the fact that the first nuclear reactor, built by 
  Enrico Fermi, was indeed erected on a squash court.


WITCHES ABROAD:

- [p. 42] The section dealing with dwarves (and in fact, almost *everything*
  Pratchett writes about dwarves) is a parody of Tolkien's dwarves.
  In particular, compare the witches' musings on mine entries and
  invisible runes to Tolkien's scenes outside Moria. Dwarf bread
  is a direct reference to Tolkien's elven bread. And as the witches
  leave the dwarves, they  have an encounter with a wretched creature 
  mumbling something about his birthday...

- [p. 75] The names the witches are considering for themselves are puns
  on existing airline companies or their acronyms. Nanny Ogg starts to
  say "Virgin Airlines", but is rudely interrupted by a gust of wind.

- [p. 134] "Not a Ronald in sight"
  Terry says: "Yep...direct use of existing East London rhyming slang there 
  (Richard the Third = turd)."

- [p. 201] Casanunda, "the world's greatest lover", refers to our world's
  Casanova. Notice that Casanova is often roughly pronounced as "Casanover",
  and that Casanunda is a dwarf.


SMALL GODS:

- [p. 9] Brother Nhumrod's name is an obvious pun on the man's sexual 
  problems.

- [p. 23] "De Chelonian Mobile [...] The Turtle Moves"
  This whole theory parodies Galileo Galilei's struggle to get his
  theory of a moving earth (around the sun, that is) accepted by
  the Christian church.

- [p. 85] Terry Pratchett translates the book title "Ego-Video Liber Deorum"
  here as "Gods: A spotter's guide". Actually, the latin translates more
  literally as "The I-Spy book of gods". I-spy books are little books for 
  children with lists of things to look out for. When you see one of these 
  things you tick a box and get some points. When you get enough points you can
  send off for a badge. They have titles like "The I-Spy book of birds"
  and "The I-spy book of cars".

- [p. 110] "[...] if Xeno the Ephebian said, 'All Ephebians are liars --'"
  This is the famous Liar's paradox, originally involving Epidemes the
  Cretan.

- [p. 112] A running gag in the book is the penguin associated with Patina,
  the Goddess of Wisdom. This of course refers to Minerva/Pallas Athena,
  who was the roman/greek goddess of wisdom, and whose symbol was an owl.

- [p. 121] "Nil Illegitimo Carborandum" is dog latin for "Don't let the
  bastards grind you down".

- [p. 128] "Worried, eh? Feeling a bit Avis Domestica? Cluck-cluck?"
  Avis Domestica = latin name for chicken.

- [p. 130]  "'Ah,' said Didactylos.  'Ambi-sinister?'  'What?'
  'He means incompetent with both hands,' said Om."
  Ambidextrous means able to use both hands equally well. 'dextr-' is
  the prefix meaning "right" as in "right hand". 'sinistr-' is the
  prefix meaning "left". Hence: ambisinister == having two left hands.

- [p. 138] Didactylos carrying a lantern and living in a barrel are 
  references to Diogenes, famous philosopher who is reputed to have
  done the same.

- [p. 162] "Go on, do Deformed Rabbit ...it's my favourite."
  Reference to the art of making shadow animals with your hands, as
  described on p. 36 of "Moving Pictures": "'Mainly my uncle did
  "Deformed Rabbit"', said Victor. 'He wasn't very good at it, you see.'"

- [p. 166] Didactylos' anecdote about the royal road to learning
  parodies a similar one told about Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

- [p. 241] "It was a million-to-one chance, with any luck." Refers back to
  a running gag in "Guards! Guards!": million-to-one chances come up
  one in ten times, on the average.

- [p. 244] "[...] the unwritten motto of the Quisition: "Cuius testiculos 
  habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum". When you have their full attention 
  in your grip, their hearts and minds will follow.
  Testiculos does not translate as 'full attention'.

- [p. 270] "REMIND ME AGAIN, he said, HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES
  MOVE". Refers back to a joke on p. 12 of "Sourcery", where we are told
  that Death dreads playing symbolic last chess games because "he could
  never remember how the knight was supposed to move".

- There is a rumour going round that there was to be a crucifiction
  scene at the end of this book but that the publishers made Terry
  take it out. To quote Terry on this:
  "Crucifiction in Small Gods: this is a familiar thing to me, a DW 'fact'
  that's gone through several retellings.  Nothing's been taken out of SG, 
  or put in, and there was no pressure to do either"


GOOD OMENS:

- [p. 3] "[...] he was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon
  were". The Queen song "Killer Queen" contains the line: "She keeps
  the Moet et Chandon in a pretty cabinet". Freddie Mercury's
  pronunciation is indeed such that if you don't *know* what he's
  singing this phrase can be extremely puzzling.

- [p. 28] The three lost Shakespeare plays. "The Trapping of the Mouse"
  refers to Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" (which has now been running
  for more than 30 years in London). "Golde Diggers of 1589" refers to 
  the 1935 musical of that name. [Does anybody know if "The Comedie of 
  Robin Hoode, or the Forest of Sherwoode" also refers to something modern?]

- [p. 40] The nursery rhyme Nanny Astoreth sings to Warlock:

  "Oh, the grand old Duke of York
  He had ten thousand men
  He marched them up to the top of the hill
  And crushed all the nations of the world and brought them under the rule
  of Satan our master."

  is a parody of the English original:

  "The Grand old Duke of York
  He had ten thousand men
  He marched them all right up a hill
  And marched them down again

  And when they were up they were up
  And when they were down they were down
  And when they were halfway up the hill
  They were neither up nor down"

  Accompanied by fingers marching up the small child appropriate
  and stopping to tickle for the last line.

- [p. 52] 'Another One Bites The Dust', 'We Are The Champions', 'I Want
  To Break Free' and 'Fat-Bottomed Girls' are all songs by Queen (see
  the explanation on p. 3]. It has been the subject of much heated
  whether there actually exists a Queen 'Greatest Hits' album that
  contains all of these songs -- the verdict is not in yet, I believe.

- [p. 98] "Sable signed for it, his real name -- one word, seven letters.
  Sounds like examine." But 'famine' only has six letters. Terry says:
  "Oh, yeah.  The famous seven-lettered six letter name. [...] It's like 
  this. In the original MS, it was six letters, because we can both count. 
  And it was six letters in the Gollancz hardcover.  And six letters in
  the Workman US hardcover.  And became seven in the Corgi edition. No-one
  knows why."

- [p. 112] American readers should be aware that English tabloid papers 
  traditionally show a photo of a topless girl on page three. Hence:
  "Newt [...] blushed crimson as he performed the obligatory nipple-
  count on page three".

- [p. 180] The name Citron Deux-Chevaux refers to the Citroen 2CV,
  or deux-chevaux as it is commonly called in Europe [do Americans
  know about this car? Should I leave this one in?]

- [p. 191] "Sprechen Sie Deutsch" and "Parlez-vous francais" are German
  resp. French for "Do you speak German/French", but "Wo bu hui jiang
  zhongwen" is Chinese for "I can't speak Chinese". Terry blames Neil Gaiman 
  for this one.

- [p. 203] "'Heigh ho,' said Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway."
  This is a double joke. To begin with, it refers to an old British topical
  song about the Italian opera-singer Antonio Rolli, well-known in London 
  during the Regency. The song was called "A frog he would-a wooing go", and
  was intended to be a highly amusing satire on the way Italian people speak.
  The chorus has the lines:

	     With a rolypoly, gammon and spinach,
             Heigh ho, said Anthony Rowley.

  As the second joke, up to this point, we only knew Crowley's initial 'A', 
  which leads to the false expectation that his name is *Alistair* Crowley, 
  as in the famous British mystic, theosophist, black-arts
  practicioner and "most evil man on Earth".

- [p. 203] "What she really wanted to be was an internationally glamorous
  jet-setter, but she didn't have the O-levels."
  This has to do with the British education system. After the 8th
  grade you decide how many two-year O (Ordinary) level courses you are 
  going to take (each with an exam at the end). Most non-minimum wage
  jobs ask for at least 5 O levels, people in college usually have
  7 or 8. After your O levels you can either leave school or go on
  for A (Advanced) level courses, which take another 2-3 years.

- [p. 248] Dick Turpin is the name of a famous British highwayman. Hence
  the joke about Newt's car being called "Dick Turpin":
  "'Because everywhere I go, I hold up traffic,' he mumbled wretchedly."

- [p. 262] The three books in the Witchfinder Army library. The "Necrotele-
  comnicom appears in the Discworld books as the "Book Of Talking To The
  Dead". The "Malleus Maleficarum" is an existing guidebook for witch-
  hunters. The "Liber Fulvarum Paginarum" is dog latin for "The Book of
  Yellow Pages"...

- According to Terry, the U.S. edition of Good Omens has about 700
  extra words in it, because: 
  "The Workman editor wanted...how can I put this...some things explained 
  more carefully."

- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman did have the title "668 - The neighbour
  of the beast" on hand for a Good Omens sequel, but since Neil Gaiman
  lives in the US now, Terry says: "I can't see it ever being written".


STRATA:

- The whole book is, in a very general way, modeled on Larry Niven's
  classic "Ringworld" novel: a group of differently-raced beings
  explore an improbable, artificial world and try to find its mysterious
  builders.


DARK SIDE OF THE SUN:

Just as "Strata" borrows from Larry Niven, so does "The Dark Side Of The
Sun" pay homage to the famous SF-writer Isaac Asimov.

- [p. 27] The robot Isaac is obviously modeled on Asimov's well-known
  positronic robots. Isaac [the robot] follows a more extended version
  of Asimov's equally famous 'Three Laws of Robotics' though: on p. 53:
  "[...] Eleventh Law of Robotics, Clause C, As Amended,' said the robot
  firmly."


DIGGERS

- [p. 60] "iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was on it.
	   iv. And the Mark was Jekub"
  'Jekub' was the Nomes' attempted pronunciation of JCB, the name of
  a well-known manufacturer of tractors, diggers, and the like, whose
  logo of course appears on all their products.
  In the American version of the Nomes trilogy this was changed to 'CAT',
  presumably standing for caterpillar.

- [p. 142] "Jcb? Jekub? It's got no vowels in it. What sort of name is that?"
  Perhaps this is a play on YHWH, the classical Hebrew spelling of Yahweh,
  i.e. Jehovah. [Terry??]


THE DISCWORLD IDEA

Many people think the appearance of the Discworld as described in the 
novels was an invention of Terry Pratchett's. This is not the case: in 
Hindu mythology, for instance, we find the idea of a lotus flower
growing out of Vishnu's navel. Swimming in a pool in the lotus flower is the 
world turtle, on whose back stand four elephants facing in the four compass 
directions. On their back is balanced the flat, disc-shaped world.
See also Josh Kirby's magnificent drawing of the Discworld in the illustrated
version of "Eric" (but please read the FAQ first if you are American and
wondering where you can get that book).


THE HEDGEHOG SONG

Michael Green's 1967 book "Why was he born so beautiful and other Rugby 
songs" contains a song called "The Sexual Life of the Camel", (possibly
dating back to the 1920s/30s), which goes:

        The carnal desires of the camel
        Are stranger than anyone thinks,
        For this passionate but perverted mammal
        has designs on the hole of the Sphinx,
        But this deep and alluring depression
        Is oft clogged by the sands of the Nile,
        Which accounts for the camel's expression
        And the Sphinx's inscrutable smile.

        In the process of Syphilization
        From the anthropoid ape down to man
        It is generally held that the Navy
        Has buggered whatever it can.
        Yet recent extensive researches
        By Darwin and Huxley and Ball
        Conclusively prove that the hedgehog 
        Has never been buggered at all.

        And further researches at Oxford
        Have incontrovertibly shown
        That comparative safety on shipboard
        Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone.
        But, why haven't they done it at Spithead,
        As they've done it at Harvard and Yale
        And also at Oxford and Cambridge
        By shaving the spines off its tail!


MORRIS DANCING (by Rich Holmes)

STRATA, GUARDS! GUARDS!, and REAPER MAN

All three of these books refer to morris dancing. (In _Strata_, Kin
remembers seeing robots do a morris dance and, later, hums an "old
robot-Morris tune, _Mrs. Widgery's Lodger_." In _Guards! Guards!_
Nobby turns out to be a folk dancer in his spare time; morris isn't
mentioned by name, but bells and hankies are cited. _Reaper Man_
begins with a page or so about the universality of morris dancing --
_Mrs. Widgery's Lodger_ is mentioned again -- and late in the book the
"other dance" is described.)

All this may be lost on the typical American reader. Picture, then,
six men in white shirts and trousers, decorated with ribbons, wearing
bells on their legs, in a two-by-three formation -- the men, not the
bells. To a tune played on fiddle or squeezebox, they dance up and
down, back and forth, gesturing with big white handkerchiefs in their
hands -- or, maybe, clashing yard-long willow sticks with one another.
That's morris dancing, as it was done in the late 19th century in the
Cotswolds region of England.

It's also done these days, throughout the English-speaking world
(though in America it's not exactly an everyday sight), these days by
women's teams and mixed teams as well. As for where it came from, and
when, and what it all means, no one really knows. Its roots seem to go
back to the European continent sometime in or before the 15th century.
Similar, possibly related dances were and are found in Europe and even
as far away as India. For a while in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries it was commonly claimed by folklorists to be the remnant of
a pre-Christian fertility rite performed by a male priesthood; there's
really no hard evidence to support (or refute) such a theory, though.

None of which stops people from doing it. It used to be the case --
maybe still is -- that morris dancing was taught in English schools as
part of physical education, thus leaving most English people with
about the same kind of impression as we Americans mostly have of
square dancing, somewhere between amusement and nausea. Enough have
not been soured on the whole thing, however, to staff (reportedly)
several hundred morris teams in England as well as 170 or so in the
U.S. and God knows how many in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and
other odd places.

Terry Pratchett tells us he's "never waved a hankie in anger" nor
knows any morris dancers personally, but that he finds the morris kind
of fascinating.

For those interested, contact Tom Keays (libhtk@suvm.acs.syr.edu) or
Rich Holmes (suhep.phy.syr.edu) about the Morris Dancing Discussion
List. You knew there was an ulterior motive here, didn't you?
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-- 
Leo Breebaart  (leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl)
-- 
Leo Breebaart  (leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl)