From: leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart)
Subject: The Annotated Pratchett File, v5.0 - part 1 of 3
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 once in a while.
	 It contains many SPOILERS.
Originator: leo@cygnus
Reply-To: leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl
Organization: Unseen University
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 23:12:33 GMT

Archive-name: apf-5.0
Last-modified: 1993/01/24 19:28:21
Version: 5.0
Maintained-by: Leo Breebaart (leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl)

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

 --- What's all this, then?

'This' is the Annotated Pratchett File (or APF for short).

Discussions in the Usenet newsgroup 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 is parodying Tolkien. If you are American, you might not understand some
of the typically British references. And so on.

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

Where appropriate, this file incorporates selected passages from articles
that Terry himself has posted to alt.fan.pratchett. As an active
contributor to the group he often provides us with inside information on
many aspects of his writing, and it would be a waste to let this first-hand
knowledge just disappear into the vacuum of Usenet history. The APF tries
to preserve all the interesting bits of Terry's postings, as far as they
deal with his writing.

Instructions on how to make sure you are reading the latest version of the
APF appear near the very end of this file, where you will also find
information about the formatted (PostScript-printable) version of the APF.


 --- Great idea, this APF; how can I help?

Glad you asked. Input from its 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 e-mail your explanations and comments to:
  
        leo @ cp.tn.tudelft.nl

if you want to be sure I see them, but I scan alt.fan.pratchett as well, so
just mentioning something in an article on the net should also work fine.


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

In the first few versions of the APF, I had the following answer to this
question:

"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."

In retrospect an unfortunate paragraph, which has caused more than 90 % of
the submissions I get to start out with: "This will probably be too
obvious, but...".

The simple fact is that everybody has different (and sometimes *vastly*
different, believe me) ideas of what is trivial and what is obscure. So
please just keep sending me everything that might warrant inclusion, no
matter how glaringly obvious you think it is, and leave it to me to make
the decision on whether to actually include it or not -- that's what I'm
editor for.


 --- 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: much of it has been supplied by or stolen from
various Usenet and e-mail 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. A
'+' prefixes all new or non-trivially expanded/changed entries (with
respect to the previous version of the APF); a '-' prefixes all other
entries.

Be aware that the information below by its very nature contains many
SPOILERS, so read the APF only if you are sure you don't care about that.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** Book Annotations
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THE COLOUR OF MAGIC

- [p. 9] The two barbarians, Bravd and Weasel, are parodies of Fritz
  Leiber's classic fantasy heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

  However, Ankh-Morpork is *not* derived from Leiber's similar sounding
  city Lankhmar from the same series. Terry says: "Bravd and the Weasel
  were indeed takeoffs of Leiber characters -- there was a lot of that sort
  of thing in "The Colour Of Magic". But I didn't -- at least conciously, I
  suppose I must say -- create Ankh-Morpork as a takeoff of Lankhmar.
  Originally it was just Morpork, then Ankh just sounded nice..."

  Finally, the name 'Ankh-Morpork' also does not have anything to do with
  the Australian and New Zealandian birds (a species of frogmouth and a
  small brown owl, respectively) that go by the name of 'Morepork'.

+ [p. 12] "Since the Hub is never closely warmed by the weak sun the lands
  there are locked in permafrost. The Rim, on the other hand, is a region
  of sunny islands and balmy days."

  A presumeably knowledgeable source tells me that actually, if you do the
  calculations, it turns out that it would be the other way around (on
  average, the sun is closer to the hub than the rim, so the hub would be
  warmer).

  Don't feel obliged to take his word for it, though. 'Discworld Mechanics'
  is one of alt.fan.pratchett's favourite Neverending Discussion Subjects,
  and I don't think that any two given participants ever managed to agree
  on anything definite about the way in which the Discworld might 'work'.

- [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 (on p. 35) an explanation of why you would
  call a pub 'The Broken Drum' in the first place: "You can't beat it".

- [p. 24] Terry has this to say about the name 'Twoflower': "[...] 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)."

- [p. 44] "Reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits?" 
  
  Surprising as it may seem (or at least as it was to me), there are quite
  a few people who do not understand this cryptification of 'economics',
  even though it is explicitly explained by Terry a bit later on p. 71:
  'echo-gnomics'. Some of the confusion perhaps arises from the fact that
  we don't usually associate gnomes with spirits, as in: ghosts. But I
  think Terry here simply means spirits (as in: souls) living underground,
  with the emphasis on the word 'underground'.

+ [p. 73] "'Here's another fine mess you've got me into,' he moaned and
  slumped backwards."

  This is a well-known Laurel and Hardy catchphrase. [ But did Laurel
  always say this to Hardy, or vice versa? ]

- [p. 75] This is the first occurrence of the name 'Dunmanifestin' for the
  home of the Gods at the top of Cori Celesti. It is used again at several
  places throughout the other Discworld novels.

  This is not only a reference to the many British placenames that begin
  with 'Dun' (a Gaelic word meaning castle or fort and hence town) but also
  a reference to the supposedly traditional name for a twee retirement
  bungalow in the suburbs. When people (especially the bourgeous middle
  classes) retire to the suburbs, they always, according to the stereotype,
  give the house some 'cute' punning name. Since the Dun/Done association
  is well-known, one of the more common names (though it is a matter of
  discussion if anyone has ever actually seen a house with this name) is
  'Dunroamin' -- that is "done roaming" -- i.e. the owners of the house
  have finished "travelling the world" (sic) and are now settled down to a
  life of the Daily Mail, golf and coffee mornings. From this, we get that
  a retirement home for gods not possessing much taste, might just be named
  'Dunmanifestin'.

- [p. 117] "I'LL GET YOU YET, CULLY, said Death [...]"  
  
  Death is addressing Rincewind here, so the use of what looks like a
  different name is confusing. Terry explains: "Cully still just about
  hangs on in parts of the UK as a mildy negative term meaning variously
  'yer bastard', 'man', 'you there' and so on. It's quite old, but then,
  Death is a history kind of guy."

+ [p. 118] The entire "Lure Of The Wyrm" section parodies the Pern novels
  (an sf/fantasy series) by Anne McCaffrey. The heroine of the first Pern
  novel "Dragonflight" is called Liessa, and the exclamation point in
  Terry's dragonrider's names parallel the similar use of apostrophes in
  McCaffrey's names.

+ [p. 141] "[...] he had been captivated by the pictures of the fiery
  beasts in "The Octarine Fairy Book."

  A reference to our world's Blue, Brown, Crimson, Green, etc., Fairy
  Books, collected and edited by Andrew Lang.

- [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 this section seem to support the theory that Terry actually
  intended this rather convoluted pun). Note also the "powerful travelling
  rune TWA" appearing on the Luggage: Trans *World* Airlines.

+ [p. 171] 'Zweiblumen' is the literal German translation of 'Twoflower'.
  
  'Rjinswand', however, is merely something that was intended to *sound*
  foreign -- it is not a word in any language known to the readers of
  alt.fan.pratchett.

  In the true spirit of Usenet, heated debates have been held on the
  related subject of whether 'Rjinswand' actually sounds Scandinavian (a
  view supported by the fact that we are told this character lives in
  Stockholm) or Dutch (a view supported by the simple, but unavoidable fact
  that quite a few native English speakers feel that it does).

  Your friendly APF Editor, being Dutch himself (and knowing darn well what
  Dutch names sound like, thankyouverymuch) has rather strong opinions on
  this matter, which he, in the kindness of his heart, has decided not
  burden you with at this point.
 
+ [p. 207] "'A base canard!' interrupted Garhartra."

  Canard is French for both duck and hoax. It comes from the French phrase
  "vendre des canards a moitie", to deceive, or literally, to sell ducks by
  halves.

+ [p. 221] "Whoever would be wearing those suits, Rincewind decided, was
  expecting to boldly go where no man [...] had boldly gone before [...]"

  From the famous opening voice-over to the "Star Trek" television series:
  "to boldly go where no man has gone before, to seek out [etc. etc.]".



THE LIGHT FANTASTIC

- [p. 7] The philosopher Ly Tin Weedle makes two other cameo appearances in
  Discworld novels, once in a "Mort" footnote on p. 24, and once in
  "Sourcery", on p. 212.

- [p. 8] Many people have commented on the last name of the 304th
  Chancellor of Unseen University: Weatherwax, and asked if there is a
  connection with Granny Weatherwax.

  In "Lords And Ladies", Terry supplies the following piece of dialogue (on
  p. 161) between Granny and Archchancellor Ridcully as an answer:

  "'There was even a Weatherwax as Archchancellor, years ago,' said
  Ridcully. 'So I understand. Distant cousin. Never knew him,' said
  Granny."

+ [p. 26] "I WAS AT A PARTY, he added, a shade reproachfully."

  When someone on the net wondered if Terry had been influenced by Monty
  Python (who also do a Death-at-a-party sketch), he replied:

  "No. I'm fairly honest about this stuff. I didn't even see the film
  until long after the book was done. Once again, I'd say it's an easy
  parallel -- what with the Masque of the Red Death and stuff like that,
  the joke is just lying there waiting for anyone to pick it up."

+ [p. 34] "'Good grief! A real gingerbread cottage!'" 

  The cottage, and the events alluded to a bit later ("'Kids of today,'
  commented Rincewind. 'I blame the parents,' said Twoflower.") are
  straight out of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale by the brothers Grimm.
  Hansel and Gretel were held prisoner by a witch, but in the end managed
  to push her into her own oven.

- [p. 37] "'Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.'"  
  
  From the first "Conan The Barbarian" movie (starring Arnold
  Schwarzenegger): "Conan! What is good in life?"  "To crush your enemies,
  drive them before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women." This
  quote, in turn, is lifted more or less verbatim from an actual
  conversation Genghis Khan is supposed to have had with his lieutenants.

+ [p. 45] "'Of course I'm sure,' snarled the leader. 'What did you expect,
  three bears?'"

  Another fairy tale reference, this time to the story of Goldilocks and
  the Three Bears.

- [p. 153] The idea of a strange little shop that appears, sells the most
  peculiar things, and then vanishes again first appears in short story by
  H. G. Wells, called "The Magic Shop".

+ [p. ???] aurora coriolis = hub lights 

  This is the air glow around Cori Celesti (as in our aurora borealis), but
  it is also a pun on the Coriolis force that acts on spinning objects.



EQUAL RITES

- For an explanation of the "Liber Paginarum Fulvarum" mentioned in the
  dedication, see the note for p. 262 of "Good Omens". The "dumb redheads
  in Fifties' sitcom" probably refers to Lucille Ball from "I Love Lucy"
  fame.

- A central theme of this book (as well as of the other Discworld witch
  novels) is the contrast between on one side the (female) witches or
  wiccans, who are in touch with nature, herbs and headology, and on the
  other side the (male) wizards who are very ceremonial and use elaborate,
  mathematics-like tools and rituals. This conflict rather closely mirrors
  a long-standing feud between occult practicioners in our real world. (And
  all the infighting within each camp occurs in real life, as well.)

  My source for this also mentions that Pratchett's witches, especially,
  are obvious stereotypes of the kinds of people one can run into at wiccan
  festivals.

- [p. 45] "'I've seen the thundergods a few times,' said Granny, 'and Hoki,
  of course.'"

  The name Hoki derives from 'hokey' in combination with the Norse god
  Loki. The description of Hoki is pure Pan, however.

- [p. 80] "If broomsticks were cars, this one would be a split-window
  Morris Minor."

  A Morris Minor is a British car that non-Brits might be familiar with
  through the TV Series "Lovejoy". In that series, Lovejoy's car 'Miriam'
  is a Morris Minor. For the rest of you, here's a description:
  
  Imagine a curvaceous jelly-mould in the shape of a crouching rabbit, like
  Granny used to use. Turn it open-side-down and fit four wheels, near the
  corners. On the rabbit's back build a cabin, with picture windows and a
  windscreen in two parts at an angle to each other. Add turn indicators
  consisting of little arms which flip out of the body at roof level, just
  behind the doors. Furnish the cabin in a post-War austerity style, and
  power the result with a 1935 vintage 850cc flat four engine pulling about
  30bhp. In its day, in 1948, this was the height of desirability -- so
  much so that for its first few years it was only available for export.
  
  Even in the Nineties, a fair number of Moggies are still going, eh,
  strong. You can actually pay a couple of thousand pounds for a good one
  which works, because they're so easy to maintain. And the split-screen
  ones are very definitely collectors' items.

+ [p. 119] "The lodgings were [...] next to the [...] premises of a
  respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good
  fences make good neighbours."

  Pun on a saying that originated with Robert Frost's poem "Mending A
  Wall":
  
        "My apple trees will never get across
         And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
         He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbours'."
  
- [p. 122] "'Yes, that's it,' said Treatle. 'Alma mater, gaudy armours
  eagle tour and so on.'"

  Treatle refers here to an old student's (drinking) song, which goes back
  at least as far as Brahms's Academic Festival Overture (it's the last
  melody), and is still in use at many universities where it gets sung
  during graduation ceremonies. The actual lyrics are:

        "Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenes dum sumus.
         Post iucundam iuventutem,
         Post molestam senectutem,
         Nos habebit humus, nos habebit humus."

  Which roughly translates to:

        "Let us be merry, therefore, whilst we are young men.
         After the joys of youth,
         After the pain of old age,
         The ground will have us, the ground will have us."

+ [p. 132] The maid at Unseen University is called Ksandra, which puns on
  Troy's Cassandra; but might also refer to Sandra being yet another
  typical 'Tracey/Sharon' sort of name in England. See also the entry for
  p. 117 of "Pyramids".

  Perhaps the fact that nobody can understand Ksandra (because she talks
  with her mouth full of clothespegs) also recalls the classical Cassandra,
  daughter of Priam, whom the Gods gave the gift of prophesy and the curse
  of noone believing a word she said.

- [p. 143] "[...] the Creator hadn't really decided what he wanted and was,
  as it were, just idly messing around with the Pleistocene."
  
  Refers to the Pleistocene geological era (a few dozen million years or so
  ago), but also to Plasticine, a brand name that has become (at least in
  Britain and Australia) a generic name for the modeling clay children play
  with.

- [p. 163] Some folks thought they recognized the duel between Granny
  Weatherwax and Archchancellor Cutangle from T. H. White's description of
  a similar duel in his "Arthur, The Once And Future King" (also depicted
  as a very funny fragment in Disney's "The Sword And The Stone", which was
  an animation film based on this book). However, Terry says:

  "The magical duel in "Equal Rites" is certainly not lifted from T. H.
  White. Beware of secondary sources. Said duel (usually between a man and
  a woman, and often with nice Freudian touches to the things they turn
  into) has a much longer history; folkies out there will probably know it
  as the song 'The Two Magicians'."



MORT

+ [p. 17] "'They call me Mort.' WHAT A COINCIDENCE, [...]"

  Not only does 'mort' mean (sorta) 'death' in Latin, but in "The Light
  Fantastic" we have also learned (on p. 95), that Death's *own* name is
  Mort.

+ [p. 27] "'How do you get all those coins?' asked Mort. IN PAIRS."

  A reference to the practice of covering a dead friends' eyes with coins.

  [ As far as I know, by the way, it was an old Greek custom to put a
  single coin or obulus under the tongue of the deceased. This was done so
  that the departed loved one would have some change handy to pay Charon
  with (the grumpy old ferryman who transported departed souls over the
  river Styx towards the afterlife -- but only if they paid him first).
  Does anybody know if the coins-on-the-eyes thing has a similar
  background? ]

+ [p. 30] Albert's stove has 'The Little Moloch (Ptntd)' embossed on its
  door.

  Let's turn to Brewer's (see note for p. 126 of "Sourcery") for an 
  explanation of this one:

  "Moloch: Any Influence which demands from us the sacrifice of what we
  hold most dear. Thus *war* is a Moloch, *king mob* is a Moloch, the
  *guillotine* was the Moloch of the French Revolution, etc. The allusion
  is to the god of the Ammonites [Phoenicians], to whom children were "made
  to pass through the fire" in sacrifice."

  To be fair to the Phoenicians, however, it must be pointed out that
  almost all we know about Moloch is based on what the bitter enemies of
  the Phoenicians said about him...

+ [p. 33] "'I shall call you Boy', she said."

  The whole business of Ysabell and Mort and the matchmaking efforts by her
  father echoes Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" (where e.g. Estelle
  also insists on calling Pip 'Boy' all the time).

+ [p. 40] "AND WHY DO YOU THINK I DIRECTED YOU TO THE STABLES? THINK
  CAREFULLY NOW."

  The whole section on Mort's training, and this paragraph in particular,
  explores a theme familiar from such stories as told in "The Karate Kid",
  or "The Empire Strikes Back", and of course the TV series "Kung Fu",
  where a young student is given many menial tasks to perform, which are
  revealed to be integral to his education.

+ [p. 47] "[...] the city of Sto Lat [...]"

  A Polish correspondent tells me that 'sto lat' is actually the title of a
  Polish party song, more or less equivalent to 'For he's a jolly good
  fellow'. 'Sto lat' means 'hundred years', and the lyrics to the song are
  as follows:

        "Sto lat, sto lat, niech zyje, zyje nam.
         Sot lat, sto lat, niech zyje, zyje nam.
         Jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz - niech zyje, zyje nam.
         Niech zyje nam!"

   Which loosely translates to:

        "Hundred years, hundred years, let him live for us,
         Hundred years, hundred years, let him live for us,
         Once again, once again, let him live for us!"

  Thinking I was on to something I immediately enquired if 'Sto Helit',
  another name Terry uses often, was anything similar, but my correspondent
  says it's not even Polish at all...

+ [p. 71] "[...] the abode of Igneous Cutwell, DM(Unseen), [...]" 

  DM(Unseen) means that Cutwell holds a Doctorate in Magic from Unseen
  University. It's the usual way of writing an academic qualification in
  Britain (e.g. DD for Doctor of Divinity, or PhD for Doctor of Philosophy)
  -- though the University name ought to be in Latin.

+ [p. 90] "Princess Keli awoke."

  Another 'dumb blonde' pun (on Kelly this time) along the lines of Ptraci
  and Ksandra?

+ [p. 93] "[...] if Mort ever compared a girl to a summer's day, it would
  be followed by a thoughtful explanation of what day he had in mind and
  whether it was raining at the time."

  Considering the sheer volume of Discworld material written so far, with
  its high jokes-per-page count, it is quite remarkable that Terry
  Pratchett doesn't recycle (or inadvertently reinvent) his own jokes more
  often than he does. Like e.g. this particular Shakespeare-inspired joke
  that would be repeated two books later in "Wyrd Sisters" (see WS note for
  p. 213).

+ [p. 99] "'[...] the princesses were so noble they, they could pee through
  a dozen mattresses --'"

  Albert here mangles the Grimm fairy tale known as "The Princess And The
  Pea", in which a princess proves her nobility to her future husband and
  his mother by being so fine-constitutioned that a pea placed underneath
  the dozen matresses she was trying to sleep on kept her awake all night.

  An online version of this fairy tale is available through anonymous ftp
  from ftp.uu.net in the directory /doc/obi/Fairy.Tales/Grimm/ as the file
  princess.and.pea.txt.Z

+ [p. 110] Caroc cards and the Ching Aling.

  Caroc = Tarot, Ching Aling = I Ching, two ways of accessing the Distilled
  wisdom of the Ancients, and all that.
  
+ [p. 126] "'-- and then she thought he was dead, and she killed herself,
  and then he woke up and so he did kill himself, [...]'"

  Ysabell starts to list off a number of tragic romances, mostly mangled
  versions of existing stories. Here, it's the Greek tragedy of Thisbe and
  Pyramus (although Ysabell gets the genders of the protagonists mixed up):
  Thisbe escapes from a lion by throwing it her scarf and running away.
  Pyramus sees the lion with the scarf, jumps to the wrong conclusion and
  kills himself (with a knife). Then Thisbe returns, sees him, takes the
  knife, and kils herself as well.

  Interesting factlet: this play is performed as a play-within-a-play in
  Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which in turn gets royally
  spoofed in "Lords And Ladies", *including* the Thisbe and Pyramus
  play-within-a-play.

+ [p. 127] "'-- swam the river every night, but one night there was this
  storm and when he didn't arrive she --'"

  This is the saga of Hero and Leander (this time Ysabell gets the sexes
  right). Leander swam the Hellespont each night to be with Hero (who was a
  virgin (hah!) in the service of Venus, and therefore not accessible
  through more conventional ways). But then there was indeed a storm, and
  the candle she used as a beacon blew out, and the Gods couldn't hear his
  prayers over the noise of the storm, and so he drowned, and the next
  morning she saw his body and drowned herself as well. Read Christopher
  Marlowe's "Hero And Leander" for more details.

+ [p. 154] Alberto Malich was rumoured to have disappeared when trying to
  perform the Rite of AshkEnte backwards. Since we know that the Rite is
  used to summon Death, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to suppose that
  performing it backwards would summon you to Death...

+ [p. 161] Queen Ezeriel refers to our world's Cleopatra who also used to
  bathe in asses' milk, and who eventually committed honorable suicide by
  clutching a venomous snake (an asp, to be precise) to her bosom.

- [p. 183] "'Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because a refusal
  often offends, I read somewhere.'"

  Ysabell probably read one part of this in Tolkien's "The Lord Of The
  Rings" where we find (in "The Fellowship Of The Ring", Book One, Chapter
  III) that Gildor Inglorion the High Elf says: "Do not meddle in the
  affairs of wizards because they are subtle and quick to anger". The other
  part she got from a sign often seen in British pubs: "Do not ask for
  credit, because a refusal often offends".

+ [p. 184] In the Disc model, Ankh-Morpork was a carbuncle. A carbuncle is
  (1) a red semi-precious gem, and (2) a festering sore like a boil.

+ [p. 193] "'When a man is tired of Ankh-Morpork, he is tired of ankle-
  deep slurry.'"

  The original quote here dates back to 1777, and is by Samuel Johnson (a
  well-known harmless drudge): "When a man is tired of London he is tired
  of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

  Quite a few people have mistaken this quote for a reference to Douglas
  Adams. Of course Adams was simply parodying Johnson's quote as well when
  he wrote (in Chapter 4 of "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe"):

   "[...] when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article
  with the words 'When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of
  life', the suicide rate there quadrupled overnight."

+ [p. 197] "'Fireworks?' Cutwell had said."

  The stuff about wizards knowing all about fireworks is a reference to
  Tolkien's "The Hobbit", where the great Wizard Gandalf is known (in times
  of peace) for entertaining everybody with fireworks.

+ [p. 224] "I don't even *remember* walking under a mirror."  

  Superstition says that both walking under a ladder and breaking a mirror
  give bad luck. Therefore, by the sort of skewed logic Terry continually
  gives to his characters, walking under a mirror must be *really* bad
  news.

+ [p. 226] "[...] purposes considerably more dire then, say, keeping a
  razor blade nice and sharp."

  A reference to the pseudo-scientific 'fact' that (small models of)
  pyramids are supposed to have, among many other powers, the ability to
  sharpen razor blades if they are left underneath the pyramids overnight.

+ [p. 255] "IS THIS THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS, AND BURNED THE
  TOPLESS TOWERS OF PSEUDOPOLIS? wondered Death."

  A reference to Helen of Troy (or Tsort, I suppose I should say), over
  whom the Trojan War was started. The exact original quote, from
  Christopher Marlowe's "The Tragical History Of Dr. Faustus", goes:

        "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
         And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
         Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!"

  Ilium is the Latin name for Troy.



SOURCERY       

+ [p. 88] "The market in Sator Square, the wide expanse of cobbles outside
  the black gates of the University, was in full cry."

  The word 'Sator' may refer here to a famous magic square dating back to
  the times of the spread of Christianity in Europe. 'Sator' means sower or
  farmer. The complete magic square is:

        S A T O R
        A R E P O
        T E N E T
        O P E R A
        R O T A S

  This square is palindromic in all directions. The sentence you get reads:
  'Sator arepo tenet opera rotas', which means, more or less: 'the sower
  [i.e. God] in his field controls the workings of his tools [i.e. us]'.


- [p. 122] "'It looks like someone has taken twice five miles of inner city
  and girded them round with walls and towers,' he hazarded."
  
  From Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Xanadu": 

        "So twice five miles of fertile ground
         With walls and towers were girded round"

- [p. 122] 'Sherbet' is an oriental cooling drink as well as a fizzy sweet
  powder children eat as a sweet, and which comes in a cardboard tube with
  a liquorice 'straw' at the top. To get to the sherbet you bite off the
  end of the liquorice and suck through it. [ Somewhere in "Sourcery" I
  believe there is an actual reference to the liquorice straw, but I
  couldn't find it. Anybody? ]

- [p. 125] "My name is Creosote, Seriph of Al Khali, [...]"  
  
  Ok, lessee: Creosote puns on the proverbially rich Croesus (king of Lidya
  (which lies in what now is Turkey) in the 6th century BC), 'Serif' is a
  typographical term which also puns on 'caliph', and 'Al Khali' is
  pronounced 'alkali' (just covering all the bases here, as my original
  source put it).

- [p. 126] Creosote's poetry is all based on Edward Fitzgerald's
  translation of the "Rubayat" of Omar Khayyam (probably the third edition
  -- each of the six or so translations Fitzgerald published is very
  different, even to the point of different rhyme schemes). The poem
  parodied on this page goes:

        "A book of verses underneath the bough
         A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou"

- [p. 126] The hashishim as the "original Assassins".

  From "The Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable", by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (a
  19th century reference book, still in print today):

  "Assas'sins. A band of Carmathians, collected by Hassa, subah of
  Nish'apour, called the Old Man of the Mountains, because he made Mount
  Leb'anon his stronghold. This band was the terror of the world for two
  centuries, when it was put down by Sultan Bib'aris. The assassins
  indulged in haschisch (bang), an intoxicating drink, and from this liquor
  received their name."

  For more info, see also the Hawkwind song 'Hassan I Sabbah' on their
  album "Quark, Strangeness And Charm". Finally, Terry has this to say on
  the subject of reference books:

  "I've got Brewer's, of course, and if I need an instant reference it's a
  handy book. He also did a "Reader's Companion" which is even better. But
  Ebenezer is only the tip of an iceberg of similar books, of which the
  Victorians were very fond."

- [p. 129] "Get up! For the morning in the cup of day, / Has dropped the
  spoon that scares the stars away."
  
  The "Rubayat":

        "Awake! for morning in the bowl of night
         Hath flung the stone that puts the stars to flight."

- [p. 132] "The Seriph's palace, known to legend as the Rhoxie, [...]"  

  No connection to the original Croesus here, but rather to the Alhambra,
  the palace of the Emirs of Granada in 15th century Spain. As Terry says:

  "Incidentally, the Seriph's palace, the Rhoxie, is indeed a 'resonance'
  with the Alhambra -- a famous Moorish palace which became a synonym for
  an impressive building, and later became a common cinema name as in Odeon
  and, yes, Roxy."

- [p. 141] "Nijel the Destroyer" may be a suitably heroic-looking name, but
  'Nijel' is of course pronounced as 'Nigel', a name that is traditionally
  associated with wimpy rather then with heroic males.

- [p. 162] "'He asked me to tell him a story.'"

  This is the first, but not the last time in the book that Creosote asks
  Conina for a story. This refers to "1001 Nights", and the stories
  Sheharazade had to tell to *her* Caliph, Haroun al-Rashid, every night.

- [p. 167] "'I'm looking up the Index of Wandering Monsters', said Nijel."

  'Wandering Monsters' is a phrase that comes from the world of fantasy
  roleplaying games such as "Dungeons and Dragons", and it more or less
  means just what you think it means. Nijel is of course exactly the type
  of nerd who would, in our world, actually play D&D.

- [p. 215] Significant Quest --> Trivial Persuit.

- [p. 259] "For a moment the ape reared against the darkness, the shoulder,
  elbow and wrist of his right arm unfolding in a poem of applied leverage,
  and in a movement as unstoppable as the dawn of intelligence brought it
  down very heavily."

  This is a rather subtle reference to the scene with the bone and tapir
  skull in the 'Dawn of Man' portion of Kubrick and Clarke's movie "2001: A
  Space Oddysey".


WYRD SISTERS

- This whole novel brims with Shakespearian references, to the Scottish
  Play and "Hamlet" in particular (the three witches, the blood that won't
  come off, the king's ghost, etc.). Some of the more striking references
  are documented below, but the list is far from exhaustive.

- 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. A few entries that seem to
  me (slightly) less obvious are documented in this section.

+ [p. 5] "Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achive
  Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; [...]"

  Probably the most famous chance card in Monopoly: "Go Directly To Jail.
  Do Not Pass Go, do not collect $xxx"

  [ Can anybody give me the exact text and the exact name for this type of
  card? I only have the Dutch version of Monopoly to go on...]

+ [p. 20] "[...] with nothing much to do but hunt, drink and excercise his
  droit de seigneur."

  'Droit de seigneur' or 'jus primae noctis' ('right of first night'): a
  custom alleged to have existed in mediaeval Europe giving the lord the
  right to sleep the first night with the bride of any one of his vassals.
  The evidence deals with redemption dues which were paid to avoid its
  enforcement. It probably existed as a recognized custom in parts of
  France and possibly Italy and Germany, but not elsewhere.

+ [p. 31] "'Madam, will you kindly remove your hat?'"

  A well-known quote, but can anybody actually place it for me?

- [p. 36] "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All"

  Terry invented this title; he has *not* written any words to it (apart
  from the fragments that appear in the novels); 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 documented 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. 37] "'Tom John,' she said firmly, and swept out."

  Tom John's name might be based on John Tom in Alan Dean Foster's
  "Spellsinger" fantasy series.

- [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. 75] "A faint glow beyond the frosted panes suggested that, against
  all reason, a new day would soon dawn."

  The first scene of the first act of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" starts at
  midnight, and describes a scene lasting about fifteen minutes -- yet the
  act ends at dawn. Likewise, the summoning of WxrtHltl-jwlpklz the demon
  takes place at night, but ends with the quote given above.

- [p. 133] "'I have no recollection of it at this time,' he murmured."

  Duke Felmet is echoing the words of Richard Nixon during the Watergate
  affair. [ But I'm still looking for definite confirmation of this
  annotation. Anybody? ]

- [p. 142] "Greebo's grin gradually faded, until there was nothing left but
  the cat. This was nearly as spooky as the other way round."

  Refers to the Cheshire cat in Lewis Caroll's "Alice's Adventures In
  Wonderland", a beast famous for slowly vanishing until only its grin
  remains.

- [p. 159] "[...] the hero had been born in a handbag."

  The protagonist in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance Of Being Earnest" was
  found, as a baby, in a handbag.

- [p. 160] The Dysk. 

  The famous theatre build by Shakespeare & Co. was called 'The Globe'.
  [When? Where?]

+ [p. 178] "The pay's the thing."

  Puns on a well-known Shakespeare quote from "Hamlet" (act II, scene ii):

        "The play's the thing
         Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king"

+ [p. 186] "Leonard of Quirm. He's a painter, really."

  Refers to Leonardo da Vinci, who also worked on (but didn't succeed in
  building) a flying machine.

- [p. 193] "1ST WITCHE: He's late. (Pause)" [Etc.]

  Refers to Samuel Beckett's classic play "Waiting For Godot", where
  similar dialogue occurs.

- [p. 213] "I'd like to know if I could compare you to a summer's day.
  Because -- well, June 12th was quite nice, and ..."

  One of Shakespeare's more famous sonnets (Sonnet XVIII, to be precise)
  starts out:

        "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
         Thou art more lovely and more temperate"

+ [p. ???] "'did you know that the average man has about 5 pounds of
  undigested red meat in his intestines?."

  Stereotypical propaganda that radical vegetarians like to quote in order
  to gross people out and get them to stop eating meat. This cliche is used
  fairly often, amongst other places in the movie "Beverly Hills Cop".

  Terry had this to say on the subject: "Yep. That one I got from some way
  out vegetarian stuff I read years ago, and went round feeling ill about
  for days. And two years ago I saw "Beverley Hills Cop" on TV and
  rejoiced when I heard the line. God, I wish I'd seen the film before I'd
  written "Guards! Guards!"... I'd have had someone out on stake-duty on
  horseback, and someone creep up behind them with a banana..."



PYRAMIDS

- [p. 14] "He [...] jumped a narrow gap on to the tiled roof of the Young
  Men's Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth Association gym,
  [...]"

  Puns on our world's YMCA youth hostels. YMCA stands for 'Young Men's
  Christian Association'.

- [p. 17] Djelibeybi. 

  A pun on the sweets called Jelly Babies.

- [p. 20] On the subject of the Assassin's Guild School, Terry has this to
  say: "Yes, the whole setup of the Assassin's Guild school has, uh, a
  certain resonance with Rugby School in "Tom Brown's Schooldays" (note to
  Americans: a minor Victorian classic of school literature which no-one
  reads anymore and which is probably now more famous for the first
  appearance of the Flashman character subsequently popularised by George
  MacDonald Fraser)."

+ [p. 50] The legend of Ankh-Morpork being founded by two orphaned brothers
  who had been found and suckled by a hippopotamus refers to the the legend
  of Romulus and Remus who were two orphaned brothers raised by a wolf, who
  later went on to found Rome (the brothers, not the wolf).
  
- [p. 95] Pteppic's dream about the seven fat and seven thin cows is a
  reference to the Bible's Joseph, who had to explain a similar dream
  (which did not have the bit about the trombone, though), to the Pharaoh.
  "Pyramids" is of course riddled with religious references, most of which
  are too obvious or too vague to warrant inclusion here.

+ [p. 117] Ptraci. 

  Should be pronounced with a silent 'p'. Note also that in England the
  name Tracey (Sharon, too) is often used to generically refer to the kind
  of girl immortalized in the "dumb blonde" jokes.
  
  The stereotype may have arisen because of Keith Waterhouse who has been
  using the names for many years in his Daily Mail columns to represent
  typical innumerate rude shop assistants. There also exists an adult
  satirical comic called "Viz" which features two characters called 'The
  Fat Slags' whose names are Sharon and Tracy. Etcetera.

  This annotation may also help explain why over on alt.fan.pratchett
  people have regularly and affectionally been known to refer to their
  Favourite Author as 'Pterry'... (although the lazier participants usually
  just refer to him as TP, confirm the sometimes bloody annoying Usenet
  habit of acronymizing everything longer than two words or four
  characters, whichever comes first. Hence DW stands for Discworld, TCOM
  for "The Colour Of Magic", and so on).

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

- [p. 156] "[...] distilling the testicles of a small tree-dwelling species
  of bear with the vomit of a whale, [...]"

  Until quite recently, animal substances were extensively used as
  fixatives in perfume. Examples include musk (from deer-testicles; 'musk'
  is Sanskrit for 'scrotum'), ambergris (from the intestines of whales) and
  castor (from a beaver's perineal gland).

- [p. 157] "...Phi * 1700[u/v]. Lateral e/v. Equals a tranche of seven to
  twelve..."

  Some confusion has arisen here, because the asterisk symbol '*' is the
  same one used in at least some of the editions of "Pyramids" as a
  footnote marker. This has caused a few people to wonder if there's a
  'missing footnote' intended for this page. Matters are not helped much by
  the fact that the American paperback edition *does* contain the text of a
  footnote on (their equivalent of) p. 157. This footnote is simply
  misplaced and the marker for it occurs on the *previous* page (see also
  previous annotation).

  We'll let Terry have the last word in order to remove any remaining
  doubt: "I'm pretty sure the missing footnote in Pyramids doesn't exist.
  If it's what I'm thinking of, we just bunged in loads of gibberish maths
  and among the symbols was, yes, '*'."

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

- [p. 179] Philosophers' names. 

  Xeno refers to Zeno, of aforementioned paradox. Copolymer ("the greatest
  storyteller in the history of the world") refers to both Homer (because
  of the name) and Herodotus, 'the father of history', who was known for
  his very chatty and discursive style, and who basically made his living
  as a story-teller/dinner guest. Pthagonal ("a very acute man with an
  angle") refers to Pythagoras. Iesope ("the greatest teller of fables") to
  Aesop. Antiphon ("the greatest writer of comic plays") to Aristophanes.
  And Ibid is actually short for ibidem, which means, when citing
  literature references: 'same author as before'. Hence the quip later on:
  "Ibid you already know".

  The only one left is Endos the Listener, who is perhaps meant to portray
  the standard second-man-in-a-socratic-dialogue -- the man who spends the
  entire dialogue saying things like "That is correct, Socrates", "I
  agree", "you're right", "your reasoning appears correct", and the like.

  Also, an 'antiphon' is a name for a versicle or sentence sung by one
  choir in response to another (e.g. in a comic play: "No you can't / Yes I
  can!" repeated many times with rising pitch).

  [ Finally, my source also suspects that Copolymer's monologue may be a
  take-off on a particular translation of his "Histories". Anybody?]

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

+ It has been remarked that there are quite a few parallels between the
  country of Djelibeybi and the castle of Gormenghast as described by
  Mervyn Peake in his "Gormenghast" trilogy (which we know Terry has read
  because in another Discworld novel he compares Unseen University to
  Gormenghast). The hero of "Gormenghast", Titus, also has a mother with a
  cat obsession, and his father died because he thought he was an owl.
  Furthermore, the atmosphere of decay, ancient history and unchanging
  ritual pervades both Djelibeybi and Gormenghast, with in both cases the
  presence of arbiters of tradition who are almost (or more) powerful than
  the actual ruler.

  For those interested in pursuing Ghormenghast further (people who have
  read it almost invariably seem to think it's a work of genius), the names
  of the three novels are "Titus Groan" (1946), "Gormenghast" (1950) and
  "Titus Alone" (1959, revised 1970).

- [p. ???] "Go tell the Ephebians..."

  This is a parody of "Go tell the Spartans...", which is the beginning of
  the memorial for the Spartan soldiers who got massacred by the Persians
  at Thermopylae as a result of Greek treachery. The full quote is given by
  Simonedes (5th century BC) as:

        "Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
         That here obedient to their laws we lie"
  
  [ Can someone find the page number for me? ]



ERIC


+ The subtitle to "Eric" ("Faust", crossed out) already indicates what
  story is being parodied in this novella: that of the German alchemist and
  demonologist Johannes (or Georg) Faust who sold his soul to the devil.

  The most famous version of the Faust legend is perhaps the one told by
  Goethe in "Faust", with Cristopher Marlowe's earlier play "The Tragical
  History Of Dr. Faustus" a close second.

+ [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.

  Also, the actual dog-latin translates more or less to: "Evil-making
  Driver of the Little One-Eyed Devil".

- [p. 41] The name of the Tezumen god, 'Quetzovercoatl', puns on the actual
  Aztec god 'Quetzalcoatl'.

+ [p. 46] "There are quite a lot of uses to which you can put a stone disc
  with a hole in the middle, and the Tezumen had explored all but one of
  them."

  This may refer to the Aztecs (who the Tezumen are obviously modeled on
  anyway) who did not know about the wheel either, but reputedly used small
  discs with holes in them for money, and who had a basketball-like game
  where the baskets were also stone disks with holes in them.

- [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 'Dirty Harry' Eastwood quote.

  Notice also that the translation Terry supplies ("To protect and to
  serve") is actually the motto of the Los Angeles Police Force.

  My source tells me that Hollywood writers and directors, notorious for
  the accuracy of their movies and TV shows, tend to have *all* police cars
  bear this motto. In a sort of reverse formation, this has caused some
  individual police forces across the USA to adopt it, so that by now the
  motto has become fairly wide-spread.

- [p. 94] "'Just give me the facts, m'lady,' he said impatiently."

  "Just the facts, ma'am", is a catchphrase from the "Dragnet" TV series
  (later a Dan Ackroyd/Tom Hanks movie).

- [p. 104] "Pour encourjay lays ortras".

  Discworld version of the French phrase "pour encourager les autres". The
  phrase originates with Voltaire who, after the British executed their own
  admiral John Byng in 1757 for failing to relieve Minorca, was inspired to
  write (in Chapter 23 of "Candide"), a sentence that translates to: "in
  this country we find it pays to shoot an admiral from time to time to
  encourage the others".

- [p. 104] The bit about the hero killing a monster in a lake, only to have
  the monster's mum come right down the hall the next day and *complain*,
  is a reference to Grendel and his mother, two famous monsters appearing
  in the "Beowulf" saga.

- [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 a famous piece of Sherlock Holmes dialogue found in the
  story "Silver Blaze" [and it perhaps also refers to Edgar Allan Poe's
  "The Murders In The Rue Morgue"].

- [p. 124] "This is Lord Mountjoy Quickfang Winterforth IV, the hottest
  dragon in the city. It could burn your head clean off."

  Vimes replays here one of the best-known scenes in Clint Eastwood's first
  "Dirty Harry" movie.

- [p. 257] The scene where Errol's supersonic boom smashes the dragon out
  of the air is possibly lifted from another Clint Eastwood movie,
  "Firefox".

+ [p. ???] "'And Bob's your uncle.'"

  Some people have been wondering just where this expression comes from.
  Terry himself gives the following answer:

  "Apparently from a 19th Century Prime Minister, Lord Robert Stanley, who
  was a great one for nepotism. If you got a good Government job it was
  because "Bob's your uncle". It came to mean 'everything's all right'."

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This is the end of part 1 of 3
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-- 
Leo Breebaart  (leo @ cp.tn.tudelft.nl)