The Folklore of Discworld

confectionery to the cities of the plain. Far away in the hot and swampy realm of Genua, there are lakes of liquid treacle fermenting happily only a little way underground, and occasionally bursting out under pressure to create springs of rum. Near Quirm, there are toffee beds. The origin of all this succulence goes back tothe Dawn of Time, when the Fifth Elephant collided with the Disc with so great an impact that thousands of acres of prehistoric wild sugar cane was buried under massive landslides, and compacted into a dense crystalline mass.
    Those who study the effects of cosmic resonance in the space-time continuum of the multiverse often cite the Treacle Mine Phenomenon with amazement and awe, for it has been shown without doubt that these mines, which are a plain fact of geography on the Disc, have insinuated themselves into the folklore of a world where they do not actually exist, and never have done. In England, there are at least thirty villages reputed to have a secret treacle mine tucked away somewhere on their territory. Even more astonishing, there is one place, the village of Patcham in East Sussex, where people have a fairly accurate idea of how the treacle was formed (allowing for the fact that this world sadly lacks any cosmic elephants). A Mrs Austen told the West Sussex Gazette in 1973 the tale she knew, and had passed on to her children:
    Millions of years ago, when England was a tropical country, before the Ice Age, sugar cane grew here. Year after year it grew, ripened and rotted unharvested, the molasses draining away down into the folds of the hills, where it accumulated above an impermeable layer of clay. The centuries passed, the colder weather came, and sugar cane no longer grew on the Downs, but the underground layer of treacle lay patiently waiting until in 1871 Peter Jones, a scientist who had long suspected its existence, sank the first shaft. The ensuing treacle gusher spouted for three days, covering the countryside for several miles around with a fine rain of treacle, until it was at last brought under control.
    Elsewhere, other explanations are offered. At Chobham in Surrey, military incompetence is alleged to be the cause. It is said that soldiers who encamped on Chobham Common before setting out tothe Crimean War (others say, American troops stationed nearby during the First World War) buried vast stockpiles of supplies, including drums of treacle and molasses, and forgot to remove them when they left. The drums corroded, and a subterranean reservoir of treacle was formed.
    Other places do not attempt to account for the origin of the precious substance, but tell ingenious tales about its discovery and use. The mine at Jarvis Brook near Crowborough (Sussex) was supposedly begun by the Romans, who carved the solid treacle rock into jewellery, but never found out how sweet it was; this was discovered accidentally when a medieval baby prince was visibly soothed by sucking his mother’s necklace. At Sabden (Lancashire) it is claimed that boggarts (a species of goblin) are employed in the mine to lick up any spilt treacle; cards and souvenirs about the mine are sold to tourists.
    Yet, sad to say, the people who tell these tales do not take them seriously. It is all a poker-faced joke, a hoax, a leg-pull, used by the locals to hoax gullible outsiders, by parents to entertain their children, by older children to make fools of young ones. While all the time, did they but know it, the remains of a real treacle mine lie below the streets of Ankh-Morpork.
W IZARDRY AND C EREMONIAL M AGIC
    Any comment upon wizardry in a book with ‘Folklore’ in the title will have to be made very quietly , since there is nothing that infuriates a scholar more than to be mistaken for a member of the folk, after he has spent all his waking hours for the past fifty years with his nose in a book (mealtimes partially excepted). Naturally, he may have come across the odd scrap of folklore in the course of his reading, but he will make it very plain that he does not believe it. Arch-chancellor Ridcully, for example, has heard of the kind of monster called a Sciopod by Ancient Greeks and a Uniped in Latin:a humanoid with only a single leg and foot, this being so huge that if it lies on its back and sticks its leg in the air, the foot makes an excellent sunshade. But he thinks it’s just something travel writers invented.
    ‘They always make up that sort of thing. Otherwise it’s too boring. It’s no good