The Folklore of Discworld

States in the nineteenth century, a cheap book of spells recommended it as a fire precaution, a detector of witches, a protection against disease, and good for the cows.
    Some echo of all this must surely have filtered through to the wizards of Unseen University, but whether they actually use word squares themselves remains unknown.
T HE B LACK S CHOOL
    For centuries, Earth has known rumours of a Black School where magic was taught, though none quite matches the venerable antiquity of the Disc’s Unseen University, now some two thousand years old. The only possible contenders would be certain secret academies where (if we can believe the rather unreliable Roman author Pomponius Mela in the first century AD) druids trained pupils for twenty years on end ‘in sequestered and remote places, whether in a cave or in secluded groves’.
    Once real universities became established in the Middle Ages, there soon grew up the legend of their secret counterpart, a college called the Black School where one could learn all the occult arts. It was deep underground, windowless, and pitch dark. Nobody ever saw the Teacher, for that was the Devil himself. Students never went outside. Every evening, they would say aloud what they wanted to learn, and by next morning the right books would have appeared magically on their desks, written in fiery letters that glowed in the dark; or the information would be written in fire upon the walls. Andwhen the course of studies ended, the students would rush to escape through the single door, for it was known that the Devil would take the hindmost – unless he was cunning enough to trick him into seizing his cloak, or his shadow, instead.
    And where was this wondrous Black School? Usually it was said to be in one of the great medieval universities, but not of course in one’s own country. The learned French scholar and scientist Gerbert d’Aurillac (946–1003), who became Pope Sylvester II, was rumoured to have studied magic at the Islamic university in Cordoba, Spain. The Icelander Sæmundur the Learned (1056–1133) was said to have attended a Black School somewhere in France. In Romania, folk tradition tells of an underground academy called Scholomance, near Sibiu in the mountains of Transylvania (Bram Stoker had heard of this). Others have talked of a Black School in Paris, Padua, Salamanca, Prague, or Wittenburg (Faust studied there). Probably students at Wittenburg and Prague whispered about the fearful occult activities at Oxford and Cambridge.
    An aside: It has been suggested by the learned science fiction writer Isaac Asimov that the general western antipathy towards witches is at least partly to do with teeth and beards. The hypothesis runs like this: until the advent of modern dentistry, people who lived to a great age tended to lose their teeth – to get gummy, in fact. For the old widow, perhaps with no family to care for her, that added another problem. She looked like a crone, with the lower part of the face dished in and the nose appearing to hook. Of course, the same thing happened to the old men, but they could grow long white beards to hide the wrinkles behind, and looked as wise as an Old Testament prophet. Wise wizard, wicked witch … what a difference a razor makes.
    11 Tyrants insist on doing this, despite the fact that it never works.
    12 It’s the little details that charm.

 
Chapter 14
MORE CUSTOMS,
NAUTICAL LORE and
MILITARY MATTERS

     
    T HERE IS A WIDESPREAD FEELING among folklorists that city-dwellers do not have customs. Maybe there had been some in the very old days, when the city was little more than a collection of villages, but they are long forgotten now. Of course there are various civic and academic occasions which require serious-minded men to process through the streets in outdated ceremonial robes and plumed helmets, but these aren’t proper folk customs. They are all too obviously well organized and official. They are not archaic and bloodthirsty, nor, on the other hand, do they involve jolly yokels and winsome maidens prancing around with many a merry fol-de-rol. Folklore collectors therefore feel free to ignore them.
    However, there comes a time in the history of most cities when somebody says, ‘We really ought to have a few customs. They could do wonders for the tourist trade.’ Books are consulted. Ideas from elsewhere are forcibly uprooted and shamelessly reworked to fit their new environment. And lo! Suddenly, there are Morris dancers