The Folklore of Discworld

with the sabre cut’ arrived, followed by his sea-chest, and took lodgings at the inn which Jim’s parents owned.
    I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding up to the inn-door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow … I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song he sang so often afterwards:–
    ‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest –
    Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
    Drink and the devil had done for the rest –
    Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!’
    This ill-omened shanty echoes again and again through the story, and is never completed, or explained. Jim writes that ‘At first I had supposed the “dead man’s chest” to be that identical big box of his upstairs in the front room’, the great sea-chest which none of them had ever seen opened. The thought gave him nightmares, as well it might. For how could fifteen men be on one chest? Knowing what we now know of the Luggage, we must query the correctness of the preposition. Not on but in , perhaps? Let us recall Rincewind’s conversation with Conina, on an occasion when the Luggage had just emerged from the Shades with several arrowheads and broken swords sticking in it. She asks him if it is dangerous.
    ‘There’s two schools of thought about that,’ said Rincewind.
    ‘There’s some people who say it’s dangerous, and others who say it’s very dangerous. What do you think?’
    The Luggage raised its lid a fraction …
    Conina stared at that lid. It looked very like a mouth.
    ‘I think I’d vote for “terminally dangerous”,’ she said.
    ‘It likes crisps,’ volunteered Rincewind, and then added, ‘Well, that’s a bit strong. It eats crisps.’
    ‘What about people?’
    ‘Oh, and people. About fifteen so far, I think.’ [ Sourcery ]
    Fifteen , eh?
    But it would be unfair to take leave of the Luggage without any mention of the gentler, more domestic side of its nature. During a brief return to its native country, described in Interesting Times , it gallantly rescued a rather charming trunk with inlaid lid and dainty feet (with red toenails) from the unwelcome attentions of three big, coarse cases covered in studded leather. Romance blossomed. Mysterious sounds of sawing and hammering were heard by night on a hillside where pear trees grew. And when the Luggage reappeared it – or shall we say he? – was followed by the dainty-footed Luggage, and then, in descending order of size, four little chests, the smallestbeing about the size of a lady’s handbag. But the Luggage could not deny its inner calling. After one or two sad backward glances, or what might have been glances if it had had eyes, it cantered away through the dimensions, still following Rincewind.

 
Chapter 8
THE WITCHES OF
LANCRE

     
W HY THREE? W HY ‘WYRD’?
    T HE GREATEST CONCENTRATION of natural magical talent in the Discworld is found in the Ramtop Mountains, especially in the small kingdom of Lancre. There have been witches there for generations, remembered to this day with fondness and fear. And still one can hear the age-old rallying call, as an eldritch voice shrieks through a thunderstorm, ‘When shall we three meet again?’ To which, after a pause, another replies in far more ordinary tones, ‘Well, I can do next Tuesday.’
    Which is all very well, but it does raise questions. Lancre witches normally work alone, each having her own personal approach to her craft. So why do these particular witches (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick) often meet as a threesome? Why is the first account of their deeds entitled Wyrd Sisters , when they are not sisters? And isn’t wyrd a weird way to spell weird, even if they are weird?
    As with so many other things, it’s all down to Will Shakespeare. His impact on the universe certainly stretches as far as Lancre.
    In Will Shakespeare’s Macbeth , there is a trio of secret, black and midnight hags who forgather in a thunderstorm on a blasted heath, boil up unappetizing brews in a cauldron, and utter tricky prophecies which shape the destinies of kings. The stage directions are quite clear as to what they are (‘Thunder and lightning; enter threewitches’), and the text is equally clear as to their name. They are the Weird Sisters. That is what Macbeth calls them, and what they call themselves. The Weird Sisters.
    Being strong individualists, it would never occur to Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and