The Folklore of Discworld

without which society could not survive. Such a hero is more than human, but he is not a god; indeed, he may be acting in defiance of gods who wish to keep men helpless andignorant. In one way he is the opposite of the Barbarian Hero, since he brings civilization, not mere pillage and carnage; some therefore call him the Culture Hero. His courage is the courage of endurance.
    On the Disc, the First Hero’s name is Mazda – a remarkable coincidence, since on Earth there is a morally admirable deity called Mazda who is the god of light, truth, and justice in Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia (Iran). He is the Power of Good, locked in combat with the evil Ahriman, whom he will defeat at the Last Day. The Discworld’s Mazda is not so exalted, but he too worked for good, and suffered for it. Of course, much depends on the point of view, since an unsympathetic mind would say that what he did was theft. He stole fire from the gods.
    ‘I thought I’d start off with the legend of how Mazda stole fire for mankind in the first place,’ said the minstrel.
    ‘Nice,’ said Cohen.
    ‘And then a few verses about what the gods did to him.’
    ‘Did to him? Did to him?’ said Cohen. ‘They made him immortal!’
    ‘Er … yes. In a way , I suppose.’
    ‘What do you mean, “in a way”?’
    ‘It’s classical mythology, Cohen,’ said the minstrel. ‘I thought everyone knew. He was chained to a rock for eternity and every day an eagle comes and pecks out his liver.’
    ‘I’m not much of a reader,’ said Cohen. ‘Chained to a rock? For a first offence? He’s still there?’
    ‘Eternity isn’t finished yet, Cohen.’
    ‘He must’ve had a big liver!’
    ‘It grows again every night, according to legend,’ said the minstrel.
    Cohen stared at the distant clouds that hid the snowy top of the mountain. ‘He brought fire to everyone, and the gods did that to him, eh? Well … we’ll have to see about that.’ [ The Last Hero ]
    This is indeed, as the minstrel says, a classical myth. In Ancient Greece, it was the story of Prometheus, the benefactor of mankind – maybe even the creator of mankind, for some old writers claimed that he formed the bodies of the first men and women from water and clay, after which the goddess Athene breathed life into them. Whether that is true or not, all agree that he brought them civilization, teaching them the skills he had himself learned from Athene – metal-working, building, mathematics, astronomy, medicine – to the great anger of Zeus, who had intended them to remain ignorant. And then, to cap it all, Prometheus stole fire from the gods. He lit a torch from the chariot of the sun, broke off a smouldering ember, hid it in a hollow stalk of fennel, and so carried it down to the earth as a gift to humanity.
    Furious, Zeus had Prometheus stripped naked and chained to a rock in the Caucasian mountains. Every day at dawn a monstrous bird, part griffin and part vulture, would fly down and tear his body open, pecking out and eating his liver; every night, as he lay freezing, his liver would grow again, ready for the dawn. Yet he knew he would be released one day. And so it was. When Prometheus had spent a thousand years fettered to the rock (or, some say, ten thousand), Herakles, a hero of the wild and monster-slaying type, persuaded Zeus to let him shoot the griffin-vulture through the heart and set Prometheus free. The Barbarian Hero came to the rescue of the Culture Hero, on Earth as on the Disc.
T HE R OYAL H EIR
    The people of Ankh-Morpork know all about heirs who arrive incognito to claim their rightful kingdom and turn out to be ideal rulers, brave, wise and just:
    The throne had been empty for more than two thousand years, since the death of the last of the line of the kings of Ankh.Legend said that one day the city would have a king again, and went on with various comments about magic swords, strawberry birthmarks, and all the other things that legends gabble on about in these circumstances. [ Sourcery ]
    What is more, pretty well all of them know the rumour that such an heir is currently living in the city, as a mere watchman. And they can put a name to him: Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson (a conspiracy to groom Nobby Nobbs for the role failed utterly). In fact, the only person who seems unaware of the rumour is Carrot himself. He is a foundling; he has a strong sword, well-used, though quite unmagical and lacking any mysterious inscriptions; he has an oddly