The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

thought, Excuse me? No one has an oven big enough to get a whole person in, and what made the children think they could just walk around eating people’s houses in any case? And why does some boy too stupid to know a cow is worth a lot more than five beans have the right to murder a giant and steal all his gold? Not to mention commit an act of ecological vandalism? And some girl who can’t tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either have been as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family.
    *
    They were all about six inches tall and mostly coloured blue, although it was hard to know if that was the actual colour of their skins or just the dye from their tattoos, which covered every inch that wasn’t covered with red hair. They wore short kilts, and some wore other bitsof clothing too, like skinny waistcoats. A few of them wore rabbit or rat skulls on their heads, as a sort of helmet. And every single one of them carried, slung across his back, a sword nearly as big as he was.

    ‘Whut’s the plan, Rob?’ said one of them.
    ‘Okay lads, this is what we’ll do. As soon as we see somethin’, we’ll attack it. Right?’
    This caused a cheer.
    Ach, ‘tis a good plan,’ said Daft Wullie.

    Glint, glisten, glitter, gleam …
    Tiffany thought a lot about words. ‘Onomatopoeic’, she’d discovered in the dictionary, meant words that sounded like the noise of the thing they were describing, like ‘cuckoo’. But she thought there should be a word meaning ‘a word that sounds like the noise a thing would make if that thing made a noise even though, actually, it doesn’t, but would if it did’.
    Glint, for example. If light made a noise as it reflected off a distant window, it’d go ‘glint!’ And the light of tinsel, all those little glints chiming together, would make a noise like ‘glitterglitter’. ‘Gleam’ was a clean, smooth noise from a surface that intended to shine all day. And ‘glisten’ was the soft, almost greasy sound of something rich and oily.
    *
    ‘What’s your name, pictsie?’ she said.
    ‘No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock, mistress. There’s no’ that many Feegle names, ye ken, so we ha’ to share.’
    ‘Well, Not-as-big-as-Little-Jock—’ Tiffany began.
    ‘That’d be Medium-Sized Jock, mistress,’ said Not-as-big-as-Medium -Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.
    ‘Well, Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock, I can—’
    ‘That’s No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee- Jock-Jock, mistress,’ said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock. ‘Ye were one jock short,’ he added helpfully.
    *
    There was some method in the way the Nac Mac Feegle fought. For example, they always chose the biggest opponent because, as Rob Anybody said later, ‘It makes them easier to hit, ye ken’. And they simply didn’t stop. It was that which wore people down. It was like being attacked by wasps with fists.
    *
    ‘The thing about witchcraft,’ said Mistress Weatherwax, ‘is that it’s notlike school at all. First you get the test, and then afterwards you spend years findin’ out how you passed it. It’s a bit like life in that respect.’
    *
    ‘And what do you really do?’ said Tiffany.
    ‘We look to … the edges,’ said Mistress Weatherwax. There’re a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong … an’ they need watchin’. We watch ‘em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That’s important.’
    *
    ‘Hooses, banks, dreams, ‘tis a’ the same to us,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘There’s nothing we cannae get in or oot of.’
    ‘Except maybe pubs,’ said Big Yan.
    ‘Oh, aye,’ said Rob Anybody cheerfully. ‘Gettin’ oot o’ pubs sometimes causes us a cerrrtain amount o’ difficulty, I’ll grant ye that.’

I T began as a sudden strange fancy…
    Polly Perks had to become a boy in a tarry. Slitting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time…
    And now she’s enlisted in the army, and is searching for her lost brother.
    But there’s a war on. There’s always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them.
    All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army and a vampire