The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.
    *
    She had a dobby stone, which was supposed to be lucky because it had a hole in it. (She’d been told that when she was seven, and had picked it up. She couldn’t quite see how the hole made it lucky, but since it had spent a lot of time in her pocket, and then safe and sound in the box, it probably was more fortunate than most stones, which got kicked around and run over by carts and so on.)
    *
    Every kitchen drawer Tiffany had ever seen might have been meant to be neat but over the years had been crammed with things that didn’t quite fit, like big ladles and bent bottle openers, which meant that they always stuck unless you knew the trick of opening them.
    *
    ‘Have you ever been to a circus?’
    Once, Tiffany admitted. It hadn’t been much fun. Things that try too hard to be funny often aren’t. There had been a moth-eaten lion with practically no teeth, a tight-rope walker who was never more than a few feet above the ground, and a knife-thrower who threw a lot of knives at an elderly woman in pink tights on a big spinning wooden disc and completelyfailed to hit her every time. The only real amusement was afterwards, when a cart ran over the clown.
    *
    ‘He’s always talking about … his funeral.’
    ‘Well, it’s important to him. Sometimes old people are like that. They’d hate people to think that they were too poor to pay for their own funeral. Mr Weavall’d die of shame if he couldn’t pay for his own funeral.’
    *
    ‘We do what can be done,’ said Miss Level. ‘Mistress Weatherwax said you’ve got to learn that witchcraft is mostly about doing quite ordinary things.’
    ‘And you have to do what she says?’ said Tiffany.
    ‘I listen to her advice,’ said Miss Level, coldly.
    ‘Mistress Weatherwax is the head witch, then, is she?’
    ‘Oh no!’ said Miss Level, looking shocked. ‘Witches are all equal. We don’t have things like head witches. That’s quite against the spirit of witchcraft.’
    ‘Oh, I see,’ said Tiffany.
    ‘Besides,’ Miss Level added, ‘Mistress Weatherwax would never allow that sort of thing.’
    *
    Tiffany couldn’t help noticing that Petulia had jewellery everywhere; later she found that it was hard to be around Petulia for any length of time without having to unhook a bangle from a necklace or, once, an earring from an ankle bracelet (nobody ever found out how that one happened). Petulia couldn’t resist occult jewellery. Most of the stuff was to magically protect her from things, but she hadn’t found anything to protect her from looking a bit silly.
    *
    You had to remember that pictsies weren’t brownies. In theory, brownies would do the housework for you if you left them a saucer of milk.
    The Nac Mac Feegle … wouldn’t.
    *
    In truth, most witches could get through their whole life without having to do serious, undeniable magic (making shambles and curse-nets and dreamcatchers didn’t really count, being rather more like arts-and-crafts, and most of the rest of it was practical medicine, common sense and the ability to look stern in a pointy hat). But being a witch and wearing the big black hat was like being a policeman. People saw the uniform, not you. When the mad axeman was running down the street you weren’t allowed to back away muttering ‘Could you find someone else? Actually, I mostly just do, you know, stray dogs and road safety …’ You were there, you had the hat, you did the job. That was a basic rule of witchery: It’s up to you.
    *
    ‘How many fingers am I holdin’ up?’ he said.
    ‘Five,’ whispered Miss Level.
    ‘Am I? Ah, well, ye could be right, ye’d have the knowin’ o’ the countin’,’ said Rob.
    *
    The Feegle way of reading:
    ‘Worrds,’ said Rob Anybody.
    ‘Yes, they say—’ Billy began.
    ‘I ken weel what they say!’ snapped Rob Anybody. ‘I ha’ the knowin’ of the readin’! They say—’
    He looked up again. ‘OK, they say … that’s the snake, an’ that’s the kinda like a gate letter, an’ the comb on its side, two o’ that, an’ the fat man standin’ still, an’ the snake again, and then there’s whut we calls a “space” and then there’s the letter like a saw’s teeth, and two o’ the letters that’s roound like the sun, and the letter that’s a man sittin’ doon, and onna next line we ha’ … the man wi’ his arms oot, and the letter that’s you, an’ ha, the fat