The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

…

    When the gods made sheep they must’ve left their brains in their other coat.

    ‘Cackling’, to a witch, didn’t just mean nasty laughter. It meant your mind drifting away from its anchor. It meant you losing your grip. It meant loneliness and hard work and responsibility and other people’s problems driving you crazy a little bit at a time, each bit so small that you’d hardly notice it, until you thought that it was normal to stop washing and wear a kettle on your head. It meant you thinking that the fact you knew more than anyone else in your village made you better than them. It meant thinking that right and wrong were negotiable. And, in the end, it meant you ‘going to the dark’, as the witches said. That was a bad road. At the end of that road were poisoned spinning-wheels and gingerbread cottages.
    *
    Everyone had something inside them that told the world they were there. That was why you could often sense when someone was behind you, even if they were making no sound at all. You were receiving their ‘I am here!’ signal.
    Some people had a very strong one. They were the people who got served first in shops. Granny Weatherwax had an ‘I am here’ signal that bounced off the mountains when she wanted it to; when she walked into a forest, all the wolves and bears ran out the other side.
    *
    Mrs Earwig was all wrong to Granny Weatherwax. She wasn’t born locally, which was almost a crime to begin with. She wrote books, and Granny Weatherwax didn’t trust books. And Mrs Earwig believed in shiny wands and magical amulets and mystic runes and the power of the stars, while Granny Weatherwax believed in cups of tea, dry biscuits, washing every morning in cold water and, well, she believed mostly in Granny Weatherwax.
    *
    Most witches liked black, but Miss Treason even had black goats and black chickens. The walls were black. The floor was black. If you dropped a stick of liquorice, you’d never find it again. And, to Tiffany’s dismay, she had to make her cheeses black, which meant painting the cheeses with shiny black wax. It did keep them moist, butTiffany distrusted black cheeses. They always looked as though they were plotting something.
    *
    ‘Gods, elementals, demons, spirits … sometimes it’s hard to tell ‘em apart wi’oot a map.’
    *
    You could hear the snow falling. It made a strange little noise, like a faint, cold sizzle.
    *
    The Chalk Hill Feegles were more at home with the drinkin’, stealin’ and fightin’, and Rob Anybody was good at all three. But he’d learned to read and write because Jeannie had asked him to. He did them with a lot more optimism than accuracy. When he was faced with a long sentence he tended to work out a few words and then have a great big guess.
    *
    The white kitten watched the snowflakes. It was called You, as in ‘You! Stop that!’ and ‘You! Get off there!’ When it came to names, Granny Weatherwax didn’t do fancy.
    *
    ‘The important thing,’ said Miss Treason, ‘is to stay the passage of the wind. You should avoid rumbustious fruits and vegetables. Beans are the worst, take it from me.’
    ‘I don’t think I understand—’ Tiffany began.
    ‘Try not to fart, in a nutshell.’
    ‘In a nutshell I imagine it would be pretty unpleasant!’ said Tiffany, nervously.
    *
    The Feegles didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’. Sometimes Tiffany wished they’d read a dictionary. They fought like tigers, they fought like demons, they fought like giants. What they didn’t do was fight like something with more than a spoonful of brain.
    *
    Nanny Ogg was good at listening, at least. She listened like a great big ear, and before Tiffany realized it she was telling her everything. Everything. Nanny sat on the opposite side of the big kitchen table, puffing gently at a pipe with a hedgehog carved on it. Sometimes she’d ask a little question, like ‘Why was that?’ or ‘And then what happened?’ and off they’d go again. Nanny’s friendly little smile could drag out of you things you didn’t know you knew.
    *
    From the best chair in the room of ornaments, a large grey cat watched Tiffany with a half-open eye that glinted with absolute evil. Nanny had referred to him as ‘Greebo … don’t mind him, he’s just a big old softie,’ which Tiffany knew enough to interpret as ‘He’ll have his claws in your leg if you go anywhere near him.’

    It was hard to be embarrassed by Nanny Ogg, because her laugh drove it away She