The Folklore of Discworld

Rings try to find their way back to their owner. Someone ought to write a book about it.

Legends don't have to make sense. They just have to be beautiful. Or at least interesting.

Needless to say, they refused to submit to the Empire, conducting such a persistent guerrilla war that the Romans gave up hope of conquering Scotland, and the Wee Free Men remained both wee and free.

But there are some things we shouldn’t forget, and mostly they add up to where we came from and how we got here and the stories we told ourselves on the way.

The Tree of Folklore has no objection whatever to creative carpenters.

religion has been accreting and fermenting and bubbling away for seven thousand years, during which time nobody ever threw away a god, in case he might come in useful one day. As

I now realize this was out of fear: I feared that, like so many stones I have met, it would fail to dance. There was a small part of me that wanted the world to be a place where, despite planning officers and EU directives and policemen, a stone might dance. And

Hee was swapping all from bill to eye, Hee was swapping all from wing to thigh, His swapping Tool of Generation Out-swappèd all ye Winged Nation. Ho the Blood of King Edward …

I used to live a short distance away from a standing stone which, at full moon and/or Midsummer’s Eve, would dance around its field at night, incidentally leaving unguarded a pot of gold which, in theory, was available to anyone who dared to seize it and could run faster than a stone. I went to see it by daylight early on, but for some reason I never found the time to make the short nocturnal journey and check on its dancing abilities. I now realize this was out of fear: I feared that, like so many stones I have met, it would fail to dance. There was a small part of me that wanted the world to be a place where, despite planning officers and EU directives and policemen, a stone might dance. And somewhere there, I think, is the instinct for folklore. There should be a place where a stone dances.

So who are the ‘folk’ who have all this ‘lore’? The answer is, ‘any of us’. It’s a mistake to think that the only folklore worthy of the name is what you get by finding the oldest crone in the dirtiest cottage in the poorest village in the remotest mountain valley, and cross-examining her on her deathbed.

The gods of Djelibeybi In the river kingdom of Djelibeybi, the national religion