hale.
Naturally, his wife was given back to him. And, unlike the Ancient Greek Orpheus, he did not lose her by looking back.
The title of office for a Feegle bard, ‘the gonnagle’, is a touching tribute to the memory of William McGonagall (born 1825), a famously excruciating Scottish poet. He had grasped one basic point about poetry, namely that it should rhyme, eventually, but since he had not the faintest conception of rhythm he was capable of stretching a line of verse like chewing gum. As for his choice of words, the less said the better. His most celebrated production was a lament over the collapse of a railway bridge. It is long, so the first and last verses must suffice:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That many lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath Day of 1879,
Which will be remembered for a very long time.
…
Oh! Ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
The Feegles of the Chalk have an aspiring young bard who has mastered this style to perfection, and deploys it when they are under attack from vicious little flying fairies, rather like dragonflies. Standing with one hand pressed to his heart and the other outstretched very theatrically, and rolling his eyes, he utters a long-drawn mournful moan, and launches forth.
‘Oooooooooooooiiiiiit is with great lamentation and much worrying dismay,’ the pictsie groaned, ‘that we rrregard the doleful prospect of Fairyland in considerrrable decay …’
In the air, the flying creatures stopped attacking and began to panic. Some of them flew into one another.
‘With quite a large number of drrrrrreadful incidents happening everrry day. Including, I am sorrrry to say, an aerial attack by the otherwise quite attractive fey …’
The flyers screeched. Some crashed into the snow, but the ones still capable of flight swarmed off amongst the trees.
‘Witnessed by all of us at this time, And celebrated in this hasty rhyme,’ he shouted after them.
And they were gone.
The old bard congratulates the young one:
‘That, lad,’ he said proudly, ‘was some of the worst poetry I have heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul. The last couple of lines need some work but ye has the groanin’ off fiiine. A’ in a’, a verrry commendable effort! We’ll make a gonnagle out o’ ye yet!’ [ The Wee Free Men ]
The speech of the Feegles is markedly Scottish, to the point that, though it is not technically a foreign language (unlike, for example, that of dwarfs), most people in Lancre and Ankh-Morpork find it very hard to follow. Yet it’s a good language, as Nanny Ogg says, ‘with a hint of heather and midden in it’. Most of it is a form of Lowlands Scots peppered with Glasgow slang, but there are several words adopted from Gaelic, the Celtic language of the Highlands and Isles, one of which is of considerable folkloric significance. In its original tongue it is Cailleach , pronounced approximately ‘kall-yack’ and meaning ‘old woman, hag’. Like ‘hag’, it often implies magical power, and so can mean ‘witch’. In the Feegle language it has developed two quite different forms. The first, used light-heartedly in ordinary speech, is ‘callyake’. For example, a Feegle who had been startled by Greebo shouted at Nanny Ogg, ‘Ach, hins tak yer scaggie, yer dank owd callyake!’, which appears to mean, ‘Oh, devil take your moggy, you daft old woman!’ But the second form, ‘kelda’, is a title to be used with the deepest respect.
Feegles are matriarchal. Each community is ruled by a kelda, who has come from some different
Naturally, his wife was given back to him. And, unlike the Ancient Greek Orpheus, he did not lose her by looking back.
The title of office for a Feegle bard, ‘the gonnagle’, is a touching tribute to the memory of William McGonagall (born 1825), a famously excruciating Scottish poet. He had grasped one basic point about poetry, namely that it should rhyme, eventually, but since he had not the faintest conception of rhythm he was capable of stretching a line of verse like chewing gum. As for his choice of words, the less said the better. His most celebrated production was a lament over the collapse of a railway bridge. It is long, so the first and last verses must suffice:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That many lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath Day of 1879,
Which will be remembered for a very long time.
…
Oh! Ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
The Feegles of the Chalk have an aspiring young bard who has mastered this style to perfection, and deploys it when they are under attack from vicious little flying fairies, rather like dragonflies. Standing with one hand pressed to his heart and the other outstretched very theatrically, and rolling his eyes, he utters a long-drawn mournful moan, and launches forth.
‘Oooooooooooooiiiiiit is with great lamentation and much worrying dismay,’ the pictsie groaned, ‘that we rrregard the doleful prospect of Fairyland in considerrrable decay …’
In the air, the flying creatures stopped attacking and began to panic. Some of them flew into one another.
‘With quite a large number of drrrrrreadful incidents happening everrry day. Including, I am sorrrry to say, an aerial attack by the otherwise quite attractive fey …’
The flyers screeched. Some crashed into the snow, but the ones still capable of flight swarmed off amongst the trees.
‘Witnessed by all of us at this time, And celebrated in this hasty rhyme,’ he shouted after them.
And they were gone.
The old bard congratulates the young one:
‘That, lad,’ he said proudly, ‘was some of the worst poetry I have heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul. The last couple of lines need some work but ye has the groanin’ off fiiine. A’ in a’, a verrry commendable effort! We’ll make a gonnagle out o’ ye yet!’ [ The Wee Free Men ]
The speech of the Feegles is markedly Scottish, to the point that, though it is not technically a foreign language (unlike, for example, that of dwarfs), most people in Lancre and Ankh-Morpork find it very hard to follow. Yet it’s a good language, as Nanny Ogg says, ‘with a hint of heather and midden in it’. Most of it is a form of Lowlands Scots peppered with Glasgow slang, but there are several words adopted from Gaelic, the Celtic language of the Highlands and Isles, one of which is of considerable folkloric significance. In its original tongue it is Cailleach , pronounced approximately ‘kall-yack’ and meaning ‘old woman, hag’. Like ‘hag’, it often implies magical power, and so can mean ‘witch’. In the Feegle language it has developed two quite different forms. The first, used light-heartedly in ordinary speech, is ‘callyake’. For example, a Feegle who had been startled by Greebo shouted at Nanny Ogg, ‘Ach, hins tak yer scaggie, yer dank owd callyake!’, which appears to mean, ‘Oh, devil take your moggy, you daft old woman!’ But the second form, ‘kelda’, is a title to be used with the deepest respect.
Feegles are matriarchal. Each community is ruled by a kelda, who has come from some different
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