Beware the fair folk! (Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett)

Name: Bryn Pearson

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Product:	Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett
Date:	19/10/01 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very fuuny, well researched, clever

Disadvantages: its the 14th book in a series.

Fairys are cute little people who grant wishes, Right? They're pretty princesses, yes? They sneak in during the night and wash you dishes, don't they? Don't they?

Well actually no. If you go back to the older myths and traditions, as the excellent Mr Pratchett has clearly done, you get a very different kind of tale. Traditionally speaking, faeries are self iterested, they do what pleases them. Some of them (the Seelie) are generally benevolent, some, (The unseelie) like to harm people for their entertainment.

Somewhere in the hills of Lancre stands a stone circle, and to it are attracted a group of girls who think that being a witch is all about wearing black and being faintly gothic. (We have them too - they've all watched "The Craft".) They 'draw down power' messing with forces they do not understand, and open a door to let a horde of unseelie fair folk through.

The real witches in Lancre (also featured in such books as ("Wyrd Sisters", "Witches Abroad" "Equal Rites" and "Masquerade") are Granny Weatherwax - hard as nails, no nonsense type. Nanny Ogg - with a horde of children and a fondness for men.... Magrat Garlic, the youngest of the three who is supposed to be marrying the King. (They follow the maid, mother and crone archetypes, interestingly enough.) It falls to these three to sort things out, to stop the fair folk getting through and causing havoc. At the same time, they also have to make sure Magrat gets married, and they've got the added disadvantage that a load of wizards have been invited to the wedding. (Most of whom are a few peanuts short of a picnic.)

Pratchett has a real genius for taking older stories, often myths, and weaving new fiction around them. "Lords and Ladies" shows a real understanding of older faerie mythology. This book has some glorious moments, a few of which I will mention.

Faced with a battle, Magr
at finds and dons the armour of a legendary warrior Queen, and thinking that it will endow her with special powers, she sets to.... (You get to see some new aspects of this previously quite drippy witch in this book.)

Casanunda the dwarf - always good for a laugh. He's the world's second greatest lover.... a classic Pratchett bit part and worth watching out for.

One of Nanny Ogg's sons is a blacksmith - now, iron has limiting effects on faeries, and the blacksmith is a potent figure in their mythology. The Ogg lad can shoe anything, he can even shoe ants. Sometimes, he has to shoe Death's horse. "The trouble with being able to shoe anything, is that soemtimes they ask you to shoe anything."

You can't really have faeries without unicorns. Mythologically speaking, these are not beings renowned for their benevolence. Granny Weatherwax has a startling encounter with one, in a scene that fills in some interesting details about her young life and reveals a secret love that remained unrequitied......

This is the 14th novel in the Discworld series. If you haven't read any, you've got a lot of catching up to do. Most of them stand well enough on their own, - I have read a few out of sequence myself, you can do it and survive! While every book is an entity in its own right, they do all belong to an evolving tale, all the books are interlinked, and you do get more out of them if you read all of them in roder. It's a time consuming thing, not to mention being costly!

Pratchett is largely known as a write of parody and humour, but there ismuch more to his work than this alone. He does indeed have a serious talent for getting laughs, but his plots are good (not just parodies) and there are layers of meaning and sinificance within his works. You can think about them a lot, you can think about them not at all - it really is up to you.

Personally, would reomend Pratchett. I like this on
e myself, because I have something of a penchant for faerie mythology myself. (And a curious allergy to iron......)

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