Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion ... So Far Read online

  Horse People. The Horse Tribes of the Hubland steppes are born in the saddle, despite the inconvenience, and are particularly adept at natural or witch magic. They live in yurts heated by burning horse dung; this makes good fuel, but the Horse People have a lot to learn about air-conditioning – starting with what it means. They eat horse cheese, horse meat, horse soup, horse black pudding, horse d’oeuvres and drink a thin beer you wouldn’t want to speculate about. When he’s not working elsewhere they tend to be joined by COHEN the Barbarian, who enjoys their easygoing attitude to life, or at least to other people’s lives. [LF]

  Houser, Berenice. In charge of the back numbers department at the Ankh-Morpork Times. A plump lady, with a slightly wistful hungry look so many women of a certain age wear when they’ve decided to trust in gods because of the absolute impossibility of continuing to trust in men. [MM]

  Howondaland. When people talk of the ‘dark and mysterious continent of KLATCH’ it is Howondaland they are referring to. Its borders are imprecise, since they begin where those of the other countries on the Hubwards coast of Klatch fade away (that is to say, where surveyors don’t come back and map-makers are found nailed upside down to a tree). Indeed, it is hardly correct to call it a country – it has a name simply because cartographers don’t like vast expanses of empty paper. A few hardy souls trade there, but it remains one of the biggest genuinely unexplored areas of the Disc, and is widely believed to be even more dangerous for the unwary traveller than Shamlegger Street, Ankh-Morpork, on a Saturday night.

  Hrun the Barbarian. Hrun of CHIMERIA. One of the CIRCLE SEA’S more durable heroes. Not exceptionally bright, but exceptionally unimaginative. Nevertheless, practically an academic by Hub standards in that he can think without moving his lips.

  Hrun has the statutory wide chest and neck like a tree trunk, but a surprisingly small head, with bushy eyebrows and stubbly chin under its wild thatch of black hair – the effect is like putting a tomato on an upright coffin. His skin has a coppery gleam and there is much gold about his person in the shape of anklets and wristlets that once belonged to someone else, although he is otherwise naked apart from the usual leopardskin loincloth. (He killed the leopard with his teeth, according to legend, or his breath, according to likelihood.) For a while at least he carried the magical sword KRING.

  He is believed to be working somewhere for wages these days. Sigh. [COM]

  Hub, the. The centre of the Disc and site of CORI CELESTI. [COM]

  Hubbub, Dimity. A trainee witch, along with others such as Tiffany Aching. [HFOS]

  Hugglestones. A bleak, spartan boarding school, it is housed in a granite building on a rain-soaked moor, and its stated purpose is to make men from boys using methods such as playing very simple and violent games in the healthy outdoor sleet. A good way to survive on the playing fields of Hugglestones is to run very fast and shout a lot while inexplicably always being a long way from the ball. The staff at Hugglestones believe that, in sufficient quantities, ‘being keen’ can take the place of lesser attributes like intelligence, foresight and training. One of its old boys is William DE WORDE. [TT]

  Humptemper. Author of Names of the Ants. A strange book, half magical treatise and half autobiography. The title apparently derives from an account of the time Humptemper, who was highly skilled in the discipline witches call ‘borrowing’ and wizards called psychoproicio (lit. ‘throwing away the mind’), spent inside the group mind of a nest of ants in the University’s walls. [E]

  Humptulip. Author of the 2,000-page Howe to Kille Insects. Frequently confused with HUMPTEMPER, although the former lived several centuries before. [MAA]

  Hwel. A dwarf, banished from his tribe, not only because of his claustrophobia but also because of his tendency to daydream (both undesirable, not to say fatal, traits if you work in a mine). He has a very receptive mind for raw inspirations and is still one of the Discworld’s premier playwrights, writing for VITOLLER’S troupe of players. He has a hairy bullet head and stubby legs and, at the time of Wyrd Sisters, was 102 years old – the prime of life for a dwarf. [WS, LL]

  Hydrophobes. Also known as Loathers. Wizards who loathe water; the very idea of it revolts them. A really good hydrophobe has to be trained on dehydrated water from birth. Although they make great weather magicians (rain clouds just give up and go away), they are mainly used on the kingdom of KRULL to power the flying lens means of transport, which can be suspended over water by the sheer power of revulsion from the hydrophobes strapped to the lens’ rim. They wear distinctive black and dark blue robes and all wear ingrained expressions of self-revulsion at their own body fluids. They die young; they just can’t live with themselves. [COM]

  Ibid. Ephebian philosopher and author of Discourses and Civics. Tall and willowy with an indefinable air of authority, he is a well-known expert on everything except geometry, interior decorating and elementary logic. [P, SG]

  Ice Giants. The size of large houses, craggy and faceted, glinting green and blue in the light. Their eyes are tiny and black and deep-set, like lumps of coal (although this is the only way in which they resemble the idols built, in response to ancient and unacknowledged memories, by children in snowy weather).

  The Ice Giants have been engaged in an eons-old battle with the gods and are currently imprisoned inside a wall of mountains at the Hub. They probably began as a metaphor for glaciers, but we know what happens to metaphors on the Disc.

  Technically, the Ice Giants are probably a type of troll. [LF, S]

  Iconoscope/iconograph. The iconograph is a picture-making box. Operates via a small demon imprisoned inside with a good eye for colour and a speedy hand with a paintbrush.

  Introduced to the STO PLAINS by TWOFLOWER the tourist, it was subsequently developed in Ankh-Morpork. By the time of the moving picture craze in HOLY WOOD it was possible to achieve motion pictures by using a lot of demons and getting them to paint very fast by means of a handle attached to a lot of tiny whips. And by the time of Men At Arms, CARROT – even on a Watch corporal’s salary – was able to buy a small iconograph, by then known, because of the demon inside, as a ‘brownie’. [COM, LF, MP]

  Iesope. An Ephebian, and another contender for ‘Greatest Teller of Stories in the World’. The one about the fox and the grapes went down very well among the farmers who know how important it is to lock up their grapes every night. [P]

  Igneous. The not-very-law-abiding troll owner of a pottery in Ankh-Morpork, and one of the city’s most established troll residents His foetid production line is often the first place of employment for trolls who have arrived rather hurriedly in Ankh-Morpork because they are wanted for various crimes in the mountains, and Igneous has long been suspected of occasionally working for the Breccia, which sometimes needs things to be moved around surreptitiously. It was his registering the name of the Hollow Statue Export Company that first made the Watch suspicious. [GG, FOC]

  Igor. Everyone who is (or was) anyone in Überwald has an Igor as a servant. Überwald’s servant class is heavily populated with extremely similar-looking assistants, all of whom are called Igor, to save confusion. At least, to save confusion amongst Igors.

  They are in fact a clan which, instead of myths and legends, passes on the secrets of incredibly skilled surgery (except in the area of cosmetics), plus various associated hints and tips, often to do with weird chemistry and lightning rods. The Igors effectively treat their own bodies as the common property of all Igors and they would hope that any useful bits they have will be passed on to their relatives; Igors do not so much die as get broken down for spares.

  For reasons that have never satisfactorily been explained, Igors seem very popular with the ladies and, bizarrely perhaps, their daughters (Igorinas) tend to be very pretty. Igorinas sometimes learn the skills, although they refrain from the lisping and the very visible stitching; they are not necessary in any case, but are the Igor equivalent of tribal markings. One of the better known Igorinas played a main role in the events of Monstrous Regiment.r />
  Although classically Igors are to be found working for insane geniuses living in draughty castles, they give freely of their time and talent to anyone in need. Many a life or livelihood has been saved by a carefully grafted-on foot, arm or head. However, the Igors are firm believers in the principle of ‘what goes around, comes around’ and, whenever possible, they assume and expect that anyone helped by them will, when the time finally comes, see their way clear to letting any local Igor have a quick rummage to see if there are any organs worth recovering. Thus, Igors are very respected in Überwald; they may look like a road accident, but a good Igor could probably get an uncooked sausage to grunt and hunt truffles.

  The Igors have now formed an agency – We R Igors ‘A Spare Hand When Needed’, based at the Old Rathaus, Bad Schuschein (c-mail – Yethmarthter Überwald). The code of the Igors is very strict – Never Contradict. Never Complain. Never Make Personal Remarks. Never, Ever Ask Questions. Never Oil Doors.

  Igors are loyal, but they are not stupid. A job is a job. When an employer has no further use for your services, for example because he’s just been staked through the heart by a crowd of angry villagers, it’s time to move on before they decide that you ought to be on the next stake. An Igor soon learns a secret way out of any castle and where to stash an overnight bag. In the words of one of the founding Igors: ‘We belong dead? Ecthuthe me? Where doeth it thay “we”?’

  In the course of the books, we have met a variety of Igors:

  The de Magpyr Igor. Like most Igors, he has a lisp and walks with a limp. His hand is a mass of scars and stitches and he has a geometrical smile because of the row of stitches right across his face. He has two thumbs on his right hand and two hearts (one, it is thought, a bequest from a Mr Swines; installing his own second heart is something an Igor does early in his career). His feet were a bequest from a Mikhail Zwenitz. He has installed a metal plate in his head, wired down to his boots in case of lightning strikes.

  The Embassy Igor. His eyes are different colours, unlike his cousin, at Lady Margolotta’s.

  Jeremy CLOCKSON’S Igor. He has the traditional blackened fingernails and was sent to work for Jeremy by Lady LEJEAN. His grandfather, with Demented Doctor Wingle, built the first Glass Clock of Bad Schuschein. Before working for Jeremy, he had worked for Mad Doctor Scoop, Crazed Baron Haha, Screaming Doctor Berserk, Nipsie the Impaler, Dribbling Doctor Vibes and Baron Finkelstein. This is a fairly normal résumé for an Igor, and rather than indicate a footloose nature it merely recognises that, quite often, the mob wins.

  Lady Margolotta’s Igor. As he says himself, he is Igor, son of Igor, nephew of several Igors, brother of Igors and cousin of more Igors. Although he wears the traditional shabby black tailcoat, he has both eyes the same colour, which suggests a young Igor just starting out.

  The Watch Igor. Nephew of the Embassy Igor and constable in the City Watch, although strictly speaking he is a forensics specialist and Watch medic. He’s quite young-looking. Like many Igors, he has his eyes on different levels. One ear is larger than the other and his face is a network of scars. He has a deformed hairstyle – greasy black hair brushed forward into an overhanging quiff of excessive length and with a ‘DA’ at the back. He enhances his Igor clothing with a pair of crêpe-soled shoes. He has two thumbs on his right hand and two hearts. He thinks of himself as quite modern and every so often forgets to lisp. Being at the forefront of Igoring, he is a keen genetic experimenter and his gloomy cellar generally has an angry tomato or enraged experimental leek in it somewhere.

  The Igorina in Monstrous Regiment. Wears dusty black, with cobwebs all over it – the kind of suit people get buried in. Aged around eighteen, with a homely face (the kind of home that has a burned-out vehicle on the lawn). Quiet and neat – with her hair kept initially in a jar – she sometimes forgets to lisp.

  Illuminated & Ancient Brethren of Ee. Secret society in Ankh-Morpork. You never hear about all the charity work they do because they don’t do any. [GG]

  Imp y Celyn. A bard from LLAMEDOS. A tall, eighteen-year-old harpist with dark, curly hair, who went to Ankh-Morpork to seek his fortune after falling out with his father, a strong-minded druid. Until the city and certain other things worked their magic on him he had been a good, circle-going boy from the valleys, who didn’t drink, didn’t swear and played the harp at every druidic sacrifice.

  He became a member of the pop music group The BAND WITH ROCKS IN, adopting the stage name ‘Buddy’ because his real name, ‘Imp’, means ‘small shoot’ or ‘bud’. ‘y Celyn’ means ‘of the holly’; it was obvious that anyone with a name like ‘Bud of the Holly’ would find this a drawback in the music business. [SM]

  Incessant, the Hon. Douglas. An assassin, a guest at the ball in Genua on Samedi Nuit Mort. [WA]

  Inn-sewer-ants. An Agatean concept: people pay money against the odds of a disaster occurring. The importation of this idea is allegedly the reason behind the most recent fire to have destroyed much of Ankh-Morpork. [COM]

  Inns. Known drinking-houses on the Disc include:

  Blue Lias (Holy Wood) [MP]

  Bucket (Ankh-Morpork) [MAA]

  Bunch of Grapes (Ankh-Morpork) [GG]

  Butcher’s Eagle [MM]

  Crimson Leech (Ankh-Morpork) [COM]

  Fiddler’s Riddle (Ohulan Cutash)

  Goblin’s Head [SN]

  Goat & Bush (Lancre) [LL]

  Goat & Spirit Level [GP]

  King’s Back, the [ISWM]

  King’s Legs, the [HFOS]

  Mended Drum (Ankh-Morpork)

  Quene’s Hed/Duke’s Head (Sto Helit) [M]

  Thank Gods It’s Open [T]

  Troll’s Head (Ankh-Morpork, in the Shades.) [S]

  Turkey and Vegetables [UA]

  Insider, the. An old dark god of the NECROTELICOMNICON. As the name suggests, probably yet another Dungeon Dimension inhabitant who managed to enter Reality and stay there. [ER]

  Inspirations. A fundamental particle in the Discworld universe. It is harder to describe them than it is to describe their effect, which is to create ideas – or, more accurately, sudden insights – in the human brain.

  It has been postulated that untold millions of inspirations constantly sleet through the universe. They can pass through absolutely anything and also seem to be able to travel, tachyon-like, through time. However, the human or near-human brain contains a receptor which, while it doesn’t stop an inspiration, can be fired up by the passage of one (causing, in that telling phrase, ‘a flash of inspiration’ – and not for nothing do we say ‘I was struck by an idea’).

  This causes the throwing out of an idea. It may be for a play, an invention or something insubstantial, such as a theory of genetics. Since inspirations are not restricted in time, it may also be for something quite anachronistic. Presumably the brighter proto-hominids went to sleep in their trees and were occasionally awakened and mystified by the idea of pre-sliced bread or cold fusion for hundreds of years before the more immediately useful one involving the idea of hanging on more tightly happened to be shooting past.

  According to Ponder STIBBONS of Unseen University, inspirations also originate in the human brain. In some rare individuals an inspiration may excite the inspiration node, causing it to throw off new inspirations. There is certainly anecdotal evidence for this. Everyone knows people who are not only brilliant in themselves but also generate ideas in other people around them.

  Which, given the Discworld’s love of opposites, must also mean that there are people who are an ‘ideas sink’. And, again, common observation suggests that this is the case. There are certainly people who, humdrum in themselves, cause humdrumity in others as well. It is as if they act as a lightning rod for any originality around them, diverting it to earth.

  For some reason, these people quite often end up in positions of power.

  Interchangeable Emmas. Commander VIMES’S name for the well-bred young women who muck out, dose, worm and exercise the dragons at Ankh-Morpork’s SUNS
HINE SANCTUARY – and, by extension, that large army of Alice-banded sisters who do much the same job at stables and kennels all over the universe. It’s a strange fact that the more highly born the family, the more likely the young female members are to be doing something smelly with a big fork.

  Invisible writings. The study of invisible writings is a new discipline in Unseen University made available by the discovery of the bi-directional nature of Library-Space. The thaumic mathematics are complex, but boil down to the fact that all books, everywhere, affect all other books. This is obvious: books inspire other books written in the future, and cite books written in the past (as is the case this very moment). The General Theory of L-Space suggests that, in that case, the contents of books as yet unwritten can be deduced from books now in existence.

  The Reader in Invisible Writings is currently Ponder STIBBONS. [LL]

  Iodine. Fourth former at the Quirm College for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. Her father liked the sound of the word. [SM]

  Ipslore the Red. A wizard. Eighth son of an eighth son – powerful and of course wearing a pointy hat. He fled the halls of magic and fell in love and got married (not necessarily in that order). He had eight sons: the first seven were at least as powerful as any wizard in the world; the eighth was a sourcerer. (See COIN and MAGIC.) [S]

  Irexes. Ephebian philosopher who found that sandstone is stone pressed out of sand, which suggested to him that grains are the fathers of mountains. [SG]

  Ironcrust, Setha. Proprietor of a dwarf bakery in Ankh-Morpork, the motto of which is ‘T’Bread Wi’T’Edge’. This is, of course, dwarf bread, the meal which is also a weapon. Ironcrust’s slightly industrialised process apparently produces quite a reasonable loaf, although most dwarfs say that it does not have the taste or destructive power of the traditional hand-forged stuff. Quite a lot is still imported from the mountains. This takes some time, but dwarf bread is said to improve with age. [FOC, T!]