Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion ... So Far

by Terry Pratchett

  Igor’s efforts to bring Biers into line with other drinking establishments tend always to have a flaw. We may cite his attempt to brighten up weekday lunchtime by advertising **DEAD GIRLS!!!** It didn’t bring in the crowds. Not the right sort, anyway.

  Oddly enough, Biers is the one place when the various siblings of the Night will leave you alone. There are house rules, after all. You will probably be safer than in most other Ankh-Morpork taverns, in fact, provided you steer clear of the pickles.

  The one regular ‘normal’ customer is Mrs Gammage, who lives nearby. Old, deaf and practically blind, she’s been drinking in Biers since it was the Crown and Axe, many years ago. And it’s clear that she hasn’t realised things have changed. The other clientele, who can be quite kind when the mood takes them, don’t discourage her in this belief and she has become a sort of informal mascot. So they keep an eye on her. The occasional attempts by nasty people in the outside world to take advantage of a poor blind widow woman living alone in one of the nastier parts of the town have now ceased, once it became clear that anyone who inconvenienced Mrs Gammage in any way would soon be found dismembered and bloodless in some alley. After all, even the undead have a heart (some have an entire jar full).

  It appears the Igor who runs the place is not an actual IGOR. He’s merely called Igor.

  Big Yan. A huge, muscly feegle. Well, huge for a feegle. He has a necklace of four teeth – one for every man he’s knocked out. [TWFM, AHFOS, W, ISWM]

  Bilious. The Oh God of Hangovers. He has the appearance of a young male human with a prominent Adam’s apple and sporting on his head a little crown of vine leaves. He owed his existence to a collection of magical circumstances that arose from an attempt being made to kill the HOGFATHER. Whilst the God of Wine spends his entire existence partying and drinking to excess, the Oh God spends his entire existence in the depths of the supernaturally bad hangover which in justice ought to be suffered by the God of Wine each morning. What goes down, as it were, must throw up. It is possible that he now does temporary stand-in work for gods that need to take time off. [H]

  Billet, Drum. A wizard who, in long cloak and with his carven staff, visited BAD ASS to hand his staff over to ESK, the blacksmith’s daughter – in the mistaken belief that she was in fact a son. He died after passing over the staff and was initially reincarnated as an apple tree, so covered in mistletoe that it looked green even in midwinter. The tree produced very small fruit which passed from stomach-twisting sourness to wasp-filled rottenness overnight. ‘Green Billets’ are now prized in LANCRE as a very good apple for the making of SCUMBLE. [ER]

  Billias, Skarmer. A whiskery, red-faced wizard. Head of the Order of the Silver Star. Resembled a small captive balloon that had been draped in blue velvet and VERMINE. Killed by COIN. [S]

  Binky. The flying horse of DEATH. A real, flesh-and-blood horse. Binky is as white as milk. He wears a silver and black harness, with an ornate silver saddle. Behind the saddle is a scabbard for Death’s folding scythe, and the saddle bag contains his riding cloak. Binky is extremely intelligent and undoubtedly better treated than most beasts of burden on the Disc.

  He leaves no hoof prints in normal circumstances, but when travelling in whatever is Death’s equivalent of hyperspace he does sometimes leave glowing prints in the air, because Nature abhors the lack of a special effect.

  Binky is a real flesh and blood horse, but while in Death’s service does not age.

  Bird, Gaffer. When first encountered in the chronicles, Gaffer was head handleman in HOLY WOOD. His hands were stained with chemicals and he had no eyebrows (a sure sign of someone who has been around octo-cellulose for any length of time). He wore a back-to-front cap. Assorted tools hung from his belt. He believed everything can be repaired with a piece of string, unlike most people in his position in the modern film industry, who believe everything can be repaired with sticky tape. [MP]

  Birdwhistle. Author of the ‘Legendes and Antiquities of the Ramtops’. [LL]

  Black Celestial Dragon of Fire. Manner in which Agateans expect Death to appear to them. They are wrong. [ M ]

  Black Roger. Huge, jet-black dog, looking like a pit bull terrier crossed with a mincing machine. A member of the Ankh-Morpork DOG GUILD. [MAA]

  Bleakey. A vampire who works in the slaughterhouse in Ankh-Morpork. [MAA]

  Blenkin. Manservant to EDWARD D’EATH. [MAA]

  Blind Hugh. A beggar at the Pearl Dock, Ankh-Morpork. The nerves in his body tend to vibrate at fifty paces from even a small amount of impure gold. [COM]

  Blind Io. Chief of the GODS, by virtue of his constant vigilance. He has blank skin where his eyes should be. The eyes themselves, of which he has an impressively large number, lead a semi-independent life, orbiting around him. It is said that they can see everything that happens everywhere. This taciturn god is all the Disc’s thunder gods, using false noses, different voices and seventy different hammers when he needs to appear to the various different believers. It is also said that he arrived on the Discworld after some terrible and mysterious incident in another Eventuality – a sort of cosmic ticket-of-leave man. Not stupid, but a very traditional thinker. Gods tend to be.

  Bloat. A poison, extracted from the deep sea blowfish, Singularis minutia gigantica, which protects itself from its enemies by inflating itself to many times its normal size. If the poison is taken by humans, the effect is to make every cell in the body instantaneously swell some 2,000 times. This is invariably fatal, and very loud. You don’t need to bury the victims, just redecorate over the top. [P]

  Bloodaxe, B’hrian. The famous dwarf king who commanded the dwarfs at the Battle of Koom Valley [T!] . . .

  Bloody Stupid. Camel living in TSORT. [P]

  Blouse, Lieutenant. An officer in the Borogravian army. Young, inexperienced, chinless. His face just eases its way into his neck without much to disturb it along the way. His Adam’s Apple, mind, is a champion – it goes up and down his neck like a ball on a spring. He joins the story straight from headquarters and has no real soldiering experience. His main contribution had been to redesign the HQ filing system. He is married to Emmeline – to whom he writes frequently, and he rides a rather scraggy horse called Thalacephalos.

  At school, he was very keen on amdram, and he played Lady Sprightly in ‘A Comedy of Cuckolds’ and Widow Trembler in ‘’Tis Pity She’s a Tree’.

  His ambition is to have something named after him – like General Puhloaver, Brigadier Galosh or General Anorac. [MR]

  Bluejohn. Troll lance-constable in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. He is very big; so big, he doesn’t stand out in a crowd because he is the crowd. People fail to see him because he’s in the way. Like many overgrown people, he is instinctively gentle and rather shy and inclined to let others tell him what to do. If fate had led him to join a gang, he’d have been the muscle. In the Watch, he’s the riot shield. [TFE]

  Bluestone, Lias. A troll. When first seen, he was wearing two large squares of darkish glass in front of his eyes (a troll development to minimise the effects of sunlight). He plays large round rocks, a traditional troll instrument, under his stage name of Cliff – considered by all to be exactly the wrong kind of name for anyone who wants to last any time at all in the field of popular music. Since he is both a troll and a drummer, he could be said to have thrown a ‘one’ in the great dice game of intellect. [SM]

  Bobby, St. The Most Holy St Bobby. Made a bishop of the Omnian church because he was in the desert with the Prophet OSSORY. St Bobby was a donkey and, in the words of Mustrum RIDCULLY, the somewhat irreverent Archchancellor of Unseen University, a righteous ass. [SG]

  Boddony. A dwarf. Second in command at GOODMOUNTAIN’S print room and, later on, husband to . . . er, wife to . . . erm, partner to Goodmountain (see under DWARFS for a hesitant explanation). [TT]

  Boffo. A clown. Doorkeeper at the FOOLS’ GUILD. A very small man, with huge boots. His face is plastered with flesh-coloured make-up, on which is painted a big frown; his hair is a couple
of old mops dyed red. He has a hoop in his trousers to make him look amusingly overweight, and a pair of rubber braces to allow his trousers to bounce up and down as he walks. Like most clowns, he was brought up to believe that a custard pie in the face represents the acme of humour. There can be few souls more miserable. [MAA]

  Boggi’s. Dress shop in Kings Way, Ankh-Morpork. High-class modes for the affluent. [LL]

  Boggis, Bengy Bengy ‘Lightfoot’ Boggis. The real name of Brother Fingers. [GG ]

  Boggis, J. H. J. H. ‘Flannelfoot’ Boggis. A thief in Ankh-Morpork. President of the THIEVES’ GUILD. The large Boggis family includes some of Ankh-Morpork’s most respected thieves. Known for his brown bowler hat.

  Bonk. Principal city of the Schmalzberg region of Überwald. Bonk (pronounced Beyonk) occupies a narrow valley with a white water river winding through it. Its city walls are punctuated with high gates. Bonk’s architecture favours steep roofs and wooden buildings heavily decorated with fretwork. One of the city’s many embassies is that of Ankh-Morpork, which is housed in a building once owned by the von Überwald family. Visitors to Bonk walk along its cobbled streets to see its famous Rat Clock on the RatHaus, and also to visit the Chocolate Museum in Prince Vodorny Square. The city also incorporates an entrance to the underground dwarf kingdoms of Schmalzberg. [TFE]

  Bonsai Mountains. The most testing form of bonsai, practised only by History Monks and other very long-lived persons who don’t mind waiting a thousand years to see what happens next. The mountains are selected while they are small, and their growth is artificially restricted; careful positioning of mirrors and wind screens encourages the formation of the miniature glaciers, forests and lakes that are part of the mountain’s original morphic field.

  Just any old piece of rock won’t do. The trick is to spot the mountains while they are young. In a sense the expert is selecting that piece of rock which, after the normal processes of continental collision and crustal upheaval, will be at the very peak – i.e., from one point of view, the rock with the correct morphic field which will cause the rest of the mountain to form underneath it. A wrong choice here will be bound to lead to disappointment after a hundred years or so.

  Books. The Disc is a veritable treasure-house of books. These include:

  ABC, The [W]

  Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches’s Book of Humorous Cat Stories [MP]

  Adventures in Acuphilia [GP]

  Adventures with Crossbow and Rod [MP]

  Almanack de Gothick, The [TFE]

  Among the Snow Weasels (K. Pierpoint Poundsworth) [W]

  Amorous Adventures of Molly Clapper [NW]

  Ancient & Classical Mythology (Chaffinch) [W]

  Anima Unnaturale (Broomfog) [S]

  Ankh-Morpork Almanack and Booke of Dayes (A.J. Loop) [LL]

  Ankh-Morpork Succesfion, The (Thighbiter) [MAA]

  Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises, Wellcome to [S, MP, RM]

  Appocrypha to the Vengeful Testament of Offler [FOC]

  Arca Instrumentorum [CJ]

  Art of War, The (poss. by One Tzu Sung, or Three Sun Sung) [IT]

  Auriga Clavorum Maleficarum [CJ]

  Avian Nausea Index (Fletcher) [UA]

  Banquet of Worms, A (Col. F. J. Massingham) [SN]

  Battle Studies [MR]

  Bestiary (Philo) [SG]

  Big Directory of Varying Dimensions (Haruspex) [GP]

  Boke of the Film, The (Deccan Ribobe and others) [MP]

  Bonfire of Witches, The [ISWM]

  Book of Alberto Malich the Mage, The [LF]

  Book of Creation [SG]

  Book of Etiquette (Lady Deirdre Waggon) [NOCB]

  Book of Going Forth Around Elevenish [LF]

  Book of Staying in the Pit [P]

  Boots and Teeth (Sir Roderick Purdeigh) [DM]

  Boy Who Didn’t Know How to Pick His Own Scabs, The (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

  Bumper Fun Grimoire [LF]

  Cabbage, Tau of, The [UA]

  Casplock’s Compleet Lexicon of Majik with Precepts for the Wise [S]

  Cenobile Book of Truth [FOC]

  Ceremonies and Protocols of the Kingdom of Lancre [LL, NOCB]

  Chivalric Law & Usage (Scavone) [J]

  Civics (Ibid) [SG]

  Compendium of Odours (Brakefast) [UA]

  Compound of Alchemie [FOC]

  Cooking in Dire Straights (Superflua Raven) [W]

  Cooking With Brains (Aimsbury) [MM]

  Cordat, The [P]

  Country Dairy of a Gentlewoman [NOCB]

  Craft of War, The (Song Sung Lo) [MR]

  Dangerous Mammals, Reptiles, Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Jellyfish, Insects, Spiders, Crustaceans, Grasses, Trees, Mosses & Lichen of Terror Incognita (at least 29 volumes and three parts) [TLC]

  Daphne and the Nose Pickers (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

  De Chelonian Mobile [SG]

  Demonologie [E]

  Demonologie Malyfycorum of Hanchanse thee Unsatysfactory [ER]

  Der Selbst Uberschritten durch das Ganze (Trousenblert) [UA]

  Dictionary of Amazingly Uncommon Words [HFOS]

  Dictionary of City Biography [GG]

  Dictionary of Eye-Watering Words [GG]

  Discomfiting Misusage (Birdcatcher) [UA]

  Discourse on Historical Inevitability (Ibid) [P]

  Discourses (Ibid) [SG]

  Diseases of the Dragon (Sybil Deirdre Olgivanna Ramkin) [GG]

  Doors of Deception, The (Fussbinder) [UA]

  Doppelte Behrungssempfindung (Von Kladpoll) [UA]

  Double Pointers & Flaws [GP]

  Ectopia (Gnomon) [SG]

  Edible Architecture of Bergholdt Stuttley Johnson, The (Startup Nodder) [FAMG, AitD]

  Effluence of Reality, The (Von Sliss) [UA]

  Ego-Video Liber Deorum (Koomi of Smale) [SG]

  Encyclopaedia of Soup, An [W]

  Etiquette, Lady Deirdre Waggon’s Book of [MAA]

  Fairies and How to Avoid Them (Miss Perspicacia Tick) [HFOS]

  Farmer’s Almanac & Seed Catalogue [RM]

  Fencing for Beginners [MR]

  First Flights in Witchcraft (Mrs Earwig) [W]

  First Steps in Pins [GP]

  Five Hours & Sixteen Minutes Among the Goblins of Far Überwald (J. P. Blunderbell) [UA]

  Floating Worlds (H. J. Toadbinder) [ISWM]

  FULLOMYTH

  Gardening in Difficult Conditions [SM, NOCB]

  Gaston’s Enormous Problem (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

  Gd Tak Gar (The Things Tak Wrote) (tr. Prof W. W. W. Wildblood) [T!]

  Geoffrey and the Land of Poo (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

  Geoffrey and the Magic Pillow Case (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

  Ge Fordge’s Compendyum of Sex Majick [S]

  Geometries (Legibus) [SG]

  GRIM Fairy Tales [TOT, TAMAHER]

  Guide to Impossible Buildings (W. H. J. Whittleby) [DD]

  Guitar Primer, Blert Wheedown’s [SM]

  Habits of Wolves, The (Capt. W. E. Lightly) [W]

  Happy Tales [H]

  Harem Frescoes of Old Klatch, The (Lady Alice Venturi) [DM]

  Hats, A History of (F. G. Smallfinger) [GP]

  Higher Magick, The (Letice Earwig, Witch) [HFOS]

  Histories (Marcellus) [FGD]

  Hivers: A Dissertation Upon a Device of Amazing Cunning (Sensibility Bustle) [HFOS]

  How to Dynamically Manage People for Dynamic Results in a Caring, Empowering Way in Quite a Short Time Dynamically [TLC]

  In Search of the Whole (W E G Goodnight) [UA]

  Inne Juste 7 Dayes I wille make You a Barbearian Hero! (Cohen) [S]

  Inoffensive Reptiles of the Sto Plains (Walnut) [H]

  Insects, Howe to Kille (Humptulip) [MAA]

  Interesting Customs among the N’Kouf (Lady Alice Venturi) [DM]

  I-Spy Demons (Prof Poledread) [HFOS]

  Iyt Gryet Teymple hyte Tsort, Y Hiystory Myistical [LF]

  Jane’s All the World’s Siege Weapons [LL]


  Joy of Earwax, The (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

  Joy of Tantric Sex, with Illustrations for the Advanced Student, The (A Lady) [E, NOCB]

  Joye of Snackes, The (A Lancre Witch) [M!!!!!]

  Koom Valley Codes [T!]

  Lacemaking Through the Ages [GG]

  Lady Waggon’s Book of Household Management [MM]

  Laotan Book of the Whole [CJ]

  Laws & Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh & Morpork [GG]

  Legendes and Antiquities of the Ramtops, The (Birdwhistle) [LL, NOCB]

  Liber Immanis Monstrorum (Cuvee) [HFOS]

  Little Duckling Who Thought He Was an Elephant, The (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

  Little Folks’ Book of Flower Fairies, The [LF]

  Little Pieces for Tiny Fingers [P]

  Lives of the Prophets (Thrum) [CJ]

  Lives of Very Dull People (Wasport) [TLC]

  Logic & Paradox (Wold) [SM]

  Magavenatio Obtusis (Witch Hunting for Dumb People) (Miss Perspicacea Tick) [W]

  Maleficio’s Discouverie of Demonologie [S]

  Malleus Malleficarum (Ossory) [CJ]

  Mallificarum Sumpta Diabolicite Occularis Singularum [E]

  Man of the Woods, The (General Sir Roderick Purdeigh) [DM]

  Manual of Swordsmanship, The [W]

  Martial Arts [LL]

  Mechanics (Grido) [SG]

  Meditations (Didactylos) [SG]

  Meer von Unvermeidlichkeit (Dr Maspinder) [UA]

  Melvin and the Enormous Boil (Felicity Beedle) [SN]

  Mis-Draws[GP]

  Modal Contextities (Freidigger) [GP]

  Monster Fun Book [WS]

  Monster Fun Grimoire [M]

  Mother Ogg’s Tales for Tiny Folk [NOCB]

  Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure [TAMAHER]

  Mr Bunnsy’s Big Day [TAMAHER]

  Mr Cauliflower’s Big Adventure [UA]

  My Family and Other Werewolves [NOCB]

  My Life Among the Sponge-Eating Coral-House-Dwelling Pygmies (General Sir Roderick Purdeigh)

  Names of the Ants (Humptemper) [E]

  NECROTELICOMNICON

  Necrotelicomnicon Discussed for Students, With Practical Experiments [MP]

  Nichts des Wissens, Das (Frugal) [UA]

  Nooks and Corners of Ankh-Morpork (Miss Amelia Cram) [NOCB]

  Nosehinger on the Laws of Contract [LF]