Gretelina. (See MELLIUS.)
Grim, Agoniza and Eviscera. The Sisters Grim are the authors of real fairy tales – you know, the ones with blood and bones and bats and rats in. Their stories include such uplifting tales as How The Wicked Queen Danced in Red Hot Shoes, The Old Lady in the Oven, The Glass Clock of Bad Schuschein, The Seventh Wife of Greenbeard. [TOT, TAMAHER]
Grim, Malicia. Daughter of the mayor of Bad Blintz (a small, thin, worried-looking man with a bald spot and a comb-over). Her grandmother was Agoniza Grim and her great aunt was Eviscera Grim. As a result, she has inherited a fascination with stories and her life is dominated by fairy tales. She wears a long, black dress with black lace fringing and sometimes she bundles her rather-too-red hair up under a black head scarf. Not unattractive, although she can glare better than a cat and her nose is perhaps a shade too long. She carries a bag which contains absolutely everything anyone might need when on ‘an adventure’. [TAMAHER]
Grimnir. Queen Grimnir the Impaler (1514-53, 1553-7, 1557-62, 1562-7, 1568-73). A vampire Queen of Lancre. The phrase ‘the Queen is dead, long live the Queen’ is particularly apposite in her case. [WS]
Grinjer. Maker of grave models in DJELIBEYBI. He is twenty-six, acne’d and still lives with his mother because he cannot find a girl who shares his interest in glue. [P]
Gristle, Petulia. A young witch, and a friend to Tiffany Aching. Petulia is short, plump and permanently red-faced and worried-looking. She wears lots of jewellery – she can’t resist occult jewellery such as her necklace of silver bats and her amulet of owls. She is a very honest girl and a good friend. Petulia is afraid of pins and she hates to disagree with anyone about anything – she’s the sort of person who apologises if you tread on her foot. She used to work for Old Mother (Gwinifer) Blackcap over in Sidling Without; she specialises in animals and wanted to be a midwife for humans as well as pigs when she ‘grows up’. She has three brothers.
Petulia is a specialist pig-borer – indeed she has been the local champion in the noble art of boring. She could sit down with a pig and talk to it gently and calmly about extremely boring things until some strange pig mechanism took over, whereupon it would give a happy little yawn and fall over, no longer a living pig, and ready to become a very important contribution to the family’s diet for the following year. This might not appear the best of outcomes for the pig, but given the messy and above all noisy way pigs died before the invention of pig boring, it was definitely, in the great scheme of things, a much better deal all round. [HFOS, W, ISWM]
Gritz. A troll hotel in Ankh-Morpork. Considered very high-class by trolls, since water is piped to every room and there are carpets, or at least something soft, on the floor. The dining room, with its fine selection of clays, is particularly noted. [SM]
Groat, Junior Postman, Tolliver. A very elderly postman at the Ankh-Morpork Post Office. A bent, elderly man with a wheezy voice and a bad cough like a wall being hit repeatedly with a bag of rocks. His short bristly beard suggests to the casual viewer that its owner has been interrupted halfway through eating a hedgehog.
Groatie wears a toupee – not a good one. It’s chestnut brown, the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong style and – all in all – wrong.
He has an odd smell – vaguely chemical, coupled with the eye-stinging aroma of every type of throat medicine invented, with just a hint of old potatoes. He is a great believer in natural medicine, opting for ‘cures’ such as his poultice of goose grease, flannelette and hot bread pudding. He also puts sulphur in his socks – and takes tincture of rhubarb – to keep his tubes open.
He was a strict follower of the old Post Office Regulations. Despite, or because of, that, he ended up being promoted, initially to Probationary Senior Postman and, later, to Postal Inspector. [GP]
Grodley, Sister. A witch from the Skund area. Drops her aitches and sticks her little finger out when she drinks her tea. [WS]
Gryle. A ‘colleague’ of Reacher GILT. A banshee – a humanoid race who evolved the ability to fly in some high jungle somewhere. He is a tall figure, in a black cloak and wide, flat-brimmed hat, with a voice which is more of a breath than a voice. He is very thin – there is nothing spare about him – no spare flesh, spare words or spare time. He is as light as a child – and he is not strong as such, but he has sinews like cables. He has a long, pale face and a thin-lipped mouth with rows of pointy teeth. Mr Gryle’s special talents came as a package with some funny little ways. He was trustworthy – he’d never blackmail you, because such an attempt would be the first move in a game that would almost certainly end in death for somebody; if Mr Gryle found himself in such a game he’d kill right now, without further thought, in order to save time. Presumably he was insane, by the usual human standards, but it was hard to tell; the phrase ‘differently normal’ might do instead. After all, Gryle could probably defeat a vampire within ten seconds, and had none of a vampire’s vulnerabilities, except perhaps an inordinate fondness for pigeons. [GP]
Guilds. Ankh-Morpork is the home of many of the Disc’s oldest and most respected Guilds, the largest and most senior of which are micro-societies in their own right. A Guild may well, in return for a tithe, oversee all aspects of a member’s life practically from the cradle to the grave (particularly in the case of the ASSASSINS’ GUILD) and possibly beyond (in the case of the Guild of Priests, Sacerdotes and Occult Intermediaries). The oldest and richest guild is the Beggars’; the most stylish, the Assassins’; the largest, the Thieves’ (although there is popularly supposed to be a Rat Guild).
The smallest Guild is, most people are surprised to learn, the Guild of C.M.O.T. Dibblers, membership one. It nevertheless qualifies, under ancient rules that were changed almost immediately after Mr Dibbler discovered them, for full Guild status.
Almost all the schools and most of the hospices in Ankh-Morpork are Guild-run. The 300-odd Guilds to be found in the city include:
Accountants’ and Usurers’ Guild [J, AGD]
Actors’ Guild [TT]
ALCHEMISTS’ GUILD
Architects’ Guild [NOCB]
Armourers’ Guild [J]
ASSASSINS’ GUILD
Bakers’ Guild [GG]
Barber-Surgeons’ Guild (motto: ‘Shave & a Haircut, No Legs’) [CJ]
BEGGARS’ GUILD (Fellowship of Beggars)
BUTCHERS’ GUILD
Butlers’ Guild [AGD]
Carters’ and Drovers’ Guild [TFE]
Chefs’ Guild [AGD]
Confectioners’ Guild [TOT]
CONJURERS’ GUILD
Dibblers, C.M.O.T., Guild of
DOG GUILD [MAA]
Dunnikin Divers’ Guild [FOC]
EMBALMERS’ GUILD (Guild of Embalmers and Allied Trades)
ENGRAVERS’ and Printers’ GUILD
FIREFIGHTERS’ GUILD
FOOLS’ GUILD (Guild of Fools and Joculators and College of Clowns)
GAMBLERS’ GUILD
Glassblowers’ Guild [FOC]
Haberdashers’ Guild [P]
Handlemen’s Guild [MP]
Historians’ Guild [J, TOT] (Bandits’ Guild) [LL]
Lags’ Guild (Professional Prisoners) (Chairman – Joe ‘Lifer’ Bushyhead) [TGD]
Lawyers’ Guild [WS]
MERCHANTS’ AND TRADERS’ GUILD
PLUMBERS’ GUILD (Guild of Plumbers and Dunnikindivers) [P]
Priests’, Sacerdotes’ and Occult Intermediaries’ Guild
Rat-Catchers’ Guild [FOC, TAMAHER]
SEAMSTRESSES’ GUILD
Shoemakers’, Cobblers’ and Leatherworkers’ Guild [TT]
Smugglers’ Guild [P]
STRIPPERS’ GUILD
Tailors’ Guild [TFE]
Teachers’ Guild [GG]
THIEVES’ GUILD (Guild of Thieves, Burglars and Allied Trades)
Towncriers’ Guild [TT]
Victims’ Guild (sole member – Mr Echinoid Blacksly) [TGD]
Watch & Clockmakers’ Guild [TT, TOT]
Wa
tchmens’ Guild [TFE]
Gulta. One of the sons of Gordo Smith, and brother of Esk. [ER
Gumption, Bewilderforce. Proprietor of a tobacconist emporium on the corner of Cheapside and Rhyme Street, Ankh-Morpork. [SN]
Gurnt the Stupid. A past king of Lancre. He had a plan for an aerial attack force of armoured ravens. It never got off the ground. [LL]
Haddock, Constable. Member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch – known, unsurprisingly, as ‘Kipper’ to his colleagues. For a while, serves as an Acting Captain in Quirm.
Hakardly, Ovin. A 7th level wizard and once a lecturer in Lore at the Unseen University. He was an elderly wizard, who gave the impression of being as fragile as a cheese straw. [S]
Halter, ‘Tonker’. A volunteer to the Borogravian Army. Tonker is big, red-haired and with an air of nervousness not quite concealing some bubbling anger. Also known, to close friends, as Magda. [MR]
Hamadryad. Tree-dwelling species. The females have green skin and long, mossy hair. The males are tall and have skins the colour of walnut husks, with muscles bulging like sacks of melons. Their eyes are luminous green and have no pupils. Hamadryads do not wear clothes. They live not exactly in the tree, as squirrels do, but inside what can only be called the psyche of the tree. [COM]
Hamcrusher, Grag. A deep-downer dwarf and as fundamental as the bedrock. Hamcrusher occupies, with other deep-downers, a house in Treacle Street, Ankh-Morpork. As a Grag, he is a renowned master of dwarfish lore, and he preaches the superiority of dwarfs over trolls and that it is the duty of every dwarf to follow in the footsteps of their forefathers and remove trollkind from the face of the earth. He is a little figure (of course), dressed in heavy black leather robes and hooded so that he cannot commit the sin of seeing daylight. [T!]
Hamesh. A farmer. Brother to LEZEK and thus MORT’S uncle. [M]
Hamish, Mad. Member of the Silver Horde. Wizened, bearded, 105-year-old little man with false teeth. He still wore a horned helmet and didn’t let being wheelchair-bound get in the way of barbarian heroing. Deaf as a post, but barbarian heroes don’t usually listen to people in any case. [IT, TLH]
Hammerhock, Bjorn. A dwarf craftsman in Ankh-Morpork, with a workshop in Rime Street. Killed by the march of weapons technology. [MAA]
Hammerjug. He is a writer of dwarf songs with his partner, Gortlick. [SM]
Hamnpork. An old, greying, big, fierce and scabby rat who was the head rat in the group travelling with the Amazing MAURICE. [TAMAHER]
Hamstring, Goodie Ammeline. Address unknown, but almost certainly the RAMTOPS. A witch, bent with age, like a bow. White hair, and a cracked and quavery voice, but her eyes were bright and small as blackcurrants.
After death, her soul was no longer bound by the body’s morphic field and her hair unwound itself from its tight bun, changing colour and lengthening. Her body straightened up, her wrinkles dwindled and vanished and her grey dress changed to something leaf-green and clingy. Her voice became suggestive of musk and maple syrup. A prime example of the Discworld truth that what you look like isn’t who you are. [M]
Hancock, Andy. ‘Two Swords’. A member of the SPECIALS. An amiable, bearded man, with an amiable smile, and more cutlery about his person than Vimes thinks is quite appropriate. Amongst his cutlery are two curved Agatean swords strapped across his back. [T!]
Hangovers, Oh God of. See BILIOUS
Harebut the Provision Merchant. Father of NIJEL the Destroyer. [ S ]
Harga, Sham. Owner of HARGA’S HOUSE OF RIBS in Ankh-Morpork. Sham, with his beefy hands and well-padded vest, is an expansive if grubby advert for his own carbohydrate merchandise. He has run a successful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit and realising that most of his customers want meals properly balanced between the four food groups: sugar, starch, grease and burnt crunchy bits. He runs:
Harga’s House of Ribs. An eatery down by the docks in Ankh-Morpork. It is probably not numbered among the city’s leading eateries, catering as it does for the type of clientele that prefers quantity and breaks up the tables if it doesn’t get it. HARGA’S All-You-Can-Gobble-For-a-Dollar menu is famous wherever huge appetites gather and mountainous stomachs rumble.
The fat in the pan has a geological history all of its own. Bits of ancient sausage and nodules of bacon from pig varieties long extinct are still in it somewhere. Nor does the coffee jug ever get cleaned out – the coffee is like molten lead, but it has this in its favour: when you’ve drunk it, you have an overwhelming feeling of relief that you’ve got to the bottom of the cup. Normally the only decoration in the café is on Harga’s vest, which also acts as a sort of unofficial menu.
The city’s dogs have also noted that Sham Harga puts out his rubbish at midnight. This would come as a surprise to his clientele, who thought he cooked it.
Hashimi. A prophet of the Omnian church. It is said that he was given the Book of Creation by the Great God OM. They all say this. [SG]
Hashishim. The original assassins. A band of mad killers, who were feared throughout Hubward KLATCH, and were led by the first CREOSOTE, Seriph of AL KHALI. They derived their name from the huge quantities of hashish they consumed. They were unique among killers in being both deadly and, at the same time, inclined to giggle, groove to interesting patterns of light and shade on their terrible knife blades and, in extreme cases, fall over. [S]
Hawkin, Annagramma. A trainee witch from Tiffany’s part of the Disc. She is taller than Tiffany, with a face that seems to have been built backwards from her nose, which she constantly holds slightly in the air. She works for, with, Mrs EARWIG and she has the kind of voice you obey. It’s an annoying voice – it can make even ‘hello’ sound like an accusation.
Like Mrs Earwig, she wears stylish black and a lot of silver jewellery. Annagramma has an air about her as though she’s taking notes about the world in order to draw up a list of suggestions for improvements.
Buildings along the Ankh
She ran the coven of Tiffany, Lucy Warbeck, Petulia Gristle, Dimity Hubbub, Lulu Darling and Gertruder Tiring. She ran it because she invented it, she had the tallest hat – and the sharpest voice. [HFOS, W]
Hedge wizards. Hedge wizardry is a very honoured and specialised form of magic that attracts silent, thoughtful men of the druidical persuasion and topiaric inclinations. If you invite a hedge wizard to a party he will spend half the evening talking to your potted plant. And he will spend the other half listening to it. These wizards do not have anything to do with Unseen University, where they would be considered in dire need of dried frog products. [ER]
Heinrich, Prince of Zlobenia. A ‘friend to Ankh-Morpork’. He is over six feet tall, with a pretty smile, good teeth, a duelling scar, a monocle – and a well-trimmed moustache, waxed to points. He has a local reputation for cunning, and inherited the throne in a country where the chief export is the hand-painted clog. He is an educated man, who has great plans for Zlobenia and has banned the worship of Nuggan. At one point, he disguises himself as Captain Horentz of the First Heavy Dragoons. [MR]
Heliodeliphilodelphiboschromenos. Disc town mentioned in the song ‘The Ball of Philodelphus’. A sort of architectural equivalent of Colonel Bogey. [E]
Hell. There are, almost by definition, an unlimited number of Hells – potentially at least a personal one for every living sapient being.
However, humans are impressionable, gregarious creatures (one famous definition of Hell, after all, is that it is other people). Hell tends to look like they have come to expect and what they expect is often conditioned by what they’ve read and seen, so that for people around the CIRCLE SEA there is a kind of general, consensus Hell. This is the one described quite fully in Eric, where rather dull demons mindlessly apply physical torture to non-physical bodies and there is a general wailing and gnashing of teeth subsequent to a handout of free, badly fitting false teeth for those who die toothless.
The unremarkable horror of the place is somewhat ameliorated by the lack of imagination of t
he demons who run it. For example, a forbidding door leads to it, with a sign on it saying, ‘You Don’t Have To Be “Damned” To Work Here, But It Helps!!!’, and the three exclamation marks and quote marks around a word that patently does not need it suggest a type of dreadfulness all their own. It also has a doorknocker – black, horrible and tied up so that it can’t be used. There is a doorbell next to it, which plays a jolly little chime. For anyone with any interest in music, Hell starts right there.
As you might expect – in fact, precisely because you would expect – the broad steps leading up to Hell are made of good intentions, carved in stone. (See also DEMONS.) [E]
Henderson, Fred ‘Mr Harpsichord’. Musician and council member of the Musicians’ Guild. [SM]
Henry, Coffin. A professional beggar in Ankh-Morpork and the leader of the Canting Crew. He is paid money not to attend important social occasions. If people don’t take this small but essential precaution, he sidles ingratiatingly into the party and invites guests to inspect his remarkable collection of skin diseases. He also has a cough, which sounds almost solid, and is known for his volcanic spitting. Apart from this, he can be recognised by his signs on which are chalked: ‘For sum muny I wunt follo you home. Coff Coff.’ or ‘Will Threaten For Food’. He would be the city’s champion expectorator if anyone else had wanted the title.
Heralds, Ankh-Morpork Royal College of. The Royal College is, or was, the repository of the only record of the heraldic ancestry of the all the oldest and most noble families in Ankh-Morpork and the Discworld as a whole. It maintains itself behind a green gate in a wall in Mollymog Street – just head towards the sound of the heraldic beasts waiting to be fed.
The Ankh-Morpork College of Heralds is headed by Dragon King of Arms, who is traditionally responsible for proclamations of war and peace, for carrying the King’s challenges to battle and messages between sovereigns. He is also responsible for all matters relating to heraldry affecting the Cities of Ankh & Morpork and has overall responsibility for his deputies, Hubward King of Arms (responsible for heraldry affecting cities and states to the Hubward of Ankh-Morpork) and Rimward King of Arms (responsible for the lands to the Rimward of Ankh-Morpork).
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