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The idea of a strange little shop that appears, sells the most peculiar things, and then vanishes again first appears in a short story by H. G. Wells, appropriately called The Magic Shop. A recent variation on the same theme can be found in Stephen King’s Needful Things.
When an a.f.p. reader mistakenly thought that this type of shop was invented by Fritz Leiber, Terry replied:
"Actually, magically appearing/disappearing shops were a regular feature of fantasy stories, particularly in the old Unknown magazine. They always sold the hero something he didn’t—at the time—know he needed, or played some other vital part in the plot. And I think they even turned up on the early Twilight Zones too. You’re referring to a Leiber story called Bazaar of the Bizarre or something similar, where a shop appears which seems to contain wonderful merchandise but in fact contains dangerous trash.”
The Leiber story is indeed called Bazaar of the Bizarre. It features Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and can be found in Swords Against Death.
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29
In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings where we find (in The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter III) that Gildor Inglorion the High Elf says: “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because they are subtle and quick to anger”. The other part she may have got from signs often seen in stores and pubs around the English-speaking world: “Do not ask for credit, because a refusal often offends”.
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My herpetological correspondent tells me that in our world no known turtles give any sort of care to their young. They just lay the eggs and leave the hatchlings to fend for themselves, which incidentally helps explain why sea turtles are becoming extinct.
It can be argued that Great A'Tuin is in fact a kind of sea turtle (admittedly, a somewhat unusual sea turtle), since only sea turtles have flippers in place of feet and spend most of their time swimming.
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Substituting “graduation with distinction” for the Latin “summa cum laude” gives a perfectly unexceptional sentiment, but it is, of course, also a reference to the song ‘Summertime’ from the Gershwin opera/operetta/musical Porgy and Bess: “Summertime, and the living is easy”.
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FB2 document info
Document ID: 954fc9ed-1685-45ad-a783-4924e95353ec
Document version: 2.01
Document creation date: 2004-09-17
Created using: FB Tools, FictionBook Editor 2.4 software
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Document history:
v1.02 — basic proofreading. © quiritius
v2.01 — proofreading, annotations from. q
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The Light Fantastic d-2 Page 23