Book:Lords and Ladies/Annotations

• "And what took place in Wyrd Sisters was a plot not unadjacent to a play about a Scottish king" - TP avoids mentioning Macbeth by name, a possible reference to the theater tradition that it's unlucky to do so?

• "And that's what the stones contained. The love of iron." - the word magnetism is never used in this book.

• "I asked Boggi's in Ankh-Morpork to send up their best dressmaker" - probably no relation to the well-known Boggis of Ankh-Morpork?

• "it was always cheaper to build a new 33-MegaLith circle than upgrade an old slow one" - reference to the 33 MHz Intel 80486 chip.

• "I AM A PICKER-UP OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES." - parodies Autolycus' line "My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles" from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale.

• "Bees were her one failure" - In Equal Rites, Granny merely spoke to the bees and asked them to look for Esk while they were out and about. At this point she could communicate with them, but not Borrow the hive-mind.

• '"this reminds me of that famous logical puzzle."' - reference to the Raymond Smullyan Knights and Knaves puzzle.

• '"Nothing funny about the Tooth Fairy," said Granny. "Very hard-working woman."' - in Hogfather, we learn there are several tooth fairies, not just one.

• '"But it ain't April!"' - in Witches Abroad, Granny implies that Nanny only bathes regularly in autumn, contradicting what Nanny's neighbors know (unless April can occur in autumn on Discworld due to it's unusual seasonal structure?)
  • April, the traditional beginning of the New Year, was also the traditional time to take your yearly bath in Elizabethan England, whether you needed it or not. It symbolically washed off the winter grime and cleansed the body, and it would presumably be a damn sight warmer than if taken on January 1st.

• '"We haven't even got," said the Bursar, despite Ridcully's efforts to sit on his head, "any billygoats."' - reference to the story Three Billy Goats Gruff

• Interestingly, in Lords and Ladies (Corgi paperback, p296) there is a passing mention of the Elves raiding the pub in Lancre town and stealing anything edible or potable; Terry remarks that "a couple of rogue cheeses in the cellar put up quite a fight". Relatives of Horace? Cheeses also made by Tiffany - or somebody like her? Possibly a precursor to the character of Horace the Cheese in A Hat Full of Sky.
• Also, the Steeleye Span song Seven Hundred Elves deals with an incursion of Elves into a lonely village to steal and pillage and make mischief. It could be a referent here.

External

Lords and Ladies Annotations - The Annotated Pratchett File