Secrets of the Wee Free Men and Discworld Read Online Free

collection, particularly “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” “The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar,” and the Haroun al-Raschid, Caliph of Baghdad, stories. A major nod to The Arabian Nights comes through the mention of a flying carpet and a magic lamp from the seriph’s treasury. Contrary to the 1992 Disney movie Aladdin (which drew some inspiration from The Thief of Bagdad, a movie from 1940), the flying carpet comes from “The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar.”
    Another oblique nod (we think) to The Arabian Nights is the
character of Rincewind who, like Sinbad, the intrepid sailor of seven voyages, journeys around the world and encounters many dangers. Unlike Sinbad, however, who at least wanted to go on some of the voyages, Rincewind is dragged kicking and screaming.
    By the way, Creosote is an allusion to Croesus—the king of Lydia in 560-546 B.C., who was known for being wealthy, hence the idiom “rich as Croesus.” Of course, you knew that.
    DISCWORLD: AN IDEAL ENVIRONMENT?

    The decision as to what form the house shall take is made on sociocultural grounds—way of life, shared group values, and “ideal” environment sought.
    Amos Rapoport, House Form and Culture 18

    An architect also has to be an anthropologist of sorts in order to make his or her designs functional and culturally relevant. Terry Pratchett is an anthropologist as well—perhaps not in degree, but in his experience as a journalist and in the stories from other cultures he has read. The curios and connections he gained through stories added to the crucible in which Discworld was born.
    Discworld has several people groups, some of which have a changing cultural identity based on the region they’re in. For example, the dwarfs in Shmaltzberg might act a little differently than do the dwarfs in Ankh-Morpork. Angua, a werewolf from Uberwald, opposes some of the practices of her family back home. But Pratchett still keeps the basic cultural identities of dwarfs and werewolves found in literature. Werewolves are still people who transform into wolves (or, in the case of the yennork, a werewolf who doesn’t
change at all). Witches are still witches. Immortals (personifications), while they may work as milkmen at times (e.g., Ronny Soak, alias Kaos) or look like men (the Wintersmith), are still, well, elementals. It’s elementary. (Just keeping up with our end of the bargain concerning the bad puns.)
    So, how does Pratchett give shape to the cultural identities of his people/creature groups? Some classic stories inspire him.
    Full of Fairy Tales … and Classic Tales
    If you made the trek to see any of the Shrek movies, chances are you probably liked fairy tales as a kid (and still do, if you’re honest with yourself; we know you record The Fairly OddParents on TiVo). The fairy-tale collections of Charles Perrault in seventeenth-century France, the Brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm) from Germany, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe from Norway in the eighteenth century, and Scotsman Andrew Lang in the nineteenth influenced many fantasy writers, including Terry Pratchett.
    â€œLittle Red Riding Hood,” a story all three collections have in common, also finds its way into Pratchett’s Witches Abroad —one of the Lancre witch novels featuring Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick. Perrault’s “Cinderella” story also is integral to the plot. Since the novel deals with the fulfillment of stories, it includes a plethora of nods to other well-known fairy tales from the three collections: “Sleeping Beauty” (also alluded to in Mort ), “The Frog Prince,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” “Hansel and Gretel” (also alluded to in The Light Fantastic ), “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and “Rumpelstiltskin.”
    In each of Pratchett’s allusions, the characters behave