'You had to remember that pictsies weren't brownies. In theory, brownies would do the housework for you if you left them a saucer of milk.
The Nac Mac Feegle* . . . wouldn't.
Oh, they'd try, if they liked you and you didn't insult them with milk in the saucer. They were helpful. They just weren't good at it. For example, you shouldn't try to remove a stubborn stain from a plate by repeatedly hitting it with your head.
And you didn't want to see a sink full of them and your best china. Or a precious pot rolling backwards and forwards across the floor while the Feegles inside simultaneously fought the ground-in dirt and each other.'
A Hat Full of Sky
(Page 184-185)
It doesn't feel quite like a Discworld novel yet and that sullies it slightly for me.
It is for Pratchett's younger readers however, so i guess he couldn't exactly have Nanny Ogg sing The Hedgehog Song at the top of her salacious lungs.
(shame)
As much as i think kids shouldn't be censored as much as they are, a song titled, The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All might just be pushing it...
Maybe.
*The Nac Mac Feegle are the most dangerous of fairy races, particularly when drunk. They love drinking, fighting and stealing, and will in fact steal anything that is not nailed down. If it is nailed down, they will steal the nails as well.
Nevertheless, those who have managed to get to know them and survive, say that they are also amazingly loyal, strong, dogged, brave and, in their own way, quite moral. (For example, they won't steal from people who don't have anything.)
The average Feele man (Feegle women are rare - see later) is about six inches high, red-haired, his skin turned blue with tattoos and the dye called woad and, since you're this close, he's probably about to hit you.
He'll wear a kilt made of any old material, because amongst the Feegles the clan allegiance is shown by tattoos. He may wear a rabbit-skull helmet, and Feegles often decorate their beards and hair with feathers, beads and anything else that takes their fancy. He will almost certainly carry a sword, although it is mainly for show, the Feegles' preferred method of fighting being with the boot and head.
The origin of the Nac Mac Feegle is lost in the famous Mists of Time. They say that they were thrown out of Fairyland by the Queen of Fairies because they objected to her spiteful and tyrannical rule. Others say they were just thrown out for bring drunk.
Little is known of their religion, if any, save for one fact: they think they are dead. They like our world, with its sunshine and mountains and blue skies and things to fight. An amazing world like this couldn't be open to just anybody, they say. It must be some kind of heaven or Valhalla, where brave warriors go when they are dead. So, they reason, they have already been alive somewhere else, and then died and were allowed to come here because hey have been so good.
This is a quite incorrect and fanciful notion because, as we know, the truth is exactly the other way round. (Page 1-2)
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