Emery, Adrian. (Undecided Adrian) A member, with ALEX CARLTON and Mad Al Winton, of the SMOKING GNU. His eyes are always on the move, as if he’s trying to see everything at once. [GP]
Empirical Crescent. (Ankh-Morpork). Empirical Crescent is just off Park Lane, in what is generally a high-rent district. The rents would have been higher still were it not for the continued existence of Empirical Crescent itself, which, despite the best efforts of the Ankh-Morpork Historical Preservation Society, had still not been pulled down.
This was because it had been built by Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, better known to history as ‘Bloody Stupid’ Johnson, a man who combined in one frail body such enthusiasm, self-delusion and creative lack of talent that he was, in many respects, one of the great heroes of architecture. Only Bloody Stupid Johnson could have invented the 13-inch foot and a triangle with three right angles in it. Only Bloody Stupid Johnson could have twisted common matter through dimensions it was not supposed to go.
This highly original approach to geometry was responsible for Empirical Crescent. On the outside it is a normal terraced crescent of the period, built of honey-coloured stone with the occasional pillar or cherub nailed on. Inside, the front door of No.1 opens into the back bedroom of No.15, the ground floor front window of No.3 shows the view appropriate to the second floor of No.9, smoke from the dining room fireplace of No.2 comes out of the chimney of No.19. [T!]
Enid, Mrs. Laundress at Kneck Keep in Borogravia. Not a particularly large woman, but she has big forearms and a very mobile mouth. Her lips and tongue draw out every word like a big shape in the air. [MR]
Endless Street, Ghost of. Endless Street, Ankh-Morpork, is the name of the street running entirely around the city centre inside the city wall. It is said to be haunted by the ghost of one Gumler Vode, condemned for eternity to measure its length. Vode’s unfortunate sentence began some three hundred years ago.
It is agreed in the city that, since Broad Way is in two sections, Short Street is the longest street in the city. Vode bet a wizard in the Broken DRUM that it was not, and then, with what was considered by bystanders to be a nasty, know-it-all smirk, claimed that the space behind the walls (then unnamed) was a street. The wizard, annoyed at the thought of losing $5, pointed a finger at him and said, simply, ‘Measure it, then . . .’
The ghost of Vode, and the clink of his tape measure, can be heard on quiet nights. It is a reminder to everyone that, when dealing with wizards, it is always best to know when not to be right.
Endos. A skinny little man who takes payment for listening to Ephebian philosophers. He doesn’t do anything else except listen. This is why he is known as Endos the Listener. (Although for a small extra sum he may vouchsafe grace phrases like ‘That is true’, or ‘A well-made point, if I may say so.’)
In EPHEBE, people who only listen are far rarer than people who only talk. This may be the case everywhere else. [P]
Engravers’ (and Printers’) Guild. Motto: NON QVOD MANEAT, SED QVOD ADI-MIMVS (Not what remains, but what we take away).
Coat of arms: a shield, dimidiation. Sinister an ‘I’ capitale sable on a field argent. Dexter an ‘I’ capitale argent on a field sable.
A small, select and solemn bunch of men, whose Guildhouse is on the corner of Short Street and God Street, Ankh-Morpork. They prize practical engraving skills (on wood and metal) above all else, although candidates for membership are also expected to demonstrate lack of imagination, an anal-retentive attention to detail and the ability to think in reverse.
Because of the peculiar informal rules which used to relate to printing in Ankh-Morpork, which effectively used to ban movable type (see PRINTING) the engravers were responsible for all semi-mechanically printed output in the city, and their prices were high (although, in Ankh-Morpork’s flourishing free market, there are a large number of non-Guild engravers). The events of The Truth have now changed all this, and the Guild, mindful of the need to keep in the vanguard of publishing, is now the Guild of Engravers and Printers.
Eorle, Duke of. Nobleman of Ankh. Appears to be a rather lazy and stupid man with a braying laugh and the mental powers of a mole. A dead mole. On the other hand, the Eorles have survived everything life can throw at them for hundreds of years, so it may be that the most intelligent thing they’ve ever done is to appear stupid on every occasion. [MAA]
Ephebe. Pop. (city and surrounding farmlands): 50,000.
Political system: tyranny (a form of democracy); slavery is a long-established tradition.
Major export: ideas.
General description: The white marble city lazes around its rock overlooking the blue CIRCLE SEA. Blindingly white houses coil all the way up to the top, where a wall runs around the peak like a headband. Beyond that is the famous and ancient labyrinth, full of one hundred and one amazing things you can do with hidden springs, razor-sharp knives and falling rocks. There are six guides – each one knows his way through one sixth of the labyrinth. Alongside the palace within the labyrinth are the remains of the famous library, which used to be the second biggest on the Discworld before it was burned by Omnian soldiery (or so legend has it; but there is a story that the first match was put to it by DIDACTYLOS the philosopher just seconds before the guard arrived, on the basis that setting fire to your own library is more philosophical).
This tiny but influential city state lies on the Rimward coast of the Circle Sea, between DJELIBEYBI and OMNIA. It is the land of the bourzuki (a kind of dog) and retsina (a kind of paint-thinner) and, above all, the land of philosophy.
Ephebe has more philosophers per square yard than anywhere else on the Disc. It is impossible to throw a brick in Ephebe without hitting a philosopher and, owing to the heightened level of philosophical debate that rages in the city, this often happens. For it is unfortunate that a city whose inhabitants frequently storm the walls of paradox and smash the doors of perception is also beset with that particular dogged Discworld logic which would not recognise a metaphor if it was handed to it in a cornet with chocolate chips on top.
This certainly makes for briskness of thought. Any philosopher who suggests that, logically, an arrow cannot hit a running man (Xeno’s Arrow Paradox) will be given a short head start before all the other philosophers reach for their bows. This experiment was actually performed and the philosopher did escape unscathed, but after some thought rewrote the statement so that it read that a running man cannot be hit by an arrow providing it is fired by someone who has been in the pub since lunchtime.
Which, rather neatly, leads on to the subject of Ephebian food and drink. In short, Ephebians make wine out of anything they can put in a bucket, and eat anything that can’t climb out of one. They will drink wine which varnishes the inside of the throat and sometimes their food will try to hold on to the plate. (Plate-smashing is a tradition at the end of an Ephebian meal, although it may be a better idea to smash them beforehand.)
Ephebe has been called ‘the cradle of democracy’, and it is true that Ephebian democracy could do with its nappy changed. The Ephebians believe that every man should have the vote – providing he isn’t poor or a slave or foreign or disqualified by reason of being mad, frivolous or a woman.
The voters (1,300 of them) go to the polls every five years to elect the Tyrant, who is more or less the supreme ruler for his period of office. In order to be considered for election a candidate for Tyrant must prove beyond doubt that he is pure in thought, word and deed, with no stain whatsoever on his character. Once elected it is assumed by everyone that he is a criminal madman.
Candidates for Tyrantship are elected by the placing of black or white balls in various urns, thus giving rise to a well-known comment about politics.
A note on slavery: slaves make up more than half of Ephebe’s population. Periodically someone suggests that they should be freed, but there is always a tremendous outcry. It comes from the slaves themselves, who have several times risen in revolt against the very idea. The reason lies in the particular status of s
laves vs free men in Ephebian society. A free man is, clearly, free – free to sleep in the rain, free to starve, free to suffer whatever vicissitudes the world might drop upon his manumitted head. No one is there to care for a free man. A free man is free to drop dead.
Whereas there are rules for slaves, established over a thousand years. Slaves get three meals a day, at least one with named meat in it. And one day off a week. And two weeks being-allowed-to-run-away every year (it is generally understood that a proper master will pay for his slave to come back from wherever it is he or she has run away to). A slave may not be beaten without a chance to appeal to the Tyrant, and the mistreatment of slaves is a grave crime. A slave is, after all, property. Respect for property is the cornerstone of democracy.
A slave does, of course, have to work, although not work like a slave.
After twenty years as a slave he can automatically become a free man, but most slaves take one look at what freedom entails and, despite the entreaties of a master who may well be living on olive pits in order to feed his household, sign up again for another twenty years.
Slavery would in fact be a huge drain on the economy of Ephebe were it not for the fact that it hasn’t got one. The sun shines, ripening the olives and the grapes, there are fish in the sea, there doesn’t seem to be any really pressing reason to do anything much except sit and think, and so Ephebe ambles amiably from day to day.
Special notes for the visitor to Ephebe: do not be surprised to see naked old men, dripping wet, trotting through the streets. Most of the really serious philosophising in Ephebe is done in the bath, and the birth of a new idea will often lead the bather to spring away crying ‘Eureka!’ (literally, ‘Give me a towel!’) to start work on the theorem right away.
Barrels will be seen dotted around the streets. This is where the philosophers traditionally live, in order to show their disregard of matters in the mundane world. In order to show their love of comfort, however, the barrels are often very large, with enough room for a sauna.
Erasmus. Great-uncle of Mrs CAKE. Sometimes used to eat his meals under the table on account of werewolf blood. [ RM ]
Eric. (See THURSLEY, ERIC.)
Errol. Goodboy Bindle Featherstone of Quirm, and technically a pedigree dragon. His sire was Treebite Brightscale, a prize-winner bred by the then Lady Sybil RAMKIN. But it was clear right from the egg that Errol was something unusual. He had a pear-shaped body and a head like an anteater, with nostrils like jet intakes, two tiny spiky ears and a pair of eyebrows almost the same size as his stubby wings, which should never have supported him in the air. He was named Errol by Corporal NOBBS, because of a supposed resemblance to his brother (Corporal Nobbs’s, not the dragon’s.) In fact Errol, dismissed as a whittle (or runt), turned out to be, according to the most modern thinking, a throwback to the original space-faring dragons; his genes remembered what could be done with a streamlined body, small wings and a very hot flame, if only the flames could be persuaded to, er, come out of the other end. [GG]
Esk. Eskarina Smith. Daughter of Gordo SMITH. Eight years old and four feet tall, she has long brown hair and a gap in her front teeth, and the sort of features that promise to become, if not beautiful, then at least attractively interesting. She is the eighth child of an eighth son, and was handed, at birth, the wizard’s staff belonging to Drum BILLET. She was the first female to be admitted to Unseen University. And the last, so far as records show. Current whereabouts unknown, for many years until she emerged, with white hair in a ponytail, wrinkles and wearing heavy stiff clothing and big boots in the events of I Shall Wear Midnight. She lives in the UU Unreal Estate and can walk through time and make it take orders from her. [ER, ISWM]
Evil-Minded Son of a Bitch. Camel who appeared in the moving pictures. Probably the most intelligent mind in Holy Wood. [MP]
Evil-Smelling Bugger. Renowned as the greatest camel mathematician of all time, and yet he spent his entire sad life carrying cargoes of dates and being hit with a stick by a man who couldn’t count to twenty without looking at his sandals. [P]
Expletius. Ephebian philosopher who proved that the Disc is 10,000 miles wide. A lucky guess. More than twenty other philosophers proved that the Disc varied in size from infinite to ‘too small to see’ and, since they turned out to be wrong, Expletius got the Top Brain award. [SG]
Ezeriel. One-time Queen of KLATCH. Every young student of history knows that Ezeriel had a lot of lovers and died when she sat on a snake and used to bathe in asses’ milk (they seldom know any more than this). She is a distant ancestor of KELI, which suggests that royalty around the CIRCLE SEA, as in Europe, followed the mix’n’match approach to royal weddings. [M]
Goodboy Bindle Featherstone of Quirm
Fairies. As so often is the case on Discworld, any attempt at a precise description of the nature and role of fairies is bound to raise a crop of exceptions. They are not a species. The Tooth Fairies are human, although with ex officio special powers to enable them to remain unseen as they go about their essential business, but many other fairies appear to be dwarfs, gnomes, animals or even invisible.
Basically, they are a job description. A fairy is there to perform some specific, minor task – take away unwanted teeth, brings boils and warts, see that you never have enough paperclips, steal the last wafer-thin After Dinner mint and so on. The mere act of belief will, in a sufficiently charged environment, summon one into existence. In fact the strangest of them all is the GLINGLEGLINGLEGLINGLE FAIRY, whose sole job it is to make, via some hand bells, the cheap and tinselly ‘glingleglingleglingle’ noise that precedes the appearance of a fairy or any act of fairy magic.
It is said that every time a bell rings a fairy gets a pair of wings, which means that there have been a lot more fairies since the invention of alarm clocks.
False, Praise & Salvation. False is a derivation of the original Klatchian name, Thalassa. He is a breeder of complicated chickens. [SN]
Famine. An anthropomorphic personification. One of the Four Horsemen of the APOCRALYPSE. Arrogant, and always hungry. Technically, Famine, like PESTILENCE, was a Horseman created by humanity; Death has always been around, and ants and apes wage war. There have always been droughts and locusts, but for a really good famine, for fertile land to be turned into a dustbowl by stupidity and avarice, you need humans.
Fantailler, Marquis of. The Marquis got into so many fights in his youth (mostly as a result of being called the Marquis of Fantailler) that he decided to write a set of rules for what he called the ‘noble art of fisticuffs’, which mostly consisted of a list of places where people weren’t allowed to hit him. Many people were impressed with his work and later stood with noble chest outthrust and fists balled in a spirit of manly aggression against people who hadn’t read the Marquis’ book but did know how to knock people senseless with a chair. The last words of a surprisingly large number of people were, ‘stuff the bloody Marquis of Fantailler . . .’
Far-re-ptah. Past Queen of DJELIBEYBI. Grandmother of TEPPICYMON XXVII. A strict and fearsome old woman who was, however, known as ‘Grandma Pooney’ to TEPPIC. [P]
Fasta Benj. A fisherman from a small nation of marsh-dwelling nomads near OMNIA, who were unknown to the world at large and entirely bypassed by history until by sheer chance his little boat was swept up by the multi-national fleet sent to destroy that country. His only recorded contribution to the very short Omnian war was a hopeful attempt to sell raw fish to all parties. Nevertheless, as a representative of a sovereign nation he went home with his own share of the spoils, which included the secret of fire and the use of metals. [SG]
Fate. Another anthropomorphic personification. A friendly-looking man in late middle age, with greying hair brushed neatly around features that a maiden would confidently proffer a glass of small beer to, should they appear at her back door. It is a face a kindly youth would gladly help over a stile. Except for the eyes, of course . . . while at a mere glance they are simply dark, a closer look reveals that they are holes open
ing on to a blackness so remote, so deep that the watcher feels himself inexorably drawn into the twin pools of infinite night and their terrible, wheeling stars. [COM]
Febrius. Ephebian philosopher. He proved that light travels at about the same speed as sound, in his famous ‘Give us a shout when you see it, OK?’ experiment involving two hills, a lantern with a movable cover over it and an assistant with a very loud voice. [SG]
Felmet, Lady. Wife of Leonal, Duke FELMET. A powerful and impressive woman who could not abide slackness or weakness and regarded the whole universe as something to bully. She had a big red face with thick eyebrows and a stubbly chin, and wore red velvet dresses that matched her complexion. Possibly eaten to death by rabbits and other fluffy creatures in the forests of LANCRE. [WS]
Felmet, Leonal, Duke. Murdered his cousin, King VERENCE I of LANCRE. An insect of a man with a thin face and heavily beringed hands, he had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.
He was married for twenty years to the massive Lady FELMET, whom he wed largely because he was fascinated by power, of which she was practically the embodiment. Fell to his death into the river Lancre. [WS]
Fiddler’s Riddle. An unpleasant inn in Ohulan Cutash. No self-respecting goat can endure the smell in the Fiddler’s Riddle. It was here that Eskarina Smith turned a barrel of plum brandy into milk. [ ER ]
Fido, Big. Chief Barker of the DOG GUILD. A small and rather dainty white poodle with the overgrown remains of a poodle cut and wearing a diamante collar. Big Fido was, to hijack a convenient phrase, barking mad – apparently driven to this state one day by the realisation that everything around him (his bowl, his collar, his kennel, his blanket) had his name on it. He ate his blanket, savaged his owner and ran off. The madness seemed to tap some deep pit of primordial rage in his soul which enabled him to fight and kill dogs much larger and theoretically much stronger than him, and thus he became the acknowledged leader of the feral dogs of Ankh-Morpork. To them he expounded, at length and with much excited farting and foaming when he talked, his Dream: that all dogs were wolves at heart, and needed only to band together to overthrow humanity (the ‘Master’ race) and reclaim their ancient heritage. [MAA]
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