The Hags of Teeb & Sir Terry Pratchett

Two nights ago I was a little taken aback by a question. It was, “Where is Teeb? Is it a fictional place?”

How to respond?

Eventually I said that Teeb isn’t a place at all. It is a notion—an abstract notion.

The question came from someone who has read my story “The Hags of Teeb” but, although they said they enjoyed the tale—they said it was funny so that was a success, they clearly have no understanding of the British leaning towards word-play

Suppose you were a young lady in the market for a pair of shoes. You might, possibly, buy some shoes of Jimmy Choo, or, more likely, you would buy ‘Jimmy Choo Shoes’.

Thus it is with ‘The Hags of Teeb’.

It would be commonplace to say they are ‘The Teeb Hags’ and that, dear reader, is why the illustration has labels coming out from under their apparel.

This means that we may now address the idea of the ‘Herds of Dollib’ who appear in the story. They are, quite naturally, the ‘Dollib Herds’, hence their focus on make-up and hair styling.

The British are racially inclined towards word-play. It may be the ever popular pun, for example:

“Why did the Scotsman play golf in the fog – a mistery?”

Or it could be a spoonerism:

“I’m not the pheasant plucker I’m the pheasant plucker’s son. I’m only plucking pheasants ‘til the pheasant plucker comes,” here in the shape of a ‘tongue–twister’.

We do like to play with words. As a writer it can be a useful tool to incorporate into a story providing it fits with the general mien of the tale.

Sir Terry Pratchett was a master at this in his ‘Discworld’ series that were a beautifully crafted dose of humour throughout. Even the titles were superbly created—two of them, for example, were:

‘Carpe Jugulum’, and

‘The Fifth Elephant’

Should you be unfamiliar with Sir Terry Pratchett’s novels I should, perhaps, explain these.

‘Carpe’ means ‘seize’ and is popularly used in the expression ‘carpe diem’, which translates as ‘seize the day’. Here it is combined with ‘jugulum’ or ‘throat’! Brilliant. I am in awe of such thinking.

‘The Fifth Elephant’ is a little more complex.

Sir Terry’s ‘Discworld’ is a place that is shaped like a huge plate. It rests on the backs of, apparently, four elephants that, in turn, stand resolutely on the back of a giant turtle that swims through space forever.

There was, at some stage, a discovery on that world that there was another elephant underneath them. This appeared shortly after a film called the ‘The Fifth Element’ made the cinematic rounds.

The man was a genius. His contribution to the humour banks of the written word are monumental and additions to that fund will be sorely missed.