folklore

These are the episode notes and errata for Pratchat episode 93, “We’re Not Here to Folk Spiders”, discussing Terry Pratchett’s 2008 collaboration with Dr Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore of Discworld, with guest Roslyn Quin.

Iconographic Evidence

We’ll add those TikTok videos Ros mentioned here soon!

Notes and Errata

• The episode title is a riff on the Australian slang phrase “I’m not here to fuck spiders”, which we discuss in the episode. We previously discussed it way back in #Pratchat29, “Great Rimward Land“, about The Last Continent. For more on Ben’s investigation of its origins, see the notes and errata for that episode.
• Toastmasters is an international non-profit organisation, based in the US, which runs clubs teaching public speaking and other communications skills. It was formed in 1905 by Ralph C. Smedley, a YMCA educational director from Illinois. While it remains popular, it is fair to say its methods haven’t changed a great deal in 120 years, but if you want to get more confident with public speaking or interpersonal communication, you could do a lot worse than look up your local club.
• Jim Henson’s The Storyteller was a 1987 anthology series of nine stories told by an old Storyteller played by John Hurt, in heavy makeup to give him a “half-puppet” appearance (and to occasionally allow him to appear as his “younger self” in the stories). Each episode he sat by a fire and told his talking dog (a puppet performed by Brian Henson) a version of a classic folk story, shown to the audience by a full cast of humans and creatures, including demons, dragons and giants. A second, shorter series titled The Storyteller: Greek Myths featured Michael Gambon as a different storyteller, telling the same dog stories of Greek heroes. Both series were produced in the UK, and feature a guest cast of many British actors who would go on to become very famous.
• “Davey and the Fish King“, Roslyn’s comfort story, is a variation on the “Fish returned to water: grateful” story type, number B375.1 in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index of folk stories. There are lots of versions of this, but the one Ros knows is a Scottish variation which also involves the Devil and a magical cow. We’ll add the video of it soon!
• British storyteller Taffy Thomas is based in the Lake District, and is (as you might expect) a story of his own. He was awarded an MBE in 2001 for services to storytelling, and named the first Storytelling Laureate of England in 2009 for a period of two years, from 2010 to 2012. The role isn’t appointed by the monarch, but was created by a number of local and former national Poet Laureates. Other storytellers have claimed to hold the position too, but we were unable to confirm if it had indeed been passed on.
• Devil’s Cave is located near Heathcote, a small town in Central Victoria dating back to the gold rush era. The cave itself now appears to be behind a vineyard, but we don’t know if the wine is any good. As for the story behind the cave…you’ll have to ask Ros next time she’s telling stories.
• There are four Science of Discworld books, all collaborations between Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. We’ve done episodes about all four of them, though heads up that we liked the first one by far the best, and had a great dislike of the second and fourth ones. The episodes are:
  • The Science of Discworld – #Pratchat35, “Great Balls of Physics“, with guest Anna Ahveninen
  • The Science of Discworld II: The Globe – #Pratchat47, “A Finite Number of Shakespeares“, with guest Alanta Colley
  • The Science of Discworld III: Darwin’s Watch – #Pratchat59, “Charlie and the Whale Factory“, with guest Dr Kay Day
  • The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day – #Pratchat71, “It Belongs in a University“, with guests the Rev Dr Avril Hannah-Jones and Dr Charlotte Pezaro
• The mystery object mentioned by Liz is the “Roman dodecahedron“, an object cast in copper alloy in the shape of a dodecahedron (think of a twelve-sided dice). They have circular holes in the middle of each face, and spherical knobs on each corner. A hundred or so have been found since the eighteenth century, and they date back to the second to fourth century CE. The idea that they were used for knitting gloves has been popular, but has little basis in history – for one thing, the earliest known examples of knitting are from around the 11th century, the best part of a millennium later. Their true purpose remains a mystery.
• The clay tablet on display at the State Library of Victoria is from around 2,050 BCE (so around 4,000 years ago). It’s written in cuneiform script in the Sumerian language, and records taxes paid in sheep and goats. It’s older than the one Liz mentions, the famous “complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir“, which was one of many similar clay tablet discovered in 1953. The tablet was sent as a letter from the merchant Nanni complaining about sub-standard copper and the rude treatment of his servant during a business dealing with Ea-nāṣir. The tablet became an internet meme in 2015, via a Reddit post drawing parallels with modern-day customer complaints.
• While the title of the show is Doctor Who, the main character is only ever known as “the Doctor“. Well…almost always. A computer intelligence in the 1960s once asked for him by name by stating “Doctor Who is required”, but that was an anomaly. In every other instance “Doctor Who” has been used in the show, it’s been a joke. In-universe, the Doctor claims that that they chose the name “as a promise”, though they’ve also claimed on multiple occasions to be an actual Doctor of one kind or another (though not, usually, a medical doctor). Most Time Lords have individual, if very long, names, but renegades who leave Gallifrey seem to have a tradition of giving up their proper names and adopting a title, for example the Master, the Rani, the Monk and the War Chief.
• Pratchett’s own feelings on Doctor Who are mostly to be found, as Ben says, in the anthology Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who, edited by Steve Berry. Pratchett didn’t write an essay, but the introduction: the book is a fundraiser for Alzheimer’s UK. Pratchett talks about having “been there at the beginning” and watching the original Doctor, William Hartnell, from the very first episode (screened twice because of “that pesky business with the grassy knoll”). He had stopped watching by the time Patrick Troughton came along, and tried it again in the 1980s with Rhianna, but it wasn’t really his speed. Of the revived series, he said he liked that we had a Doctor who could really act (a bit rude), but describes it as not really science fiction, since it’s full of “make-it-up-as-you-go-alongium” (what we now generally call “handwavium”). But, he notes, perhaps it was always that way. (He acknowledges it’s service in introducing many to science fiction, but also makes a point of saying that he remembers the sci-fi you used to get before Doctor Who…)

More notes coming soon!

Thanks for reading our notes! If we missed anything, or you have questions, please let us know.