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Nac Mac Feegle

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See also: Gnomes (Discworld)

The Nac Mac Feegle, known also as the Pictsies or the Wee Free Men (see the Wee Frees), are a fictional type of fairy appearing in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels Carpe Jugulum, The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky. Aside being just inches tall, they just about invert the traditional mystical and refined concept of fairies.

The Nac Mac Feegle's skin appears blue, since they are heavily tattooed and covered in woad, and all have red hair. The tattoos identify a Feegle's clan. Wings or similar features of any kind are out of the question. They talk in heavy Scottish accents, usually Glaswegian in the clans encountered so far, although William the Gonnagle has a softer, Highland accent. They are notably strong and resilient, which comes in handy given that male Feegles (almost all of them) tend to be notoriously rowdy as a lifestyle.

Some clans have an apparently superstitious fear of their names being written down (but some upland clans have mastered the concept of law as a weapon and it is a good idea "neever te sign a feegle contract; six inch high people write verra small print") which turns out to be part and parcel of their fear of lawyers. Their swords glow blue in the presence of lawyers (compare Sting (Middle-earth) and its kind).

Contents

History

Technically, the Nac Mac Feegle are a social grouping within the class of pixies, though they refer to themselves as Pictsies (cf Picts)).

According to their own history, the Nac Mac Feegle rebelled against the wicked rule of the (or possibly "a") Queen of the Elves, and were therefore exiled from Fairyland. According to everyone else (including the Nac Mac Feegle themselves if they forget this story) they were kicked out for causing fights and being drunk at two in the afternoon.

The Nac Mac Feegle have an innate ability to cross dimensions, which they call "the crawstep". There appears to be no limit on what worlds they can cross into like this, including worlds that exist only in a person's imagination (although they can't use it to travel within a world - for this, they have "feets"). The Nac Mac Feegle take pride in being able to get into, or out of, anywhere (although getting out of pubs presents something of a difficulty). And also, according to the second book featuring them (A Hat Full of Sky), they claim "the crawstep" is "all the ankle,ye ken".

The Ramtops have many legends about the Nac Mac Feegle. One, similar to the legend of Wayland's Smithy, says that if you leave sixpence and an unshod horse at a certain Feegle cairn overnight, then in the morning the coin will be gone, and you'll never see your horse again, either. Another says that if you leave a saucer of milk out for the pictsies they'll break into your house and take everything in the drinks cabinet (as seen in the novel 'Wee Free Men').

Social structure

Nac Mac Feegles possess a eusocial culture similar to bees, termites and other social insects. The clan is made up of hundreds of brothers, and one "queen", called a kelda. The kelda chooses her husband (the Big Man) from among the clan when she arrives and soon begins the lifelong task of begetting the next generation, often up to twenty tiny baby Feegles at a time. Depending on how long the kelda has been kelda, the majority of the tribe will either be her brothers-in-law (i.e., the sons of the previous kelda) or her sons. Daughters are very rare and, on coming of age, leave to become kelda of another tribe, taking some brothers, probably including a gonnagle (see below) with her. Young keldas are slim, but older keldas are virtually spherical.

The role of the kelda is, essentially, to do the thinking. To help her with this, she is given, before leaving her birth clan, a bottle of water from her mother's leather cauldron. Which, of course, contains some of the water from her mother's cauldron, and so on. Theoretically (and on the Discworld theories of this nature tend to work, even if they aren't actually right, owning to narrative causality), the bottle contains water from the cauldrons of Nac Mac Feegle keldas since before history.

By mixing a little of the water into her own cauldron, and drinking the result, the kelda can connect with the memories of those who have gone before her. And, more mysteriously, with those who are yet to come. (Compare with Reverend Mothers from Dune.)

The males of the clan don't question this, accepting that keldaring is full of secrets (hiddlins) they aren't expected to understand. They are warriors, hunters, and foragers; Nac Mac Feegle foraging consists of taking anything that isn't nailed down (and taking the nails as well if it is), up to and including quite large cows if enough foragers can be gathered to do the lifting (given their strength, one for each hoof).

Among the warriors of each clan is a gonnagle, or war-poet, whose job is to create terrible poetry that is recited during battles to demoralise the enemy. A well-trained gonnagle can even make the enemy's ears explode and is equipped with "mousepipes" (bagpipes made from mouseskin, often with the ears still attached). Some of them travel from clan to clan, making sure the old songs and stories are still remembered and sharing the new ones.

Nac Mac Feegle tend to have human names, usually abbreviated and with some sort of modifier (Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Aggie, No'-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock).

The Nac Mac Feegle clans that have appeared in the books are the Long Lake Clan, who settled in Lancre in Carpe Jugulum (but weren't named until A Hat Full of Sky) and the Chalk Clan who feature in the Tiffany Aching books. The Chalk Clan had, until the arrival of a new kelda (Jeannie) from Long Lake, a superstition that anything written down could be used against you in a court of law, and each of them carried swords that glowed blue in the presence of lawyers (compare Sting). The Long Lake Clan have similar superstitions about writing and lawyers, but believe it's possible to beat them at their own game and are famed for their "verra com-plic-at-ed documents".

Nac Mac Feegle clans tend to occupy ancient burial mounds. They avoid "bigjobs" (humans) if at all possible, as they are worried this might lead to folklorists and archeologists invading their privacy and writing things down. Since they can move about ten times faster than a human, they find it easy to go unseen when they wish to do so.

The fearlessness of Nac Mac Feegle warriors in combat is derived from their religious belief that they cannot be killed, because they are already dead; they believe that they are in the afterlife, and that any Feegle who is killed has simply been reincarnated. They reason that Discworld, with the sunshine, flowers, birds, trees, and things to steal and people to fight, MUST be some sort of heaven, because a world that good couldn't be open to just anybody.

Known Feegles

Sayings

The battle cries of a charging Feegle army can be rather intimidating. They're all so highly individualistic, that they all scream out different things.

Possible Influences

Movie

In January 2006, it was revealed that director Sam Raimi has signed up to make a movie based on the novel The Wee Free Men. No other details have been released about the movie adaptation.[link]

See also

External link

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