"A Hat Full of Sky", ("Shadow of Night")

I wasn't paying enough attention to the first 3/4 of Terry Prachett's YA book, but Granny Weatherwax's presence is so bracing and the finale is just so good all around that I sat up and pricked up my ears. The audiobook reader did a great job with the Nac Mac Feegle's accents.

• Sheep's wool, Jolly Sailor tobacco and turpentine... had been the smells of the shepherding hut, and the smell of Granny Aching. Such things have a hold on people that goes right to the heart. Tiffany only had to smell them now to be back there, in the warmth and silence and the safety of the hut.
• It was a necklace.
  It was the Horse.
  Tiffany stared at it.
  Not what a horse looks like, but what a horse be . . . It had been carved in the turf back before history began, by people who had managed to convey in a few flowing lines everything a horse was: strength, grace, beauty and speed, straining to break free of the hill.
  And now someone – someone clever and, therefore, probably also someone expensive – had made it out of silver. It was flat, just like it was on the hillside and, just like the Horse on the hillside, some parts of it were not joined to the rest of the body. The craftsman, though, had joined these carefully together with tiny silver chain, so that when Tiffany held it up in astonishment it was all there, moving-while-standing-still in the morning light.
• ‘Oh, no. That’s just a name. Oswald isn’t a man, he’s an ondageist. Have you heard of poltergeists?’
  ‘Er . . . invisible spirits that throw things around?’
  ‘Good,’ said Miss Level. ‘Well, an ondageist is the opposite. They’re obsessive about tidiness. He’s quite handy around the house but he’s absolutely dreadful if he’s in the kitchen when I’m cooking. He keeps putting things away.


• ‘I ken weel what they say!’ snapped Rob Anybody. ‘I ha’ the knowin’ of the readin’! They say—’
  He looked up again. ‘OK, they say . . . that’s the snake, an’ that’s the kinda like a gate letter, an’ the comb on its side, two o’ that, an’ the fat man standin’ still, an’ the snake again, and then there’s whut we calls a “space” and then there’s the letter like a saw’s teeth, and two o’ the letters that’s roound like the sun, and the letter that’s a man sittin’ doon, and onna next line we ha’ . . . the man wi’ his arms oot, and the letter that’s you, an’ ha, the fat man again but noo he’s walkin, an’ next he’s standin’ still again, an’ next is the comb, an’ the up-an’-doon ziggy-zaggy letter, and the man’s got his arms oot, and then there’s me, and that ziggy-zaggy and we end the line with the comb again . . . an’ on the next line we starts wi’ the bendy hook, that’s the letter roound as the sun, them’s twa’ men sittin’ doon, there’s the letter reaching ooot tae the sky, then there’s a space ‘cos there’s nae letter, then there’s the snaky again, an’ the letter like a hoose frame, and then there’s the letter that’s me, aye, an’ another fella sitting doon, an’ another big roound letter, and, ha, oor ol’ friend, the fat man walkin’! The End!’
  He stood back, hands on hips, and demanded: There! Is that readin’ I just did, or wuz it no’?’
  There was a cheer from the Feegles, and some applause.
  Awf’ly Wee Billy looked up at the chalked words:
  SHEEP’S WOOL
  TURPENTINE
  JOLLY SAILOR
• Rob Anybody rummaged around in his spog, which is a leather bag most Feegles have hanging from their belt. The contents are usually a mystery, but sometimes include interesting teeth.
• ‘A bath? But we a’ had one no’ a year ago,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘Up at the big dew pond for the ships!’
  ‘Ach, crivens!’ said Big Yan. ‘Ye cannae ask a man tae take a bath again this soon, mistress! There’ll be nothin’ left o’ us!’
  ...
  ‘Rob, we oughtae get one o’ these put in back in the mound. Verra warmin’ in the winter time.’
  ‘Aye, it’s no’ that good for the ship, havin’ tae drink oot o’ that pond after we’ve been bathin’. It’s terrible, hearin’ a ship try tae spit.’


• She strode ahead as if distance is a personal insult.
• You can't get happiness by magic.
• You became so aware of the universe that you stopped being aware of you. How clever of humans to have learned how to close their minds. Was there anything so amazing in the universe as boredom?
• The space between Tiffany and the ceiling filled up with pointy hats. They drew back, reluctantly, as she sat up. From above, it must have looked like a dark daisy, closing and opening.

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Another blind date that didn't work out. Sorry, Deborah Harkness.

• “For not telling me who your friends are!” I propped up on one elbow and stared down at him. “The great playwright Christopher Marlowe. George Chapman, poet and scholar. Mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot, if I’m not mistaken. And the Wizard Earl is waiting downstairs!”... “All we need is Sir Walter Raleigh and we’ll have the entire School of Night in the house.”
• The sun responded to some silent invitation and left the quince, traveling into my fingers.
• Gallowglass coughed. “Can we leave off talk of the brotherhood and return to more urgent matters? The Congregation will call on Matthew to calm the situation in Berwick. The queen will want him to stir it up further, because so long as the Scots are preoccupied with witches, they won’t be able to plan any mischief in England. Matthew’s new wife is facing witchcraft accusations at home. And his father has recalled him to France.” “Christ,” Matthew said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What a tangled mess.”
• Sept-Tours was too ancient to have modern conveniences like corridors, so we snaked through an arched door to the right of the fireplace and into the corner of a room that would one day be Ysabeau’s grand salon.
• The sound was as leonine as the rest of him. The de Clermont family was a menagerie of formidable beasts. In Matthew’s presence I was always reminded of wolves. With Ysabeau it was falcons. Gallowglass had made me think of a bear. Philippe was akin to yet another deadly predator.