The Sending of Eight: the Magical Sword Kring

Hrun the Barbarian, on page 97, carries the magical sword Kring - "which was forged from a thunderbolt and has a soul that suffers no scabbard."

Kring speaks, and is a megalomaniac. (This will come in handy later.)

Kring is an homage to Stormbringer (although Kring is a sword, and is used for comedic purposes).

Stormbringer is the name of the infamous black sword featured in a number of fantasy stories by the author Michael Moorcock. Created by the forces of Chaos, it is described as a huge, black sword covered with strange runes carved deep into its blade. It is wielded by the doomed albino emperor Elric of Melniboné.

Description (and SPOILERS) below
This powerful enchanted black blade is a member of a demon race that takes on the form of a sword, and as such is a force of Chaos. Stormbringer's edge is capable of cutting through virtually any material not protected by potent sorcery, and it can drink the soul from (and thereby kill) an unprotected human upon delivering any wound, even a scratch. Its most distinctive features are that it has a mind and will of its own, and that it feeds upon the souls of those it kills. Elric loathes the sword but is almost helpless without the strength and vitality it confers on him.

Stormbringer’s hunger for souls is such that it frequently betrays Elric by creating a bloodlust in his mind, turning in his hands and killing friends and lovers. The cursed nature of the sword adds to Elric’s guilt and self-loathing even as he feels pleasure when the stolen lifeforce enters his body.

Stormbringer has a "sister" sword named Mournblade, which was at one time wielded by Elric’s cousin and enemy Yyrkoon. It is identical to Stormbringer in most regards. Later stories reveal that there are thousands of identical demons, all taking the form of swords. Three such sibling blades appear in The Revenge of the Rose and many more "brother blades" are seen in the novel Stormbringer, but only Mournblade and Stormbringer are named.

In Elric of Melniboné, Elric and cousin Yyrkoon find the runeblades in a realm of Limbo and commence battle. Elric and Stormbringer disarm Yyrkoon, and Mournblade disappears. Yyrkoon is defeated, and Elric and his cousin return to Imrryr.

In The Weird of the White Wolf, Elric returns to Imrryr after a long journey and confronts Yyrkoon, who usurped the throne in his absence. Yyrkoon has regained Mournblade through unknown means and uses it to attack. Elric and Stormbringer kill Yyrkoon, and no further mention is made of Mournblade until it is later disclosed that it was recovered by the Seers of Nihrain, to be wielded by Elric's cousin, Dyvim Slorm. Imrryr is sacked, though the pillagers' fate is not much better, being pursued by the golden battle barges and the few dragons who were awakened, led by Dyvim Tvar. Only Elric's ship escapes, propelled by the aid of his sorcery.

In Stormbringer, Elric learns that the representatives of Fate, which serve neither Chaos or Law, recovered Mournblade from the netherworld. They present it to Elric and explain that the runeblades were designed to be wielded by those with Melnibonéan royal blood as a check against the might of the Dead Gods of Chaos. Elric gives Mournblade to his kinsman, Dyvim Slorm, and the two men become embroiled in a confrontation between the gods. Elric summons others of Stormbringer’s demonic race (also in the form of swords) to fight against a number of Dukes of Hell, brought to the Young Kingdoms by Jagreen Lern, theocrat of Pan Tang.

Ultimately, Elric's reliance on Stormbringer proves his undoing: after the utter destruction of the Young Kingdoms in the battle of Law and Chaos, just as it seems that the cosmic Balance has been restored, Stormbringer kills Elric, transforms into a humanoid demon, and leaps laughing into the sky, to corrupt the newly-remade world once more. The sword-spirit says to the dying Elric "I was a thousand times more evil than thou."

In the book The Quest for Tanelorn, a man claims that the demon in the sword is named Shaitan - a variant of 'Satan'. In the same book it is revealed that the demon can inhabit either the black sword or the black jewel, the jewel which was once embedded in the skull of Dorian Hawkmoon. Hawkmoon was an avatar, like Elric, of the Eternal Champion.

The Sender of Eight: Hrun the Barbarian

Pratchett introduces Hrun the Barbarian on pg 94..

Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, and HP Lovecraft were friends.

Howard committed suicide at the age of 30, after the death of his mother, who had long been ill with tuberculosis. HP Lovecraft also died young, at age 47, of cancer.

Conan was a "barbarian", but he wasn't stupid. Hrun, on the other hand, is a muscle-bound oaf.

The Sending of Eight: Bel-Shamharoth 2

Rincewind has heard of Bel-Shamharoth:

On the front of the Octaco (a magicalbook) had been a representation of Bel-Shamharoth. He was not Evil, for even Evil has a certain vitality - Bel-Shamharoth was the flip side of the coin of which Good and Evil are but one side.

"The Soul Eater. His number lyeth between seven and nine, it is twice four."

The Sending of Eight: hamadryad

Rincewind finds himself inside a tree, which is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Hamadryads, in Greek myth:

Hamadryads (Greek: Ἁμαδρυάδες, Hamadryádes) are Greek mythological beings that live in trees. They are a particular type of dryad, which in turn are a particular type of nymph. Hamadryads are born bonded to a particular tree. Some believe that hamadryads are the actual tree, while normal dryads are simply the entities, or spirits, of the trees. If the tree died, the hamadryad associated with it died as well. For that reason, dryads and the gods punished any mortals who harmed trees. The Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus lists eight Hamadryads, the daughters of Oxylus and Hamadryas:

* Karya (Walnut or Hazelnut)
* Balanos (Oak)
* Kraneia (Dogwood)
* Morea (Mulberry)
* Aigeiros (Black Poplar)
* Ptelea (Elm)
* Ampelos (Vines, especially Vitis)
* Syke (Fig)

The Sending of Eight: Bel-Shamharoth

We get a foretelling plot of The Sending of Eight on pg 82. Twoflower and Rincewind have become separated. Twoflower has sat on a stone to think about what he should do. Then he gets up and looks at the stome:

The stone really was uncomfortable. Twoflower looked down and, for the first time, noticed the strange carving.

It looked like a spider. Or wa it a squid. Moss and lichen rather blurred the precise details. But they didn't blur the runes carved below it. Twoflower could read them clearly, and they said: Traveller, the hospitable temple of Bel-Shamharoth lies one thousand paces hubwards.

Now this was strange, Twoflower realized, because although he could read the message the actual letters were completely unknown to him. Somehow the message was arriving in his brain without the tedious necessity of passing through his eyes.

Does the name Bel-Shamharoth sound familiar? The description of a creature that is part spider and part squid?

Recognize Yog-Sothoth - a creature from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulu stories?

Yes, Pratchett will be giving an homage to HP Lovecraft in this story.

The Sending of Eight: Pratchett explains magic

pg 79

Twoflower comments on his disappointment with magic. He had thought that wizards needed only to "say the magic word", than waste time memorizing spells.

Rincewind explains:

He tried to explain that magic had indeed once been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of Conservation of Reality: this demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant that, say, creating the illusion of of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy requiredseveral hours of systemic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple principle of leverage flicking his brain out through his ears.

He went on to add that some of the ancient magic could still be found in its raw state, recognizable - to the initiated - by the eightfold shape it made in the crystalline structure of space time. There was the metal octiron, for excamplee, and the gas octogen."

Although this principle of magic holds true in this first book, in subsequent books featuring the Wizards of Unseen University, they are able to wield their power easily. Perhaps that's what differentiates failed wizards from wizards...

The Sending of Eight: "picturesque, quaint, tourist"

pg 78

Pratchett continues to have fun with cliches regarding tourists.

"Picturesque. That was a new word to Rincewind, the wizard (BMgc, Unseen University [failed]). It was one of a number he had picked up since leaving the charred ruins of Anhk-Morpork. Quaint was another one. Picturesque meant - he decided after careful observation of the scenery that inspired Twoflower to use the world - that the landscape was horribly precipitous.

Quaint, when used to describe the occasional village through which they passed, meant fever-ridden and tumble-down.

Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant idiot.

The Sending of Eight: Dunmanifestin

The Colour of Magic, pg 75

In the Prologue, Pratchett refers to the Discworld with small letters - it has not yet become the name of the world, but just a description of the world.

The discworld offers sights far more impressive than those found in universes built by Creators with less imagination but more mechanical aptitude.

He then describes Dunmanifestin.
...the most magnificent sight is the Hub [at the center of Discworld]. There, a spire of green ice ten miles high rises through the clouds and supports at its peak the realm of Dunmanifestin, the abode of the disc gods. The disc gods themselves, despite the splendour of the world before them, are seldom satisfied. It is embarrassing to know that one is god of a world that only exists because every improbability curve must its far end.

The gods Pratchett mentions are:

Blind Io - blind but with an "impressively large number", "lead a semi-independent life of their own" - floating around his head.
Offler the Crocodile god
Zephyrus the cod of slight breezes
Chance
Night
Destiny
the Lady (Luck)

The Probability Curve (Pratchett turns this on its head and calls it the "Improbability Curve:

From Wikipedia:
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we are not certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The certainty we adopt can be described in terms of a numerical measure and this number, between 0 and 1, we call probability. The higher the probability of an event, the more certain we are that the event will occur. Thus, probability in an applied sense is a measure of the likeliness that a (random) event will occur.

The concept has been given an axiomatic mathematical derivation in probability theory, which is used widely in such areas of study as mathematics, statistics, finance, gambling, science, artificial intelligence/machine learning and philosophy to, for example, draw inferences about the likeliness of events. Probability is used to describe the underlying mechanics and regularities of complex systems.

The Colour of Magic: The Sending of Eight

The first of the four interconnected novellas that make up The Colour of Magic ends with the two thieves to whom Rincewind had been telling his story, riding into the smoking remains of Ankh Morpork.

Meantime, Rincewind gazes at Twoflower and The Luggage, says, " Here's another fine mess you've gotten me into," and passes out, drunk. (He has been drinking the alcohol offered by Bravd and the Weasel while telling his story.)

The second novella is "The Sending of Eight."

It begins with a prologue that introduces the gods of the Discworld at their home Dunmanifestin.

Dunmanisfestin is a play on words - the Gods will no longer "manifest" themselves on the Discworld, but will stay at home and play games with the humans on the Discworld below, using a board like a chessboard.

(In England, people who live in the country typically give names to their cottages.)

Colour of Magic: Here's another fine mess

pg 73: Here's another fine mess you've gotten me into, Rincewind says before passing out drunk.

Pratchett is of course quoting Oliver Hardy, who says this line, quite frequently, to Stanley Laurel.

The catchphrase most used by Laurel and Hardy on film is:
“Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!”

The phrase, which was earlier used by W. S. Gilbert in The Mikado (1885) and again in The Grand Duke (1896), was first used by Hardy in The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930). In popular culture the catchphrase is often misquoted as "Well, here's another fine mess you've gotten me into." The misquoted version of the phrase was never used by Hardy on film; the misunderstanding stems from the title of their film Another Fine Mess (1930).[79] Numerous variations of the quote appeared on film. In Chickens Come Home (1931), Ollie says impatiently to Stan, "Well...." with Stan replying, "Here's another nice mess I've gotten you into." In Thicker than Water (1935) and The Fixer-Uppers (1935), the phrase becomes "Well, here's another nice kettle of fish you pickled me in!" In Saps at Sea (1940) it becomes "Well, here's another nice bucket of suds you've gotten me into!"

“ D'oh! ”

"D'oh!" is a catchphrase used by James Finlayson, the mustachioed Scottish actor who appeared in 33 Laurel and Hardy films. The phrase, expressing surprise, impatience, or incredulity, was the inspiration for "D'oh!" as spoken by the fictional character Homer Simpson in the long running animated comedy The Simpsons. Homer's first intentional use of "d'oh!" occurred in the Ullman short "Punching Bag" (1988)

Laurel and Hardy are the American comedic team quite popular during the 1930s.

From Wikipedia
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema. Composed of thin Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and heavy American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957), they became well known during the late 1920s to the mid-1940s for their slapstick comedy, with Laurel playing the clumsy and childlike friend of the pompous Hardy.[1] They made over 100 films together, initially two-reelers (short films) before expanding into feature length films in the 1930s. Their films include Sons of the Desert (1933), the Academy Award winning short film The Music Box (1932), Babes in Toyland (1934), and Way Out West (1937). Hardy's catchphrase "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" is still widely recognized.[N 1]

Prior to the double act both were established actors with Laurel appearing in over 50 films and Hardy in over 250 films. Although the two comedians first worked together on the film The Lucky Dog (1921), this was a chance pairing and it was not until 1926, when both separately signed contracts with the Hal Roach film studio, that they began appearing in movie shorts together.[2] Laurel and Hardy officially became a team the following year in the silent short film Putting Pants on Philip (1927). The pair remained with the Roach studio until 1940, then appeared in eight "B" comedies for 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1941 to 1945.[3] After finishing their movie commitments at the end of 1944, they concentrated on stage shows, embarking on a music hall tour of England, Ireland, and Scotland.[3] In 1950 they made their last film, a French/Italian co-production called Atoll K, before retiring from the screen. In total they appeared together in 107 films. They starred in 40 short sound films, 32 short silent films and 23 full-length feature films, and made 12 guest or cameo appearances, including the recently discovered Galaxy of Stars promotional film (1936).

A common comedy routine was a tit-for-tat fight. Their silent film Big Business (1929), which includes one of these routines, was added to the Library of Congress as a national treasure in 1992. Notable Laurel traits included crying like a baby while being berated and scratching his hair when in shock. On December 1, 1954, the team made their only American television appearance, surprised by Ralph Edwards on his live NBC-TV program, This Is Your Life.

The works of Laurel and Hardy have been re-released in numerous theatrical reissues, television revivals, 16mm and 8mm home movies, feature-film compilations, and home videos since the 1930s. They were voted the seventh greatest comedy act in a 2005 UK poll by fellow comedians. The duo's signature tune, known variously as "The Cuckoo Song", "Ku-Ku", or "The Dance of the Cuckoos", played on the opening credits of their films. The official Laurel and Hardy appreciation society is known as The Sons of the Desert, after a fraternal society in their film of the same name.

The Color of Magic: The Character of Death

First, a few of Pratchett's inimitable descriptions.

pg 60

Broadman looked around quickly. It began to dawn on him just what he had said, and to whom. A whimper escaped from his lips, glad to be free.

pg 62

Death, insofar as it was possible in a face with no movable features, looked surprised.

pg 62

The Character of Death
Death, in the Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal, follows the knight around waiting for him to die. But he alsoo takes a personal hand in the death of another character, knocking him out of a tree.

Death does something similar in this first book in the Discworld series. He is talking with Rincewind, a fish salesman laughs at Rincewind's reactions (since Death is invisible at this point to all but wizards.

"With a snarl Death reached out a bony finger and stopped the man's heart, but he didn't take much pride in it."

He also takes one of the nine lives of a cat and kills a mayfly.

This is out of character for the Death of the future books - to whom all life is precious - especially those of cats. He will take lives as they end naturally (or unnaturally!) but he himself does not kill!

One could say that this is Death's character as it was, but as the years go on he mellows...

In-sewer-ants

Twoflower is an insurance adjuster, but he also apparently sells insurance - which is not a smart thing to do in Ankh-Morpork unless you explain to Morporkians the concept of insurance fraud and arson, which Twoflower apparently neglects to do.

Hence the conflagration that is shortly to happen in the city.

This is a send-up of all those people who sell insurance - used to be door-to-door, who would never let up until their victims bought some of it.

Zlorf the President of the Assassin's Guild "comes for the tourist." This is out of character for the assassins who, in future books, "inhume" people. They don't walk around with their names known (and Pratchett gives them the types of names that he will never use again, like Grinjo and Urmond), kidnapping tourists in broad daylight in order to enrich themselves.

Pratchettism:
A flicker of doubt passed over Zlorf's face, like the last shaft of sunlight over a badly plowed field.

Who would have thought...

pg 56, the Colour of Magic

"Who would have thought there was so much sapient pearwood in the whole of the disc?" he said.

Pratchett is quoting a line from Macbeth, said by Lady Macbeth after the murder of Duncan.

Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.

Pratchett on how magic works

From The Colour of Magic pg 52

"No spells are much good. It takes three months to commit even a simple one to to memory, and then once you've used it, pouf! it's gone. That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next."

And Pratchett also puts in a type of "trope" that he will use in several other books:
It held biscuits that turned out to be as hard as diamond-wood.

"loody 'ell," he muttered, nursing his teeth.

"Captain Eightpanther's Traveller's Digestives, them," said the imp from the doorway to his box. "Saved many a life at sea, they have."

"Oh, sure. Do you use them as a raft, or just throw them to the sharks and sort of watch them sink?"

(In future books, it will be the dwarves who have this type of daily snack - a joke on the Cramm in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.)

The Colour of Magic: Finewirers?

pg 51

Brilliant constellations shone down on the discworld. One by one the traders shuttered their shops. One by one the gonophs, thieves, finewirers, whores, illusionists, backslioders and second-storey men awoke and breakfasted.

From Lexi.us

1. Musa Pedestris: Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes (1536-1896) by John Stephen Farmer (1896)
"i Understand, if you please, I'ma travelling thief, The gonophs all call me the gypsy; By the rattler I ride when I've taken my brief, And I sling on my ..."

2. Tales of Mean Streets by Arthur Morrison (1921)
"And apart from that, why did other gonophs get lucky touches for half a century of quids at a time, while he! ..."

3. The Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal (1860)
"... in contrasts with the young "gonophs," or thieving boys of Lou- don. Let the ordinary " gamin" be measured against the blue-coated British butcher boy, ..."

4. Revelations of Prison Life: With an Enquiry Into Prison Discipline and by George Laval Chesterton (1856)
"Thieves, gonophs, or crossmen, in London, are divided into several mobs or gangs, named from the district which they inhabit, distinct from each other ..."

Finewirers? Unable to find out what the heck that means! Will keep looking.

Gonim or Ecalpon

pg 49

Rincewind is considering his escape from Ankh-Morpork and thinks, "Let him but but get to Chimera or Gonim or Ecalpon and half a dozen armies couldn't bring him back."

Gonim and Ecalpon are two names that do not occur again.

Meantime, events in the story are changing. The Emperor of the Agatean Empire wanted Two Flower kept alive, but now the Emperor's Grand Vizier, Nine Turning Mirrors, sends a message by Albatross Mail saying he wants Two Flower dead.

The Patrician brings up the Assassin's Guild - their President at the moment is Zlorf Flannelfoot - hardly a name to render fear or apprehension to the reader. In this first book, the names of the Ankh-Morporkians are rendered in such a way, but before long they will return to normal names for the humans, and leave the exotic names for the rest of the beings that inhabit Discworld.