L I Y A N A' S . T H O U G H T S

_______________________________________Thursday, February 10, 2005
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The Wee Free Men

Mood: Beachy cos Raggae is playing on my media player

Verdict: I've finished the book The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett a few days ago. And I have also done some research on it. The book written for young adults is hilarious. I enjoyed it from the first page till the last. The Wee Free Men or also called the Nac Mac Feegles are a bunch of fierce drinking-fighting-stealing pictsies that left me laughing on train floors, bedroom floors and pretty much everywhere that I went. Even though I can't speak well with a Scottish accent, I can actually hear it when the Feegles talk. But I had to put the book down ever so often when they were in the Queen's land because of all the nightmare that surrounds them especially when its woven by the scary looking dromes were really really scary. The nightmares can be so real that I dreamt them myself for example the part where they were brought into the masked ball where every person has a head of an animal and goes, 'Fuwah fuwaah fuwah..' Its like what I fear.. clowns and all things human mascots...[ yes. people who don an animal costume. the gigantic ones i mean.]

And I think I'm a witch. hehe. sometimes, I have premonitions and some of the dreams that i dreamt about do come true, how bizarre it may be, it still do come true.

Anyway, here are the best parts of the book:

The first time that Tiffany saw the Nac Mac Feegles..

" There were no flying feathers, and nothing like the panic a fox would cause. But the chickens were clucking excitedly, and Prunes, the cockerel, was strutting nervously up and down. One of the hens looked a bit embarassed. Tiffany lifted it up quickly.
There were two tiny blue, red-haired men underneath. They were each holding an egg clasped in their arms. They looked up with very guilty expressions.
'Ach, no!' said one. 'It's the bairn! She's the hag...'
'You're stealing our eggs,' said Tiffany. 'How dare you! And I'm not a hag!'
The little men looked at one another, and then at the eggs.
'Whut eiggs?' said one.
'The eggs you are holding,' said Tiffany meaningfully.
'Whut? Oh, these? These are eiggs, are they?' said the one who'd spoken first, looking at the eggs as if he's never seen them before. 'There's a thing. And there was us thinking they was, er, stones.'
'Stones,' said the other one nervously.
'We crawled under yon chookie for a wee bitty warmth,' said the first one. 'And there was all there things, we though' they was stones which was why the puir fowl was clucking all the time...'
'Clucking,' said the second one, nodding vigorously.
'... so we took pity on the puir thing and-'
'Put... the... eggs...back,' said Tiffany slowly
The one who hadn't been doing much talking nudge the other one. 'Best do as she says,' he said. 'It's a' gang agley. Ye canna cross an Aching, an' this one's a hag. She dinged Jenny, an' no one ha' ever done that afore.'
'Aye, I didna think o' that...'
Both of the tiny men put the eggs back very carefully. One of them even breathed on the shell of his and made a show of polishing it with the ragged hem of his kilt.
'No harm done, mistress,' he said.

hehehhe eiggs and stones..

When Tiffany the witch told a feegle how she wished her cat, Ratbag, would stop catching baby birds..

" 'Flappitty-flappitty flap! Cheep, cheep! Ach, poor wee me, cheepitty cheep!'
Tiffany ran over to the window.
There was a Feegle on the path. It had made itself some crude wings out of a piece of rag, and a kind of beaky cap out of straw, and was wobbling around in a circle like a wounded bird.
'Ach, cheepitty-cheep! Fluttery-flutter! I certainly hope dere's no' a pussycat around! Ach, dearie me!' it yelled.
And down the path Ratbag, archenemy of all baby birds, slunk closer, drooling. As Tiffany opened her mouth to yell, he leaped and landed with all four feet on the little man.
Or at least where the little man had been, because he had somersaulted in midair and was now right infront of Ratbag's face and had grabbed a cat ear in each hand.
'Ach, see you, pussycat, scunner that y'are!' he yelled. 'Here's a giftie from the t'wee burdies, yah schemie!'
He butted the cat hard on the nose. Ratbag spun in the air and landed on his head with his eyes crossed. He squinted in cold terror as the little man leaned down on him and shouted, 'CHEEP!'
Then he levitated in the way that cats do and become a ginger streak, rocketing down the path through the open door, and shooting past Tiffany to hide under the sink.
The Feegle looked up, grinning, and saw Tiffany. "

aaw the wee burdies have allies...

She have jus been promoted to be a temporary kelda.. the overseer of the Feegles. This part when she met a young gonnagle [ a mousepipe apprentice] called No'-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock. What a mouthful..

" 'You've been watching me all the time?'
'Aye, mistress. 'Tis oour task to watch o'er our kelda. I'm up here most o' the time anyway, because I'm studying to become a gonnagle.' The young Feegle flourished a set of mousepipes. 'An' they willna let me play doon there on account o' them sayin' my playin' sounds like a spider tryin' to fart through its ears, mistress' "

cute ain't it.. a spider trying to fart thru its ears.. I wonder how I sound like if I try to fart thru my ears.. hahahahhaha

They were all in the Jolly Sailor tobacco bag's cover. At the beach of golden sand and calm seas. Tiffany was trying to save them all from the Queen and the Feegles were checking the lighthouse for any hiding dromes.. Apparently they saw a bottle of kerosene and thinking it was jus a bottle of strong beer, they have drunk it..

" 'What would that be, then?' said Daft Wullie in a slow, careful voice. 'Would it be the stuff in a kind o' big bottle kind o' thingie?'
'Wi' a wee skull and crossbones on it?' said Rob Anybody.
'Yes, probably, and it's horrible stuff,' said Tiffany. 'It'd make you terribly ill if you drink it.'
'Really?' said Rob Anybody thoughtfully. 'That's verra... interesting. What sort o' ill would that be, kind o' thing?'
'I thing you'd probably die,' said Tiffany.
'We're already dead,' said Rob Anybody.
'Well, you'd be very, very, sick, then,' said Tiffany. She gave him a strong look. 'It's flammable, too. It's a good thing you didn't drink it, isn't it?'
Daft Wullie belched loudly. There was a strong smell of kerosene.
'Aye,' he said.
Tiffany went and fetched Wentworth. Behind her, there was some muffled whispering as the pictsies went into a huddle.
'I told yez the wee skull on it meant we shouldna touch it!'
'Big Yan said that showed it wuz strong stuff! An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off 'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!'
'What's flammable mean?'
'It means it catches fire!'
'Okay, okay, dinna panic. No belchin', and none of youse is to tak' a leak anywhere near any naked flames, okay? And act nat'ral.'
Tiffany smiled to herself, Pictsies seemed very hard to kill. Perhaps believing you were already dead made you immune."

hehehhe when you drink kerosene, don't take a piss at naked flames.. a worthy advice I may say...

Lastly, based on Braveheart's war cries and Higlander's last words, the Feegle's went like this..

'They can tak' oour lives but they canna tak' oour trousers!'
'Ye'll tak' the high road an' I'll tak' yer wallet!'
'There can only be one t'ousand!'
'Ach! Stick it up yer trakkans!'
But the voices came together in one roar that shook the walls:
'Nae King! Nae Quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna be fooled again!'

I love this book. Thanks a million to the owner..

posted by AimiLiyana 6:10 pm

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The Wee Free Men