Teaser
"I expect you wouldn't have stolen it if you weren't so hungry, then," she said.
There were several hundred astonished looks.
"Oh, we would, mistress," said the helmet twiddler.
"You would?"
Tiffany sounded so surprised that the twiddler looked around at his colleagues for support. They all nodded.
"Yes, mistress. We have tae. We are a famously stealin' folk. Aren't we lads? Whut's it we're famous for?"
"Stealin'!" shouted the blue men.
"And what else, lads?"
"Fightin'!"
"And what else?"
"Drinkin'!"
And what else?"
There was a certain amount of thought about this, but they all reached the same conclusion.
"Drinkin' and fightin'!"
"And there was summat else," muttered the twiddler. "Ach, yes. Tell the hag, lads!"
"Stealin' an' drikin' an' fightin'!" shouted the blue men cheerfully.
"Tell the wee hag who we are, lads," said the helmet twiddler.
There was the scrape of many small swords being drawn and thrust into the air.
"Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna be fooled again!"
- - - - -
"But you are alive!" she said.
"Ach, no, mistress," said Rob, helping another pictsie to his feet. "We wuz alive. And we wuz good boys back in the land o' the livin', and so when we died there, we wuz borned into this place."
"You mean . . . you think . . . that you sort of died somewhere else and then came here?" said Tiffany. "You mean this is like . . . heave?"
"Aye! Just as advertised!" said Rob Anybody. "Lovely sunshine, good huntin', nice pretty flowers, and wee burdies goin' cheep."
Aye, and then there's the fightin'," said another Feegle. And then they all joined in.
"An' the stealin'!"
"An' the drinkin' and fightin'!"
"An' the kebabs!" said Daft Wullie.
"But there's bad things here!" said Tiffany. "There's monsters!"
"Aye," said Rob, beaming happily. "Grand, isn't it? Everythin' you could ever ask for, even things to fight!"
posted by Chris @ 7:35 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
They have really weird names
I think we should all look at the world the way the Nac Mac Feegle do, you know, as earth were heaven. Do you suppose that for some kind of being this world is heaven?
I hope this isn't our heaven, because if it is we're really messing it up.
Have you ever noticed that it's pretty easy to read accents when they're written down and hear them in your head, but if someone is reading out loud to you they just sound cheesy?
You've never met anyone named Rob Anybody before? :-)
They do have a cheerful outlook toward life and almost no fear. Although they don't always take things as seriously as one might hope, since there's nothing to lose. But I agree, it's a good approach.
The accent depends on the reader, I think. You should try the book on CD because they narrator does a really good job with the voices and accents. But for someone who hasn't practiced and is obviously faking it, it can sound forced.
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