Burds

Over the years, the royal falconers of Lancre have compiled a book of information about birds (or Burds). This is a handwritten record; partly a list of the birds found in the kingdom, or spotted on the migratory route on which the kingdom sits, usually brought down by one of the hawks. The ledger is filled with careful drawings, bursting with extra pages where entries have been copied, re-copied and updated. The odd feather carefully stuck in by enquiring falconers adds to the thickness.

There’s no index but some past falconer rearranged many of the entries in alphabetical order. So when Hodgesaargh (don’t ask), the current falconer, finds an interesting feather, or is it a flame?, he reaches for this ledger and carefully turns to F and after a little thought, P. He’s found a phoenix feather.

Also featured in Carpe Jugulum is The Old Book of Om. The Omnian priest Mightily Oates tells Agnes Nitt that the book is rather unyielding on the subject of witches. Having studied the passage in the Second Omnian IV text, Mightily Oates is advancing a daring opinion that the word in question translates not as witches but as ‘cockroaches’. Especially as it goes on to say they can be killed by fire or in traps of treacle. And you can be pretty sure that neither Granny Weatherwax nor Nanny Ogg could be successfully trapped in treacle.

Or perhaps the word might be translated as ‘boiled lobsters’....?