Marnanel — DWJ stuff — Annotations

Annotations for The Lives of Christopher Chant

Annotations for The Lives of Christopher Chant. Please beware a few unavoidable unmarked spoilers below.

Dedication

This book is for Leo, who got hit on the head with a cricket bat

Leo is the son of DWJ's agent, Laura Cecil. She writes:

"Indeed I remember the incident, when Leo got hit on the head by a cricket bat. He was about 8 years old and it happened at almost an identical time that Diana was writing the episode in The Lives of Christopher Chant when Christopher receives a blow on the head. As you know, Diana’s writing had an uncanny way of coming true in some way. I think what happened to Leo, was a boy in front of him (they may have been going to a sports ground in a crocodile) was mucking about with a cricket bat and swung it round hitting Leo on the forehead, nearly knocking him out. It wasn’t very serious, and I don’t remember him being checked out in A & E, but I think he got off school for the rest of the day. The boy who hit him accidentally was one of the class bullies, whom Leo disliked. There were two bullies, appropriately called Savage and Maul (Mall?) – the hitter was one of these two. I told Diana about this in a letter, as she knew Leo and he had written her a fan letter about Charmed Life, and she told me it was one of her writing "coincidences". I think you probably would find the most accurate account in my correspondence with Diana in the Seven Stories archive, but what I’ve told you was basically the situation. Leo was very pleased with the dedication and it is his favourite of her books."

A crocodile is a line of children who are walking somewhere together. A&E is the accident and emergency department of a hospital, often called the emergency room in North America. The "coincidences" are a large group of events which happened in DWJ's close circles in real life, each soon after she had written about a similar event. Seven Stories is a large museum about children's books, in Newcastle upon Tyne in England

1

when Papa came home from the City

the City is the central part of London, where many of the banks and the large businesses are. The boundaries of the City of London have hardly changed since the Middle Ages: it measures only one square mile, which is about 0.2% of the area of London in general. People call it the City for short, to distinguish it from London as a whole

a figure in a frock coat with a great deal of well-combed black whisker

a formal black coat worn by men. In Our World they went out of fashion in about 1910. Christopher's father must have had a full beard; compare the description of Uncle Ralph in ch2, "the redder foxiness of his moustache. Christopher had seldom seen a man in tweeds or without whiskers"

handing a tall black hat to the footman

a footman is a male servant who acts as a waiter. They were originally employed to run on foot alongside your carriage, to call out if there were potholes or tree roots which the driver should avoid

there is a Reception in this house tonight

this is a formal social gathering with important guests (because they are received by the hosts)

the corner of the night-nursery wall

a nursery is a room of a grand house that is set aside for children; a night-nursery is the same but it's a bedroom

the nursery-maid put him into an unpleasant sailor-suit

children in the 1800s were often dressed in sailor suits, which were based on the uniform of the Royal Navy— a white shirt with a blue flap collar, and white bell-bottomed trousers or shorts. Many East Asian countries still use a variation of this as a school uniform

A good place in Society is worth far more

by "Society" she means fashionable people as a whole

"I thought it might be a dead rat"

the pad for bulking out your hair was actually called a hair rat

the only Society he had heard of was the Aid the Heathen Society that he had to give a penny to every Sunday in church

a mission agency, sending missionaries from England to preach to people in Africa and Asia. A similar real example in Our World was the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Christopher's misunderstanding of "Society" as a young child mirrors, for example, DWJ's own misunderstanding of the maker's name "Twyford" on her basin as "typhoid"

She told him Heathens were savages, who ate people. Missionaries were the best people

it was a common prejudice at the time that people in Africa and Asia, such as the missionaries were sent to, were "savages" with no civilisation at all. "Heathens" was a name for people who were neither Christians, nor Jews, nor Muslims. The nursemaid sees them as "other", which is why Christopher worries about how to recognise them

…and they were the ones Heathens ate

this happened at least once or twice, but people talked about it as though it happened all the time

2

Mama pronounced it Rafe

with a silent L as in "half", though the vowel sound is different. The L was pronounced everywhere until the 1600s, when parts of England began dropping it. In modern England, it's an upperclass pronunciation. Ralph Vaughn Williams and Ralph Fiennes pronounce their names this way

He was wearing tweeds

clothing made of a rough, durable woollen fabric, worn by the upper classes for shooting pheasant and so on, as well as by rural people generally. It has a thin zigzag pattern in a dull colour

arranging for you to start school in autumn

implicitly, an independent boarding school. The British school and academic year begins in September

then your mama is going to recoup a bit by living abroad

she is going to regain some of the money by living abroad more cheaply: In the 19th century it was much cheaper to live in France. Also, creditors couldn't pursue you there

Miss Bell is going to be found another post with glowing references

another job with very good commendations from Christopher's parents, by then her previous employers

tipping his nephew a bright new sixpence

a small coin worth half a shilling, or one fortieth of a pound. In Our World, they were 92% silver between 1551 and 1920, 50% silver and 50% copper between 1921 and 1939, and cupronickel between 1940 and 1968. After that, there were no more sixpences minted until 2016, when 92% silver coins were reintroduced, the same size as in 1968, with a face value of 6p. They're designed specifically for one particular usage of the originals: being hidden in Christmas puddings

If a herring and a half cost three ha'pence

three half-pennies. "Ha'pence" is pronounced /ˈheɪpns/ HAYPns; "ha'penny" is /ˈheɪpni/ HAYPnee. Twelve pennies made a shilling and twenty shillings made a pound, so a pound is 480 ha'pence. By the way, because a ha'penny was so small, little children were often called ha'pennyworths (/ˈeɪpəθ/ AY-puth if you drop the first H). They still are, though few people remember why now

the Last Governess paused in her darning

mending a hole (usually in a sock) with needle and thread. It was an important skill to know before socks became as cheap as they are today

her silver and crystal hair-tidy

also called a hair receiver. The crystal part is a beaker, and the silver part is a lid with a round hole in the middle, though either could be made of other materials. After you brush your hair, you take the loose hairs off the brush and put them in the hair-tidy. When you have a lot of it, you use it for making the hair rats mentioned in the last chapter— though Christopher's Mama also uses it for sympathetic magic

"By Jove," he said

a mild upperclass oath, literally "by Jupiter", the Roman god

He pointed genially to the tuffet

a footstool, after the nursery rhyme about Little Miss Muffet (Roud 20605). The tuffet in that rhyme is probably actually a clump of grass, but people have been interpreting it as furniture for a long time

who can bring back solid items from a spirit trip

spirit walking, also known as astral projection, has practitioners in Our World as well

3

…and shouted. "Hallo!"

"hallo" was originally used primarily as a shout for attention, rather than as a greeting— though at this time it was in transition, as can be seen by Uncle Ralph using it in ch2 to greet Christopher. In Our World Thomas Edison is commonly said to have popularised saying "hello!" when you answer a phone call. Alexander Graham Bell preferred "ahoy!"

Tacroy was wearing a green worsted suit

made of cloth from particularly strong and smooth sheep's wool

4

a picture of a boy blowing bubbles on the top

there were many such paintings, part of a tradition called "vanitas" which compared the fragility of life to bubbles. The best known is Sir John Everett Millais's painting "Bubbles", which was used for many years to advertise Pears' Soap

It had a gold sovereign in it

worth exactly a pound. They are still produced. Since they're solid gold, and inflation has made the pound worth so much less, the sovereigns are now worth rather a lot more than their face value

"I could do it standing on my head." "Which is getting a little swelled"

that is, "you are becoming conceited". "Big-headed" came to mean "arrogant" in the US in the mid-1800s

It's supposed to be a horseless carriage

this meant a motor vehicle in Our World (the OED's earliest citation is from 1895), though of course a carriage which moves by magic is just as horseless as a car

she thought I was a goner

she thought I would soon be dead. It rhymes with honour

I couldn't ask either of them to share my garret

a cheap apartment at the very top of a house

the small gilded dolls-house things at the corners of streets

usually called wayside shrines in Our World. They are found in many different cultures

A lady under an electric blue umbrella

not some sort of electric umbrella: "electric blue" is the same colour as lightning

It was like a crisp bird's nest soaked in honey

it sounds like baklava to me

Tacroy said he could only taste it the way you tasted food in dreams

food in my dreams tastes like food, but other people report that it doesn't taste of anything for them

Tacroy stopped quite cheerfully in a baking alley

not an alley with bakeries, just a very hot one

Here's a turn-up

here's something unexpected

long mouse-coloured hair

greyish brown

Throgmorten

Throgmorton, with an O instead of an E, is the name of two streets in the City of London. They are both named after Nicholas Throckmorton (c.1516–1571). Sir Walter Raleigh's wife was named Elizabeth Throckmorton. Throgmorton was also the name of a major character in the comic strip Sparky People, which appeared in The Sparky comic in the 1970s

5

no notes

6

Tacroy said he could only taste them the way you taste food in dreams

food in dreams tastes like food to me, but other people report not being able to taste it properly

the rings were on pylons high above the ground

"pylon" is the word used in Britain for electricity transmission towers, which sounds to me like the sort of thing we're talking about. There is a much older usage meaning a kind of stone gateway in ancient Egypt. The electricity towers were introduced around the time Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered, and ancient Egypt had caught the public's imagination

This is better than a Bank Holiday at Brighton any day!

bank holidays are public holidays in Britain and Ireland, when the banks have historically been closed. They are almost always Mondays, so that you get a long weekend. Brighton is a seaside town about fifty miles south of London, which was once popular for day trips. "Any day" here means "without a doubt"

I could go round all the garrets

Christopher seems not to realise how big London is

hers were addressed to Baden Baden while Christopher’s said, "Penge School, Surrey"

Baden-Baden is a town in southern Germany, very close to the French border, which was a fashionable resort in the mid-1800s. Penge is a town which was once on the border between Kent and Surrey, and is now a suburb of London. I can't find record of a boarding school there in Our World

The small thin one called Fenning

boys at boarding schools were customarily addressed by their surnames

Someone's been sitting in MY chair!

a famous line from a folktale called "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", about three bears of different sizes

Wool-gathering again, Chant?

daydreaming

All sorts of slush

Oneir dismisses it as sentimental drivel

The Arabian Nights (Unexpurgated)

a large and ancient collection of stories, also called "The Thousand and One Nights". The framing story is about a king, who was in the habit of executing his wives, who married a woman named Scheherezade. Every night she told him a story, which ended on a cliffhanger— so if he executed her, he wouldn't learn the ending. This will be Richard Burton's translation from the 1880s. It was full of "interesting dirty bits", so it was a schoolchild favourite for a century

Little Tanya and the Fairies

if this is a reference, I can't trace it. Farah says, "I think it's a general nod to a species of "fairy story" that was twee even when written."

I've got this cousin called Caroline

she grew up to be Cat and Gwendolyn's mother

Millie Goes to School… Millie of Lowood House, Millie Plays the Game

these are "school stories", a genre of children's stories set in boys' or girls' boarding schools. The first book of the "Jennings" series by Anthony Buckeridge was called "Jennings Goes to School". For Lowood House, compare Lowood School in Jane Eyre, as well as Larwood House in Witch Week

The books were two and sixpence each. Christopher chose out the first five

so he has spent twelve shillings and sixpence, leaving seven shillings and sixpence for the Arabian Nights

"Unexpurgated" seemed to mean that all sorts of interesting dirty bits had been put in

or rather, weren't taken out. There is a lot of sex and violence in the stories, and editors were happy to cut stories they felt to be unedifying

the one beyond the wash-stands

a wash-stand is a piece of furniture with a basin on top and a jug to fill it with, as well as soap and a towel. They were common in dormitories before running water became easily available there

7

The next day Matron noticed Christopher stumbling about

a matron is the person in charge of the domestic side of boarding, and will manage a lot of practical stuff like clothes, bedding and sleeping arrangements, and general preventative health care. Larger schools would have a number of matrons (for each house or division), and a separate school nurse who would be responsible for actual sick or injured children in an infirmary

a confusing set of people who were called Calendars

the Qalandars are an ethnic group in northeast India. The part of the Arabian Nights with Qalandar characters contains recursive stories: each successive Qalandar is the hero of a story told within the story of the previous chapter

snowballing with the stable lads and Caroline

a play-fight where you throw balls of snow at one another

he would be carrying parcels of books across the Place Between for the rest of his life

out of interest, if a parcel of books is worth 12/6, and if Throgmorten is worth, say, £5000, and if Christopher brings the Goddess a parcel every week, it would take him 154 years to clear the debt. Throgmorten no doubt believes his own value to be infinite

8

Christopher found himself at Covent Garden market

it's in West London and it's huge: 57 acres (20 hectares). It's particularly famous for fruit, vegetables, and cut flowers. In Our World the market moved out of the district of Covent Garden in the 1970s, to Nine Elms, three miles away

Uncle Conrad's house in Wiltshire

in the southwest of England, ninety miles (150km) from London. Among other interesting things, it contains Stonehenge

the kind of boy Fenning called a "stuck up pratterel"

"stuck up" means pompous, but the splendid "pratterel" appears to be a coinage of Fenning's

never having ridden to hounds

"riding to hounds" is riding a horse, following dogs who are chasing a fox or a hare to kill it. This is traditionally an upper-class activity, but Francis sees Christopher as middle-class, and a soft city boy

from the great height of his trim bay gelding

"trim" means elegantly groomed. "Bay" means a reddish-brown horse with black ears, mane, and tail; the word only seems to be used to describe horses. A gelding is a male horse which has been castrated

Papa was well shot of this particular branch

well rid of it

It was the cricket season

cricket is played in the summer, and football is played in the winter

I'm a bowler myself… Slow leg-spin

leg-spin is a bowling technique where the ball spins, to make hitting it more difficult

What are you, an opener?

each of the members of a cricket team takes a turn to bat. The captain decides on the order. Some players are better suited to open— that is, go first— for psychological and other reasons

I fancy myself as a stroke player

any hit is a stroke, but he means the more defensive strokes, rather than a straight cut attacking stroke that sends a ball for six. A ball out of the boundary will be automatically a six, and you don't have to run

forward defensive play

a block stroke. The point is to defend the wicket, rather than trying to make runs— so you keep the ball away from your legs or the wicket

Bags I bat first!

the first person to say this will claim the right to go first

Oh, fudge to your wretched horoscopes

"fudge" is an interjection meaning "stuff and nonsense!". Interestingly, this is the original meaning of "fudge", from the 1700s; the sense of "soft toffee" is from the 1900s

Nobody in that world spoke English

thus it's not one of the Related Worlds at all

9

He was rather afraid that Mama was going to be disappointed in him when he turned out to be a professional cricketer

at the time, there was a distinction between cricketers who were Gentlemen (upper class, and not paid because they didn't need the money) or Players (who were working class, and received a salary for playing). There were regular "Gentlemen v Players" matches between 1806 and 1963. Thus Christopher's ambition to become a professional would have appalled his mother

We shall be sorry to lose our nine days wonder

a nine days wonder is a brief fad, which seems a rather rude way to describe a person. The idea that a fad lasts nine days goes back at least to 1350

These Cambridge dons… We both know what they are

"these members of academic staff at Cambridge— we know their strange habits." Cambridge is a collegiate university, as are Oxford, Durham, and a few others. The University itself deals with lectures, exams, and practicals, but all the academic staff and students are also members of one of the colleges— in Our World, there are thirty-one. These are nominally independent organisations providing small-group teaching, food, housing, and pastoral support. Academic staff are generally called fellows of their college. They were once called dons, but the term has fallen out of use these days

I had to pull a few strings

call in a few favours

the train drew into the Great Southern terminus… galloping and rattling towards St Pancras Cross

in Our World, a journey from Penge East into central London would take you to Victoria station, named after Queen Victoria. She presumably never became queen in 12A. Journeying on to Cambridge, you would leave London via King's Cross station. It's next door to St Pancras station, and they seem to be merged in 12A. Usually you would get between Victoria and King's Cross on the Tube (the London Underground railway), rather than in a taxi— so it seems the Tube doesn't exist here either

Monsignor de Witt

the title Monsignor is used by priests of high rank in the Roman Catholic church. Was Gabriel de Witt a priest? Or if the Church of England in 12A never broke with Rome, perhaps this is a papal honour awarded for secular work

looked round the sooty carriage

one of the problems with early rail travel was that the smoke from the engine blew back into the carriages, filling them with soot

all this and the kress toe mancy

as in each book, DWJ shows the reader how to pronounce the title

full of young men in gowns

Cambridge used to be for men only in Our World, and also in this story. A gown is a garment made of rough usually black cloth, with sleeves, open at the front, which reaches down to your knees (if you don't have a degree) or your ankles (if you do). Most universities expect you to wear a gown at graduation, but at Cambridge you wear it on many occasions, though usually without the hat and the hood. Before the 1960s in Our World, and also in this story, you had to wear it whenever you were outside your college

rooms in a lodging house

a sort of extremely cheap and tatty hotel

Dr Pawson's house in the Trumpington Road

the A10 (and A1134), which runs south and then southwest from the city centre, through the village of Trumpington. At one point it was the last part of the journey up from London

unloading the pockets of his Norfolk jacket

a kind of belted tweed jacket with stitched-down pleats, which was a popular uniform at independent schools before the First World War

a chewed rubber

an eraser. The material rubber gets its name from being used to rub out mistakes

peas for Fenning's pea-shooter

a pea-shooter is a small tube used as a toy weapon. You put a dried pea in one end, then blow into the other. The pea shoots out and (hopefully) hits your target

a silver threepenny bit he had not known about

usually pronounced /'θrɛp(ə)ni/ THRUPuhni or /'θrɛpni/ THRUPni, and worth three pence (3d)— so, one quarter of a shilling, and one eightieth of a pound. They were made of silver from 1551 to 1941, and cupronickel with a different shape from 1937 to 1967. Yes, these ranges overlap

or I'll put a Visitation on you

visitation can mean both a visit from a spirit, usually an evil one, and also the aftereffects

you'll have to give up money except for coppers and sovereigns

coppers are copper coins— farthings, halfpennies, and pennies, and in the modern system 1p and 2p coins. They were made of silver before 1797, then actual copper until 1860, then bronze until 1992, and copper-plated steel thereafter. Sovereigns are gold, as previously mentioned

I can dine in college

colleges provide food for their students and fellows. In particular, there is a meal called Formal Hall several nights a week— in some colleges, every night— where you have to wear a gown

Argent means silver

in French, and also in English in heraldic terminology

10

Be good enough to mend the chamber pot first, and count yourself fortunate, child, that it had not been used

a chamber pot is a china bowl with a handle, kept under the bed to use instead of a toilet. They were particularly useful before indoor plumbing

Christopher… toyed with the idea of making the church spire melt like a candle

the obvious church with a spire is Holy Trinity. There are two other magnificent spires (All Saints, and Our Lady and the English Martyrs or OLEM for short) but they were built a good deal later

while he was walking up the Trumpington Road, he tried to coax the trees that lined it into a different pattern

they are poplars, from what I remember. I hope I'm not the only one who tried to do this every time they walked up the Trumpington Road

his hat— which was just rolling under a brewer's dray

a dray is a kind of lorry (also called a truck) which delivers barrels of beer to pubs. In those days they would have been drawn by horses. They have something like curtains on the side which can be drawn aside to get the barrels out. A squirrel nest is also called a drey, but it's spelt differently

He was stumbling among the people who begat other people

"begat" is the past tense of "beget", meaning "became the parent of". It's an archaic word, and shows that this Bible is the Authorised Version (also called the King James version). Several parts of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, consist of little else but person A begetting person B, who begat person C, and so on: genealogy must have been very important to the writers. The first lists begin in chapter 5

Christopher had got well into Sodom and Gomorrah

in Genesis, God destroys these two cities for inhospitality to strangers (though it has often been interpreted as destroying them for homosexuality). The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is in the 19th chapter, which in the Authorised Version is 12000 words in. People read aloud at about 150 words per minute, so Christopher has been reading aloud for almost an hour and twenty minutes

It was a five-pointed star inside a circle

usually called a pentacle in modern times. It's a way of drawing a magic circle, whose purpose (as Pratchett puts it in Eric) is "to divide the universe into two bits, the inside and the outside". For example, Goethe says that demons can be imprisoned in such a circle

That's Civil Servants for you

civil servants are members of the Civil Service, an organisation which carries out the work of government, as directed by whichever politicians happen to be in power. Since Chrestomanci and his staff answer to the government, they are classed as civil servants

My name is Flavian Temple

Flavian is a rather unusual first name, though the surname Temple is unremarkable. The Flavians were Roman emperors in the first century CE, and there was a Flavian Temple in Rome (the Templum Gentis Flaviae). I don't know what relevance that has, if any

a game of Snakes and Ladders

the board has a 10x10 grid of spaces, and some of them are joined by snakes or ladders. Usually called "chutes and ladders" in North America. Players move forwards according to dice rolls; if they land on a snake they go down it, and if they land on a ladder they go up it. In Christopher's time there were the names of various virtues ("Faith", "Generosity" and so on) at the bottom of ladders, and names of vices ("Drunkenness", "Vulgarity" and so on) at the top of snakes

11

And you have to add copper to sublimate… with a modicum of fire… the flaming tincture must then be passed through gold

this is a partial description of an alchemy experiment. Sublimating means making a solid become a gas, which then condenses back to a solid. (It's ambiguous whether Dr Simonson means "sublimate" as a noun or a verb.) A modicum is just a small amount, and doesn't seem to have a specific alchemical meaning. A tincture is the essential part of something, dissolved in a liquid. (In modern chemistry, sublimating means going straight from a solid to a gas, and a tincture is something dissolved in alcohol.) I am unable to discover how you can pass anything through gold-- perhaps a gauze of golden wires, or bubbling the gaseous mixture through molten gold?

Something in Punch made me smile last week

Punch was a weekly magazine which ran between 1841 and 2002. It printed jokes and satire: in modern times, the magazine Private Eye plays a similar role. Punch was named after Mr Punch, the glove puppet in Punch and Judy, who unrelatedly plays a role in The Magicians of Caprona

cedar was part of the funeral pyre from which the Phoenix was reborn

the Phoenix is a large bird from ancient myth. There was only one, and it lived for five hundred (or one thousand) years. After that time it flew to Egypt (or India), gathered aromatic branches, set them on fire, and burned itself to death. Then, when the fire burns down, an egg would be found amongst the ashes, and from that egg a new Phoenix chick would be born. The cedar tree (Cedrus sp.) has sweet-smelling wood. Pomponius Mela wrote in 44 CE that the Phoenix's fire was made of sweet-smelling wood, but he said it was nard, which is a kind of honeysuckle. However, in E. Nesbit's 1904 book "The Phoenix and the Carpet", cedar-wood pencils are among the sweet-smelling things the children burn to hatch the Phoenix egg. I don't know whether the cedar connection goes back further

purring like a football rattle

a device with a gearwheel at the end of a handle, and pieces of wood that slightly connect with it. When you twirl it round, it makes a rattling noise. People used to bring them to football games in order to encourage their side, rather as airhorns are used these days. They went out of fashion in the 1970s; some say they were banned because they were used as weapons by fans, but I can't find any definite evidence of this

chased Throgmorten out with a besom

a broom where all the bristles are attached directly to the broomstick. Nan Pilgrim rides one in Witch Week

what had once been a mullioned window

a window with a vertical column in the middle, to support both the glass and the wall above, or just for decoration. It was a popular style in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance

12

a huge red machine… with a number on it and the words TUFNELL PARK

this is a London bus. They are always painted red. The board on the front tells you where its route ends: Tufnell Park is in Camden in London, and is well served by buses because it has a Tube station. The route numbers change fairly often. I endeavoured to find out what the number might have been at the time of publication, but failed. Besides, who can say what year Christopher was visiting?

fat books by someone named Angela Brazil

a writer of more than fifty boarding school stories, of the kind that the Millie books are pastiching. She was born in 1868, and died in 1947. Her name is pronounced to rhyme with "dazzle"

13

it was still plenty hot enough for someone who had just come from an English summer

especially in Christopher's world and time. Before global heating took hold, the average of temperatures during an English summer was generally about 13°C, but these days it's often about 15°C or 16°C

"Not germs", the Goddess said weakly

so she knows that germs cause disease. In Europe of Our World in the late 1800s, the "germ theory" (that people catch diseases from other people) was only just beginning to win out over the "miasma theory" (that diseases are caused by places and objects). But perhaps the city in Ten is like a city in India, where they've known about germ theory for many centuries

I want to do Prep and eat stodge and learn French and play hockey

prep is the boarding school equivalent of homework; it's short for "preparation". Stodge is boarding school slang for starchy food, or sometimes food in general. Hockey here is field hockey, which was developed at English boarding schools

…cheek the Prefects… and sneak on my friends

cheeking someone is disrespecting them, "talking back". Prefects are pupils given disciplinary powers over the others. Sneaking on your friends means informing on them to the teachers, which is seen as treacherous

Christopher, get down! Look away!

as noted at the start of ch16, a dragon has the power to transfix you if you catch its gaze. Compare ch14 of Charmed Life, where the workshop dragon transfixes Janet in this way

14

the housekeeper's dug out an oilskin that should fit you

oilskin is cloth that has been treated with oil or wax to make it waterproof. Here it means a garment made of this material, as worn by sailors. The same material is used to make cheap tablecloths

when Christopher could not think of any further ways to spin out the history of the pen of his aunt

"J'ai reçu cette plume de ma tante" (I have received the quill pen of my aunt) was an example sentence in the 1850 book "Cours élémentaire de langue anglaise", which soon became notorious for being at once grammatically correct and completely useless. The equivalents for French-speakers learning English were "My tailor is rich" and "Mr Khettat is an architect"

a young wizard who had come down from Oxford specially

travelling to Oxford (or Cambridge) is "going up", and travelling away is "coming down". I have often wondered what you say if you travel from one to the other

to Christopher's great surprise, Miss Rosalie

for reasons I cannot discover, cricket was formerly seen as unladylike, and women's cricket was a minor thing compared to the men's game. This has changed in the last few decades

carrying his folding stool in one hand and a telegram in the other

a telegram is a short message sent using electrical signalling. You would send one by going to a telegram office in person, or phoning them up, to dictate your message. You paid by the word, so people developed a peculiar abbreviated writing style. Telegrams were abolished in the UK in 1982: not many were sent after it became possible to phone people in other towns

in a striped blazer which looked about a hundred years old and a wide Panama hat

striped blazers in team colours were well known at the time. You wear them to matches, but not while actually playing. Presumably Gabriel played cricket as a young man

lent Christopher some rather large whites

whites are clothes for playing cricket in: a sweater, shirt, and trousers. Traditionally they are white or cream, but in the last twenty years professional cricketers have played in team colours

When the castle began their innings

when it was the castle team's turn to bat

the castle boot-boy

he cleans people's boots and shoes

large horny hands spread out

calloused, from manual labour

15

I'm nearly the age when other people are considered women

it sounds as though the age of maturity differs for women and men. The Goddess is the same age as Christopher, and Wikipedia says he is fifteen in Conrad's Fate a few years later— I can't find this myself, but it seems about right. So she must be about twelve, which suggests that the age of maturity is linked to the onset of puberty, at least for girls. In Christopher's world, assuming it's similar to ours, he wouldn't have been seen as a man until twenty-one

a spicy pancake thing wrapped around hot meat and vegetables

a samosa, perhaps

Time was getting on and it really would be morning at the Castle soon

Christopher assumes (apparently correctly) that time in 12A proceeds at the same speed as in 10, even though the time of day is offset by about seven hours. This isn't always so: in ch18 Gabriel's party return a minute or so after they leave

Bethi's had a kitten and—

reading this chapter to myself always makes me think of the times I've read it aloud to someone— how challenging the "theatre" is, in this paragraph

16

you will set up a serious singularity throughout Series Twelve

a singularity is anything that stands out as rare. There are specialised meanings of the term in maths and physics; presumably Gabriel is using a specialised meaning in magic. It can also mean a single thing where you'd expect multiple, like Christopher himself: perhaps visiting multiple worlds in the wrong way will draw them together

eating almost more chicken and cream puffs than he could hold

this is ambiguous. It could mean chicken, plus a dessert of "cream puffs", i.e. profiteroles. Or it could mean "chicken and cream puffs", i.e. vols-aux-vent made with cream of chicken soup

the standard reference books— Moore's Almanac, Prynne's List and so forth

there are two almanacs called "Moore's" in Our World: "Old Moore's Almanack" with a K, published in London since 1697, and "Old Moore's Almanac" published in Dublin since 1764. Confusingly, they were started by different Mr Moores. They give astrological information as well as dates of planned events on earth. I found nothing that seemed relevant about Prynne's List, though I doubt DWJ picked the name randomly. Perhaps the heroine of The Scarlet Letter was a real person in 12A

"Mordecai Roberts," one of the policemen said, "you are under arrest and I must warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence later. Do you wish to have a lawyer present with you?"

this was roughly the formula used to arrest people in Our World at time of publication in 1988: there was no standard pattern across the whole country until 1995. The basic pattern goes back at least to the 1870s, with "in evidence" often followed by "…against you". In 1995, the formula was changed in England and Wales, to make it clear that you no longer have an absolute right to silence

His boots were handmade calf

the fact that he wears handmade, rather than off-the-shelf, clothes stresses the point that Tacroy has a lot of disposable income

She's my companion these days

as well as its ordinary sense of "person you go around with", "companion" was often a euphemism for "romantic partner". I don't know which is meant here

Walls have ears

people may be listening to us

17

I brought her feeding bottle with me

because the mother cat is dead, so can't feed her

He'll be in clink for years

in prison. Until 1780, there was a prison called The Clink in Southwark in London. Nowadays it's a slang name for any prison

Of all the hard-hearted, toffee-nosed, superior little beggars I've met

"hard-hearted" means unsympathetic; "toffee-nosed" and "superior" both mean sneering. "Toffee" here is probably from "toff", meaning an upper-class person, and has nothing to do with actual toffee. "Beggar" is a euphemism for the unprintable "bugger", used as a term of contempt

the room seemed suddenly homely

welcoming, like your home

the Goddess in his Norfolk jacket and knee-breeches

for "Norfolk jacket", see the note at ch9. Breeches (rhymes with ditches) are like very tight-fitting trousers, usually worn only by boys. Knee-breeches only reach down to your knees. You first got to wear them at a sort of coming-of-age ceremony when you were about seven, called "breeching". Before that you would wear a dress

there were an awful lot of pink claws— at least seven of them in fact

having extra claws is known as polydactyly. It's inherited, and fairly common in cats in certain places. It affects humans too (we get extra fingers) but much less often

I'll think of a way to get that life back for you

a brief foreshadowing for Conrad's Fate, published seventeen years later. DWJ is playing the long game!

When Millie's friend Cora Hopes-fforbes's father broke his neck hunting

several clues as to Cora's social class: hunting (with dogs, usually chasing foxes), the name beginning with a lowercase "ff", and the double-barrelled surname. Although married couples often hyphenate their surnames nowadays, in the past this was practiced mainly by those wanting to preserve their aristocratic names. In the 1800s, the Duke of Buckingham was an extreme case: his surname was Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville

we were all a bit sweet on him

we were all a bit enamoured of him, we all fancied him

"Gosh!" said the Goddess. It was a word she must have picked up from her Millie books

it's a minced oath for "God", so she wouldn't have heard it growing up in the temple of Asheth

I boiled that packet of tea in the kettle, but it doesn't taste nice

this would have been loose-leaf tea, so she should have put the tealeaves into the boiling water and waited for it to infuse. On the other hand, it's said that people trying the Goddess's method was responsible for the development of the teabag

"Come clean," she said

be honest

I told the butler I'd tax you with it

censure you, blame you, ask you difficult questions about it

18

Tacroy? Is that my spirit name?

interesting that he knows his spirit name when spirit travelling, but not when he's in his own world

the camp bed in the corner

a folding bed. They were originally for use in tents by the army

a pawky sort of grin

pawky means wry

Je suis chef de cuisine

"I am the chief cook" in French. Our word "chef" is short for "chef de cuisine". French cooking has long been prestigious in England

charms and sendings and the like

a sending is a ghost created or raised by a magic user, in order to bother an enemy. Sometimes it takes the form of a living creature

19

all in fancy-dress-like

"fancy dress" in Britain means a costume representing a character, like one from fiction or history. Usually you would wear one to a fancy-dress party, which is called a "costume party" in North America. "Like" here means something like "approximately", and marks him as working class

a billhook or a sharp hoe

a billhook is a knife whose point is curved sideways. You use it for cutting branches. A hoe is a blade on the end of a long stick, for loosening soil or weeding

The Wraith seems to have walked into the Arm of Asheth… It’s an ill wind

this is a stock phrase meaning "something bad can have good side-effects". The full phrase is "it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good", where "ill" has its old meaning of "bad"

He tore off his tight, crumpled collar

in those days, collars were made separately from shirts, and attached with studs

20

when the Dright happens to feel interested

"dright" is an obsolete English word, meaning "ruler"

He's called High Father of the Sept

a sept is a subdivision of a nation— in Scotland and Ireland, in particular, it's a subdivision of a clan. In Eleven, though, it sounds more like the Party in a single-party state

you might mistake them for noble savages

a rather patronising concept from colonial Europe, which saw certain groups of people as having better morals than Europeans despite (or because of) having no civilisation

Eat your elevenses

a mid-morning snack at eleven o'clock. Christopher is using this as a wry reference to Series Eleven. This must vex translators

They’re the people who gave rise to all the stories about Elves

elves are often represented as powerful, crafty, and having an ethical system utterly unlike our own. A lovely bit of punning, which must vex translators even more— other than the German translators, since "Elf" means eleven

Erica's mother's mourning brooch

a black brooch, usually made of jet, which women wore to show they were mourning the death of someone close to them— though the Dright would not have known that

those rather nasty gods— the ones that eat their own children

which gods are these? In Greek myth, the god Cronus ate his own children, and so did Lamia. I don't know of any others; there's probably something I'm missing, since Gabriel talks as if it's a motif

You can see I couldn’t ask Rosalie…

presumably, he couldn't ask her to marry him if he belonged to someone else

threw him over one shoulder in a fireman's hoist

his waist over Tacroy's shoulder, his legs in front and his head behind, held steady around the knees. Firefighters used to rescue people this way, but they stopped because it risks making spinal injuries worse. Instead they hold people under the armpits and drag them

21

carrying a heavy mace

a club with a metal head and spikes

blurred glassy quartz, in little pieces

uncut diamonds look rather like misshapen ice cubes. Sometimes they are clear, and can be used in jewellery. Others are brownish, and stronger, and are used in industry. Values of uncut diamonds vary widely, but for a quick calculation let's assume these are low-quality small diamonds (say, 64mm³, roughly the size of a single-carat diamond), which are currently (2023) worth about US$100. A chest big enough to stand on is about 36,000cm³, and since diamonds are odd shapes let's say they fill only half of the space— then we have 200,000 diamonds, giving us a value of US$20 million

I usually strip a life off one of the Temple cats

it has long been said that cats have nine lives, which I suppose makes them all enchanters

playing the game

being honourable

employ them as domestics

domestic servants, servants in the household, which seems to include the garden

Thanks

Researched and written up by Marnanel, with invaluable help from: Philip Belben, Catherine Butler, Janet Eastwood, Gin, Jameela Lares, Meredith MacArdle, Kyla Mackay-Smith, Alayne McGregor, Farah Mendlesohn, Rohina, Ehsan Roudiani, and Jacklyn E Stallcup. Thank you all! If I have forgotten something or someone, please do let me know.