Marnanel — DWJ stuff — Annotations

Annotations for Witch Week

Annotations for Witch Week. Please beware a few unavoidable unmarked spoilers below.

Unusually for a DWJ novel, Witch Week has no dedication. I don't know whether this was deliberate.

Chapter 1

in ordinary blue ballpoint: ballpoint pens (aka biros) replaced dip pens and fountain pens in British schools in the 1970s. Before that, ballpoints were strongly discouraged: you were supposed to bring a fountain pen, and if you forgot you had to borrow a school dip pen and a bottle of rather shoddy ink. My dad was apparently still using a fountain pen in sixth form in 1965
He looked out over the bowed heads of Class 2Y: most schools have more students in a year group than can fit in a classroom, so classes are named in many schools with a year number plus a letter. Larwood House appears to use X, Y, and Z in each year. At the time this book was written, 2 would have meant the second year of that particular school, which makes the members of Class 2Y 12 or 13. But the numbering changed when the National Curriculum was introduced in 1988 to count total years of education, so the class would be 8Y nowadays. The US edition changed the class to 6B, confusing everybody
Larwood House was very strict about that rule: it's not clear where the name Larwood House came from. The name is similar to Lowood Hall, the austere boarding school in "Jane Eyre". Lowood Hall is also the name of the school in the "Millie" metafiction elsewhere in DWJ's Chrestomanci stories. Witch Week is set in Hertfordshire, where oddly enough there is a Larwood School, for "children with social, emotional, and behavioral issues"— but unlike the fictional Larwood, it's a primary school
Nan Pilgrim couldn't get over the vaulting-horse again today: a vaulting-horse was a sort of padded cylinder on legs, about the length of a bicycle, and you ran towards it and used your hands to swing yourself over it. Girls ran towards the side, boys towards the end, but I don't know why. Vaulting horses were banned in athletics competitions around the year 2000, after a number of athletes had broken their backs
I will now describe the Indian rope trick: a standard piece of old stage magic. Generally: a magician threw a piece of rope into the air, but it didn't fall. His assistant, always a boy, then climbed the rope and vanished. Sometimes his body was made to fall down again in pieces
he got called Teddy out of the hymn that goes "Gladly my cross I'd bear". But of course everyone sings "Crossley my glad-eyed bear": school assemblies in England, then and now, are required to have a religious character, generally Christian, and children made to sing hymns every day will quickly invent funny versions. Teddy is a standard name for a cuddly bear. The joke about "Gladly, my cross-eyed bear" is an old one, but I'm not aware of any hymn which actually contains that text. The closest I can find is Fanny Crosby's obscure 1894 hymn Keep thou my way, where the final verse contains the line "Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I’ll bear"
he was remembering the witch being burnt: although witches were burnt elsewhere in Europe, people executed for witchcraft in England in Our World were hanged. Witch trials began in the Renaissance, by the way; in the Middle Ages, the official line was that witchcraft did not exist
It was a thing that would keep coming into his head whenever he was not thinking of anything else, much as he tried to forget it: flashbacks like this are a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, when people have had sudden terrible things happen to them in the past
She and Charles had just time to glimpse the bone-fire: the word "bonfire" is derived from "bone-fire", but it's not clear whether this was because it was used to execute people or whether animal bones were used as fuel
He could hear the yells and police whistles: before police began carrying personal radios in the 1960s, they would carry a whistle as a call for backup from any police officers nearby. (Were police whistles in use in the 1970s in the UK in Our World?)
Two witches were burnt this morning inside Holloway Gaol: Holloway prison, in north London, was the largest women's prison in Europe. It was closed in Our World in 2016. "Gaol" is an archaic spelling of "jail", but it's pronounced the same way
I was brought up to be sorry for witches: there is a parallel here with attitudes towards some minorities in Our World. During much of the twentieth century, for example, it was held to be more enlightened to feel pity for gay people than to condemn them. If that was a conscious metaphor on DWJ's part, it was prescient: Section 28, which prevented teachers from publicly affirming gay students in ways parallel to this story, was still seven years in the future
We'll see them all riding round on broomsticks in the sixth form: there is a longstanding idea that witches can fly by riding on a broomstick— that is, a broom for brushing the floor. The illustrations in my copy show a besom, which is a broom where the brush part is attached directly to the handle rather than to a crossbar at the end. The sixth form is a name for the top two years of a high school, when the students are between 16 and 18
Here we sit like birds in the wilderness: a campfire song, with the same tune as "The Old Grey Mare"
Cuckaburra sits in the old gum tree: an Australian folksong about a sort of brown kingfisher (Dacelo novæ-guineæ). Its name is more usually spelt "kookaburra", a borrowing from the Wiradjuri word "guuguubarra", which sounds like its cry. The song was written by Marion Sinclair in 1932, and is often assumed to be in the public domain
The Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird: an English folksong (Roud 413), comparing unfaithful lovers to the notoriously deceitful cuckoo (Cuculus conorus) which replaces other birds' eggs with its own
two curious furry creatures with large pouches: the witch knows that the kookaburra is Australian, and assumes it must be a marsupial
caretaker: the person in charge of keeping the school clean; known as a janitor in some countries

Chapter 2

and then by a prefect: prefects are pupils given limited authority to enforce rules on other kids
pale scrambled egg on its own: because this was supposed to be scrambled egg on toast
Two purl, one plain, twist two: a knitting pattern. There are many kinds of stitches used in knitting, and you can make various patterns by repeating a sequence of them. Purl stitches enter the previous line from above, which makes them look like a wavy line across the garment; plain stitches (aka knit stitches) enter from below, which makes them look zigzag; twist stitches (aka plait stitches) are looped around, which makes them bulge out slightly
in the middle of the morning, during PE: PE stands for physical education, which is supposed to teach you physical exercise and how to play team games. It happens either indoors in a gym or outside on the school field
in the floppy divided skirts they wore for PE: culottes, nowadays called skorts; they are divided down the middle, and pleated, to give you more freedom of movement but still look like you're decorously wearing a skirt. They are worn over underwear
And there she clung, upside down like a sloth: Nan's centre of gravity is off, so the rope is bent at her hands and her feet are off to the side rather than below them. This isn't necessarily just clumsiness: puberty affects fat distribution in the body, which makes this sort of thing harder to figure out for a while
It was against the rules to run in anything but spikes: spiked shoes are used for sports where you're supposed to run, because they increase friction with the ground
His double-barrelled nasty look had kept him safe up to now: "double-barrelled" refers to a kind of shotgun which has two barrels side by side; many of them allow you to fire both sides at once. Applying this to his eyes is a neat metaphor
I couldn't find my spikes, sir: in British schools, pupils address teachers as "sir" or "miss" according to the teacher's gender
You stay there until you find them. Right?: there is a stereotype that PE teachers are cruel for the sake of cruelty. Mr Towers lives up to this
"My dear Dulcinea!," he said. "What a charming name you have!": the original Dulcinea was a metafictional character in the 1605 book "Don Quixote" by Cervantes. Don Quixote believes that he is a knight from the Middle Ages, and makes up a beautiful princess called Dulcinea del Toboso that he serves. I'm not sure how this relates to the Archwitch
It was as bad as being called Guy Fawkes!: also in 1605, Guy Fawkes was caught in the act of attempting to blow up the king and Parliament. November 5th, the date he was arrested, is called Guy Fawkes Night and celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. Because of this, everyone in England knows about Guy Fawkes; since he will become important to the plot later, overseas editions carry a note at the beginning explaining about him
It's a bootee!: a knitted shoe for a baby
They will find they are down for lunch at high table: in formal group dining, high table is a table at one end of the room where the grandest people sit. Sometimes it really is high, up on a dais
You have to comb your hair and get your blazer clean: a blazer is a light unlined jacket, worn by children as a standard part of school uniform. Schools in a district have different styles of blazer. The school badge usually appears on the front pocket
There were a number of teachers, and the Bursar, and an important-looking man called Lord Something-or-other: the bursar is the school treasurer; we later discover the lord's name to be Lord Mulke; since he has only one name after "Lord", he is a nobleman, either life (he himself was given the title and his children won't inherit it) or hereditary (he inherited the title from his father). At the time, all hereditary lords were automatically lawmakers in Parliament
We always sit with a gentleman on either side of a lady, don't we?: this is a formal seating rule. A seating guide I checked claimed it's because if someone is seated with a man and a woman on either side, they will only talk to the person of the same gender. I think this is nonsense. This gives rise to an interesting mathematical question, the "ménage problem", about how many ways such a group can be seated
They stood there, while Miss Cadwallader was saying grace: grace is a short prayer said before a meal, giving thanks to God for the food. At formal meals, it is said by one person aloud, while everyone stands. Then they sit down and begin eating
They were full of yellow stuff, not quite covering little pink things: the prawns are perhaps served in butter or mayonnaise
It comes from the bottom of a dustbin: the containers used for putting out household rubbish for collection, now supplanted by wheelie bins. Known as a garbage can in North America. Incidentally, Douglas Adams gave this foul liquid in the bottom of dustbins the name "binegar"
its official name was hot-pot. With it came tinned peas and tinned tomatoes: this is probably Lancashire hotpot, a lamb or mutton stew with potatoes. The vegetables are specified as being from tins (called cans in North America) to highlight the incompetence of the cooks. To avoid the risk of botulism poisoning, tinned vegetables are sold pasteurised, giving them a peculiar taste. Tinned tomatoes are peeled whole plum tomatoes and they are soggy
"Now the aim of this dish", she said, "is to use up leftovers": this is quite possibly actually true. Some institutional kitchens save the week's leftovers and serve them together in a stew. It's called resurrection pie or resurrection pudding
washing-up water that has been used at least twice: washing up means washing dishes, not hands as in North America
It's like the gift of tongues!: the gift of tongues is an ability given by God in the Bible (Acts 2) to speak in languages which the speaker didn't know. Some Christians claim to be able to do this nowadays; others claim these Christians are speaking gibberish rather than a real language
eternal detention: detention is having to stay in a particular room after ordinary school hours, generally doing lines or schoolwork. At a day school you would have to leave late; at a boarding school it cuts into your free time. I think the phrasing here echoes "eternal damnation"
Do you know that lovely old house in the High Street?: the High Street is the most important street in a town, where the big shops and so on are. In North America this is usually called Main Street
It used to be part of the gate in the old town wall: there is only one walled town in Hertfordshire, which is St Albans. Since the wall was built in Roman times, before the story's world split from Our World, I think this is definitive
You know it has a king-pin roof, don't you? …And a queen-pin: Miss Cadwallader, or perhaps DWJ, has confused "king-pin" (the biggest skittle in ninepin bowling, or a large bolt, or an important person) with "king-post". A king-post in a sloping roof is the post which hangs down from the highest point inside the roof to support the middle of the horizontal tie-beam. Queen-posts are similar except that there are two, each a third of the way across. None of this is common knowledge and it would have been baffling to the children
stately homes in the country: grand mansions
Rice pudding! he exclaimed: rice pudding is made by boiling starchy rice in milk and then sweetening it with sugar. It's lovely unless you make it like this with too much milk
"She turned out to be a ghoul," Nirupam said: this is the story of Sidi Nouman. The Arabian Nights, also called the Thousand and One Nights, is a collection of medieval Middle Eastern stories. Nirupam has misremembered: the woman was a human cannibal who used to feast on human remains every night in the company of a ghoul

Chapter 3

bags of knitting wool: in British English, knitting yarn is often called wool even if it's artificial fibre
We had permission to go shopping: specifically, permission to go off-site
She had planned to… galvanise 2Y with her scheme: in the 1780s, a scientist called Luigi Galvani accidentally discovered that electricity makes the muscles move in the legs of dead frogs. The plan is the electricity, and the dead frogs are 2Y's motivation. Galvani was also responsible for figuring out how to coat steel with zinc, which is why we talk about galvanised iron, but that's not the sense used here
You have four of the most evil eyes I ever saw: "four-eyes" is a standard childish insult for someone who wears glasses. For "evil eye", see later
Please, Miss Hodge, the bell's gone: schools generally have a bell or a system of bells, usually electric, to signal the end of a lesson period. Sometimes the kids will start packing up their books, whereupon the teacher will growl, "It's a signal to me, not to you."
Slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails: a line from a fanciful old rhyme about the different materials stereotypical girls and boys are "made of". In North America, this is usually given as "Slips and snails…" instead
how he would get from Timbuktu to Uttar Pradesh by bus: Timbuktu (also spelt Timbuctoo) is a city of about 50,000 people in Mali, and is the standard for faraway mysterious places in English. Uttar Pradesh is a state in northern India, eleven thousand miles from Timbuktu (this is a setup for a joke later). I have tried to find out how to get between the two by bus, but I can't find timetables for Mali. I wonder where Brian was getting his data
she had been writing almost as if she was possessed: the Victorians called it furor scribendi, the fury of writing

Chapter 4

raced to the lower school girls’ playroom to bag the radiators there: to "bag" something is to claim it; some people call it "calling dibs" on it. Radiators in this time were large; you could easily sit on them, which was good in cold weather. The radiators are chillier in the corridor because they are served from the same hot water system, and the water gets cooler as it circulates
Simon's collection of honour marks: honour marks are positive write-ups in your file. Simon takes all the credit
he had business in the shrubbery, watching the senior boys meeting their senior girlfriends there: there’s very little privacy in a boarding school, so people hide in out-of-the-way places like the shrubbery for kissing. Spying on them is evidently a source of pleasure for Dan
Tell me another: a stock phrase, meaning more or less "what you just said was ridiculous". It implies that the speaker has interpreted what they heard as a joke, and they want to hear another joke
It was like being possessed: like having an evil spirit forcing you to do and say things
"Pig off," he whispered. "Magic out of here": both mean "go away". "Pig off" is a clipped form of "piss off", which you couldn’t write in a children’s book. "Magic" is an obscene word in their world; obscenity works by breaking taboos, and most cultures have taboos about religion, excretion, and sex. The fact that this world also has taboos about magic is important
See that? Mixing the breed: "Mixing the breed" refers to mating different breeds of animal in order to avoid the problems caused by inbreeding. So it’s possible that Dan is denigrating the fat girl by saying she’s a different subspecies to the thin boy. On the other hand, Eric Partridge (a famous expert on slang) says that in the early twentieth century "mixing the breed" was said when someone borrowed a hairbrush, meaning jokingly that the headlice had a chance to interbreed. And DWJ has just said that the boy leant his head against the girl’s head, which is a common vector of headlice transmission in schools
Charles asked the nameless hanging clothes: if they had names written in them, then they would have been claimed; they haven’t, so they stay on the pegs
"Vanish," he said. "Abracadabra… Hey presto": two things said by stage magicians as they work a trick
Take a black mark for that: opposite of an honour mark
I don't like boys who crawl: crawling is being sycophantic, trying to get the teacher’s favour
or you can write five hundred lines every night: writing lines is a punishment. In English-speaking countries it involves writing the same line over and over again, generally a resolution like "I must not lose shoes". French-speaking countries apparently require you to decline the verb
Could you go somewhere and be de-magicked, like clothes were dry-cleaned?: dry-cleaners are shops which clean clothes using solvents (other than water) in large machines
like the school gong when it was hit: if the school has a bell, why does it also have a gong? I don’t know
Born in Steeple Bumpstead, Essex: it sounds fictional, but it's a real place! It’s ten miles from Thaxted, where DWJ grew up, and only has 1600 inhabitants
Dulcinea took a leading part in the Witches' Uprising of 1789: there’s nothing corresponding to this in Our World, except that 1789 was the year the last person was burnt at the stake in England. Her name was Catherine Murphy; she was executed for making counterfeit money, which was seen as high treason at the time
the lead on the roof of St Paul's melted and ran off the dome: St Paul’s is the Anglican cathedral in London, which for some reason is never called "London Cathedral". Its dome is timber, lined with lead to keep the rain out. Lead melts at 327°C, and the middle of a fire is at about 1100°C, so this makes sense if Dulcinea was moving heat from the fire to the lead. But after a short time at 327°C, the timber would have ignited and the cathedral would have caught fire
the work that had been set during the day. It was called devvy at Larwood House, no one knew why: odd, since they learn French at Larwood House. "Devoirs" is French for homework
The gas fire was churring away comfortably: making a purring noise as it burnt the gas

Chapter 5

The shabby room was blurred and swaying, but Charles could have sworn he was now looking down on it from somewhere near the ceiling: this is another symptom of severe trauma; it's called depersonalisation-derealisation disorder. It's a form of dissociation, when the mind disconnects from reality as it tries to find a way to protect itself
the leader was a cabinet minister: one of the people in charge of a government department
The minister was burnt in Trafalgar Square: a large and famous public square in the middle of London
And that glare had caused Mr Wentworth to disappear… It was what they called the Evil Eye: the Evil Eye is supposedly a curse caused by glaring at someone. In many parts of Our World it's not uncommon to have amulets against it
hitting Brian would be sucking up to Simon: trying to get Simon to favour Charles; being sycophantic
Simon of course was dormitory monitor: the person in charge of enforcing school rules in the dormitory
The candle's only for emergencies: specifically, for lighting during power cuts. Loss of electricity was a regular part of life in the 1970s, for various reasons involving labour disputes
He put out his finger and held it in the small yellow flame: self-harming is yet another common symptom of severe trauma
intent on branding it into his brain: branding was originally a way of putting an owner's mark on cattle indelibly, using an iron symbol held in a fire until it was burning hot

Chapter 6

Charles got up: remember? he hates this school
It sounded as if they were having one of their midnight feasts: eating in dormitories is always forbidden, so it's traditional to rise to the challenge and attempt to smuggle food occasionally for a picnic. These are called midnight feasts, even if they occur at 3am and are only a snack
Charles found the light switch. He moved it down and then up in one swift waggle: lightswitches in Britain are on when they're down and off when they're up, the opposite way from lightswitches in North America
It’s like that game – you know, Simon Says – where you have to do things if they say Simon Says: a party game usually played by kids. The other rule is that you lose if you follow an instruction without "Simon says" before it, but that rule has no bearing on the rest of the story
A stuck up—: haughty, supercilious
outside into the lower quadrangle: a courtyard between the buildings, used for playing games, probably tarmac (asphalt concrete) rather than grass
galoshes: a piece of rubber to go around shoes to keep them clean, rather than a shoe in itself
Matron's sixteen pairs of stiletto heels: a matron is a school nurse. I doubt she wore stiletto heels at work, but who knows?
the gardener's hobnails: boots strengthened with pieces of metal under the sole
the caretaker's dog, which was manifestly wishing to raise a leg against the pile of shoes: to urinate against them
I don't know who done it: the grammar is a class marker
Meanwhile, teachers and sixth formers are going to be working hard: as mentioned above, sixth formers are the oldest students, 16 to 18 years old. The American edition wrongly turned this into "sixth-graders", who are 11 to 12

Chapter 7

"What is honourable," Nirupam said, "about going and telling tales?": telling tales means informing on other students to the teachers, which is seen as a betrayal
a pair of luminous green trainers: trainers are running shoes, called sneakers in North America. Presumably they are fluorescent (they turn invisible ultraviolet light from the sun into their visible green colour). Nobody might have wanted them then, but a few years after this book was published, fluorescent clothes became very fashionable
It was called The Pluckiest Boy In School: the book belongs to a genre of fiction called a school story, about life at boarding schools. They were very popular at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century. Often adults intended them to teach moral lessons to their readers. The "Millie" metafiction elsewhere in the Chrestomanci stories is another pastiche example. In a way, Witch Week itself belongs to the genre
"What ripping fun!" exclaimed Watts Minor. "I'm down for scrum half this afternoon!": "ripping" is archaic slang for "excellent". For some reason, boys in school stories are always called by their surnames (girls are called by their first names). Watts Minor is the younger of two brothers at school; his elder brother will be called Watts Major. "Scrum half" is a position in a rugby team, and "down for" means he's been assigned it by a teacher
"Listen to this!” he was saying. "Swelling with pride, Watts Minor gazed into the eyes of his one true friend. Here was a boy above all, straight alike in body and mind—": part of why this is funny is that the story is trying to encourage readers to admire and emulate boys like Watts Minor's friend. But the prose is so overblown that it sounds like Watts Minor has romantic feelings for his friend, which would have been a shocking idea to the author of that book
cast on stitches for a matinee jacket: casting on is setting up the initial loops of yarn on your knitting needles; a matinee jacket is a woollen cardigan for a baby
something which was not Simon himself, but something which belonged to Simon so personally that any witchcraft worked on it would work on Simon at the same time - a detachable piece of Simon, really: this is called sympathetic magic, and it's a standard kind of witchcraft
Take me down to Matron in the sick bay: a sick bay is the medical room in a school or a ship. It would have beds, bottles of medicine, and the matron's desk. On a ship the room may be an actual bay (that is, a compartment)
Brian had got him over a barrel: Brian would have the advantage over him whatever happened. The saying comes from old punishments in the navy, where people would be bent over a barrel and whipped
Typical Theresa double-think: double-think is a concept from George Orwell's book "1984", where people can learn to believe two contradictory things simultaneously. It seems to me, though, that Theresa doesn't believe what she's saying, which makes it plausible deniability instead
"Yes, everyone knows that witches don't drown," said Delia. "You can put them right under water and they stay alive": occasionally, when someone was accused of being a witch, people would test whether they were guilty by dropping them in water. The idea, which Delia has half-remembered, was that witches were so evil that water would refuse to touch them; sometimes this was linked to the use of water in Christian baptism. If they floated, they were held to be guilty and executed. There is an idea in modern times that if they sank they would drown, so they were bound to die either way. This fits Nan's situation in this scene very well. In fact they had a rope tied around them so they could be hauled out if they sank
Heather turned on the cold tap: mixer taps are rare in England even now, and they were unknown in those days
Stupid hussies!: "hussy" was an old pronunciation of "housewife" which came to mean an insolent girl. Often the word implies promiscuity, but not here
These are pieces of eight. This is a doubloon: both are Spanish coins from around the 1700s, which are remembered in English-speaking countries because they're mentioned in stories about pirates. Pieces of eight were actually made of silver, which I suppose makes Simon's coins extra valuable. A doubloon was a gold coin worth four times as much as a piece of eight. They were called "pieces of eight" because people used to cut them up into halves, quarters, and eighths to make change
Just like that king in the story: Midas, king of Phrygia. Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold, and it was granted. Simon has perhaps forgotten how badly this worked out for Midas
her hand was too heavy to hold up: the density of gold is 19.3kg/m³ and the density of a hand is 1.1kg/m³, so a gold hand would be about seventeen times as heavy

Chapter 8

"Some theories do say that an Ice Age starts with extreme heat": or at least that extreme heat can bring on an ice age. The heat melts glaciers, and also increases rainfall towards the poles, both of which disrupt ocean currents like the Gulf Stream which ordinarily distribute heat. There's a lot more to it; like most things in climate science, it's very complicated
"Sit in the back bench," he said. "There's a store of comics in the middle, on the shelf underneath": as we soon learn, the detention room in Larwood House is an old science lab. This would have several tables running the width of the room, and pupils sat on one side of them, facing the teacher standing at the blackboard at the front. After the 1960s, open-plan school science labs came into fashion, with tables grouped around the room
the wind was whirling crisp packets about: empty crisp packets, called bags of chips in North America, are ubiquitous litter in schools

Chapter 9

propped Mr Towers’s awful book against the stump of an old gas-pipe': there are small pipes carrying natural gas to taps on the top of the bench (that is, the surfaces you work on, not the things you sit on). You connect a rubber tube to the gas tap and the other end to a Bunsen burner
I bet Dulcinea Wilkes used to sit on her broom, gracefully, sidesaddle probably: riding a horse sidesaddle is riding with both your legs on the same side, using a special kind of saddle. It was once thought inelegant for women to ride with one leg on either side
And because it was London, she probably wore an elegant silk dress: I'm not sure where Nan gets her ideas about London people
The houses were all dark, with orange chains of street lights in between: before efficient LEDs, street lights were usually sodium vapour lamps. They're cheap to run, but they only produce yellow-orange light, so everything appears monochromatic
the blackness of Larwood Forest on the hill opposite: there were no forests in Hertfordshire in Our World at the time of publication, though Heartwood has been planted since. Epping Forest is not far over the border with Essex, though
It made particularly heavy weather of lifting Nan upwards: it was working very hard, or at least pretending to be
Come and help put these blankets in the airing cupboard: an airing cupboard contains the hot-water boiler, and slatted shelves where you put clothes after washing them. As the water heats, the heat dries the clothes
Training with the witches' underground escape route: meaning a secret escape route, not literally underground

Chapter 10

Your word is my command: another Arabian Nights reference; this is what the genie says to Aladdin, though Simon means it ironically
trying to get himself Invalided out of school: sent home because he's ill
The Inquisitor will be here before dinner time: as so often in British schools, "dinner" here means "lunch"
Several healthy Alsatians were getting out of it: Alsatians are large dogs, known in the rest of the world as German Shepherds. People in Britain began keeping them in 1919, just after a war with Germany, and the owners didn't want to suggest their dogs were German. So they renamed them after Alsace, a region that had recently stopped being part of Germany
He who would valiant be: the first line of a hymn often sung in schools. It began as a song in John Bunyan's 1684 book "Pilgrim's Progress", beginning "Who would true valour see…" Then in 1906 Percy Dearmer rewrote it as "He who would valiant be…", for some reason that escapes me. There are three verses, and the last line of all of them is "To be a pilgrim"
They're trained to tear people to pieces, those police dogs: Dan's imagination is running wild. These dogs are sniffer dogs, and even the police dogs who chase suspects are trained only to hold them until the humans arrive. After all, it would spoil the fun for the Inquisitors
dressed as witches, in long trailing black dresses, pointed black hats and all: witches are often depicted wearing black cloaks and a steeple-crowned hat— a black cone with a wide brim
there was Estelle, looking very trim and pretty in jodhpurs, red sweater and hard hat, with her legs in shiny boots, pointing at Nan with a riding crop: jodhpurs are tight trousers for horseback riding. A crop is a flexible stick about 80cm long with a flap at the end. Technically it's a whip, but you must never punish a horse with it: it's simply an extension of your arm
In my bad dreams like that, I don't have any clothes on at all: apparently this is a common nightmare about fear of vulnerability, which certainly fits Estelle's situation
At length they reached the strange red brick castle which was the Old Gate House: I don't understand the relevance of Miss Cadwallader saying the house was to be knocked down. Was it just to introduce the house's existence, or is there more to it?
Each had a huge red cross on one side: presumably as if they were collecting for the Red Cross
I don't know why they're called the Oaks. Every single tree there is a beech tree: DWJ is doing something clever here and I confess I have no idea what it is

Chapter 11

Bags I the broomstick: "bags I" is a formula for claiming something, as with the radiators in Chapter 4
an old wet-mop propped in one of the buckets: a wet-mop is the kind of mop you use to wash floors with water, as opposed to a dry-mop which is more like a broom
The shoes as a whole became what is known as a Black Forest gâteau: a layered chocolate cake with cream, cherries, and cherry brandy. The Black Forest is in southwest Germany; the cake doesn't come from there but the brandy does. Known as a Black Forest cake in North America
Finally he was slewed through a bed of nettles… The hoe tipped him off into a blackberry bush: both are common weeds, and both are unpleasant places to end up. Nettles (Urtica dioica) cause a painful rash if you touch them. Blackberries (Rubus sp.) grow as brambles, long trailing stems with very sharp thorns which can even tear through denim
Behind the fire… was a small orange tent: small tents are often orange so they stand out if you need to be rescued, though I suppose Brian would have been better off magicking it to a camouflage pattern
He could see green fields through a mass of hazel leaves: like most deciduous trees, hazel (Corylus avellana) has yellow leaves late in the year. Not closely related to witch-hazel, though that would have been funny
Charles Morgan's mop looked as if he had slain an old age pensioner: an "old age pensioner", often written OAP, is someone receiving what was called an "old age pension" until 1946, when it was renamed the "retirement pension". Apparently nobody noticed, because the name "OAP" remained in common use. At the time you had to be at least 65 if you were a man or 60 if you were a woman
she had written, in shaky capitals, how to say this word: KREST-OH-MAN-SEE: DWJ spells out the pronunciation in four books: in Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, here in Witch Week, and in the preface to Mixed Magics
Having smoothed his hair, this man rearranged his starched white shirt cuffs and straightened his already straight pale grey cravat: this Chrestomanci is therefore Christopher Chant

Chapter 12

"Just outside Larwood Forest," Nan said. "In Hertfordshire.": Hertfordshire is a county just north of London. As mentioned earlier, in Our World it contained no forests at the time of publication
Nan found herself holding Brian's hand… She had never thought the time would come when she would be glad to do that: other than with very small children, English people hold hands only with romantic partners
He asked… what was the EEC: the European Economic Community, which later became the European Community, and then the European Union. The UK had joined ten years before, in 1973. I am going to assume you know something about Hitler, Gandhi, Walt Disney, and reggae
he examined a lorry parked outside the supermarket: a lorry is called a truck in North America
It was just an ordinary lorry with Leyland on the front of it…: Leyland manufactured lorries with their name in large letters on the front. After this story was published they was nationalised as British Leyland, then privatised again. They're still making lorries, but now with DAF on the front. The Indian firm of Ashok Leyland has been a separate company since the 1980s
…and Heinz Meanz Beanz on the side: since 1967, Heinz baked beans have used the slogan "Beanz Meanz Heinz", and although many people believe it was "Heinz Means Beanz", it never has been. So either DWJ knew it was really BMH and was using this as an example of the difference with Our World, or she believed it was HMB and was using it as an example of something ordinary. This is an example of the Mandela effect, a widespread false memory— and funnily enough, some people have cited this sort of thing as evidence of parallel worlds
as far as the tatty draper's: a draper sells cloth and clothing
How long have you had decimal currency?: in Our World, decimal currency began in 1971, replacing the old pounds-shilling-pence system. Chrestomanci's world still uses it
It's down in the cellar, you see, hidden from the Inquisitors under seven tons of coal: for a long time before the 1970s houses were heated with coal. Often this was stored in a coal-cellar, which would have a hatch in the road for the coal delivery people to pour coal down. This made for a good hiding place
I think it was Oliver Cromwell who made the first laws against witches: Cromwell ruled between 1653 and 1658, and is remembered for allegedly banning a lot of things including Christmas
Somebody did once tell me that Elizabeth I was probably a witch. Because of the storm which wrecked the Spanish Armada: the Armada was an invading naval force. It was defeated by the English navy on 8 October 1588, while Elizabeth I was queen. The Armada attempted to run away back to Spain by sailing around Scotland, but the next day a big storm scattered them along the rocks of the whole western coast of Ireland
And now you all propose just to walk out and leave the mess you’ve made. Is that what you mean?: Chrestomanci explicilty refuses to be the "deus ex machina" in this story

Chapter 13

Her hi-fi and tape deck took up most of one wall: a hi-fi is equipment for playing records (CDs hadn't quite come in yet). A tape deck plays audio cassette tapes; presumably it's part of the same system. Even though such systems were generally larger than their modern equivalents, one which takes up a whole wall is particularly fancy
Most of them seemed to be mystery stories: this seems relevant, but I don't see how
Miss— er— Kidwelly: Chrestomanci is getting her name wrong on purpose, the same way Janet Chant does for Mr Balsam in Charmed Life. Kidwelly is the English spelling of Cydweli, a small town in southwest Wales
Come to my study for sherry before lunch: sherry is fortified wine, traditionally drunk (by adults) before going in to lunch
I was chairing a meeting of the Walpurgis Committee: Walpurgis Night is celebrated in continental Europe on 30 April, the evening before a festival commemorating an English nun named St Walpurga. This took over much older spring festivals including bonfires and gatherings of witches. What this has to do with England in November is not clear to me
I think I'm interrupting a Witches' Sabbath: people used to think that groups of witches held regular midnight gatherings along with demons and devils. They were called sabbaths, but they were yearly rather than every week
took hold of the receiver of Mr Wentworth's telephone: the receiver is the handset, with the listening and speaking parts. It's attached to the body of the phone with a curly cord
It gave out a lot of tinkling: when a phone rang, the ringing sound was produced by an actual electric bell inside the body of the phone. If you shook the phone you would hear the striker hitting against the bell
a small gust of wind rustling the papers on Mr Wentworth's desk seemed to prove she was gone: the air must move into the space she was occupying
How can Miss Hodge be a teacher and not use witchcraft at all? I use it all the time. How else can I have eyes in the back of my head?: someone is said to have eyes in the back of their head if they can know what's going on behind them— for example, what's going on in the class while they're writing on the blackboard at the front
Like the Battle of Waterloo. In our world, Napoleon lost it: also in Our World. Waterloo was a major battle in 1815 between the French, led by their emperor Napoleon, and several other countries led by the Anglo-Irish general the Duke of Wellington. Wellington called the battle "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life". Control of Europe was at stake
The only place they speak English there, oddly enough, is in India, where they are very British and eat treacle pudding after their curry: I'm not sure why India, in particular, would avoid a takeover by Napoleon. At the time of Waterloo it was largely run by a British corporation called the East India Company, rather than by the state, so perhaps that made a difference. In Our World there was an uprising in 1857 which led to the British government taking direct control of the Indian colonies
A surprisingly small change always alters the new world almost out of recognition: see Edward Lorenz's concept of the butterfly effect, where the path of a tornado can be different because of a butterfly flapping its wings weeks before
I know that world rather well, because I have a young ward who used to belong in it: Janet Chant. See Charmed Life for her story. Janet's world, 12B, is said to be Our World
There seems to have been a big increase in about 1606: Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament in November 1605

Chapter 14

those must have been thumbscrews: a thumbscrew is a small vice ("vise" in North America) to slowly crush someone's thumb. It was used in the 1600s to torture people and get them to confess to being witches
He took third and fourth helpings and shared them with Brian: when there is food left over once everyone has been served, people who finish their portion can ask for "second helpings" of the remainder
manacles, a noose, festoons of chains, several kinds of scourge and a cat o’ nine tails: manacles are metal restraints for the wrists (on the ankles they're called fetters), and a scourge is a whip with multiple whipcords. A cat o' nine tails is a kind of scourge formerly used at sea, made of an unravelled ship's rope: this kind of rope is a braid of three braids of three cords, giving the whip nine whipcords
labelled PETROL: also called gasoline, as an accelerant for lighting bonfires (don't do this for real, it's dangerous)
The Observer's Guide to Witch-Spotting: there was a series of a hundred books called "The Observer's Book of…" published between 1937 and 2003. I had always thought they were called "The Observer's Guide…" until I researched this annotation
Jack the Ripper: a serial murderer from 1888, whose real identity was never discovered

Chapter 15

Theresa — er — Fish: a mullet is a sea-fish. The haircut called a mullet didn't exist when this book was written. Chrestomanci wouldn't have known it, even if it had
Burke and Hare, Crippen, Judas Iscariot, Nero and Torquemada: Burke and Hare were Scottish serial murderers who sold the bodies of their victims to medical schools for dissection. Burke was hanged in 1829, but Hare was given immunity for informing on him. Dr Crippen was an American medical doctor who murdered his wife in London. He was executed in 1910. Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. Nero was a bloodthirsty Roman emperor. Torquemada was a famous Inquisitor
Saint Theresa: many saints have borne this name, but Theresa is probably thinking of Teresa of Ávila, who died in 1582
Saint George: allegedly died in the year 303. If a real George did exist, we know almost nothing about him
Lady Godiva: saved the city of Coventry by riding naked through the town on a horse (it makes more sense in context)
Attila the Hun, Richard III, Lucrezia Borgia, Joseph Stalin: four famous villains
Anne Boleyn or Galileo: Anne Boleyn was King Henry VIII's second wife, who was beheaded. Galileo was an Italian astronomer who wrote a book saying that the earth moves around the sun, which annoyed the Inquisition for political reasons. In fact, he wasn't executed: he was sentenced in 1633 to house arrest until he died, which was in 1642
Charles I: king of England and Scotland, who was executed in 1649 after the English civil war
Saint Francis: Francis of Assisi, who died in 1226. He is remembered today as a good man, though he wasn't universally liked at the time
unless it was to prove Mr Wentworth was a mastermind: a mastermind is an extremely clever person, sometimes (not here) in the sense of being a master criminal. But this is probably partly in reference to a longrunning British TV quiz show named Mastermind, where contestants are asked many quickfire questions on a specialist subject
Dick Turpin: an English highwayman, who was executed in 1739
Richard the Lionheart: Richard I of England, remembered today with questionable accuracy as a good man and brave soldier
Mum had said 5 November was the end of Witch Week: I can find no reference to this week being called Witch Week in Our World before this book was published. So this was only in that world, or maybe just in Nan's family
the witch-finder was a gold cigarette case: cigarette cases are small boxes for carrying cigarettes in your pocket, rather than letting them get crushed in the cardboard carton they're sold in
"You move, and I'll order you shot!": note how Littleton, whose are backed by weapons, acts as a foil to Chrestomanci, who can command silence with a cough
Only a hedge wizard would stoop to using a demon: a hedge wizard means an amateur magic user, even in Our World. In fact several famous magic users, such as Aleister Crowley (died 1947) did claim to use demons; magic must be harder to come by here

Chapter 16

Someone walked over my grave: a thing people say when they shudder for no clear reason. Someone in 1868 defined it as a "convulsive shudder which old wives say is caused by a footstep walking over the place of our grave that shall be." I think this could be tested empirically
The janitor was in the classroom: Littleton is now doing the same job as the caretaker in previous chapters. The job title has changed to emphasise
This man… seemed, from his clothes, to be on the way to a wedding: Chrestomanci, a snappy dresser even in his own world, is wearing a morning suit— a single-breasted jacket which is long at the back (called the "tails"), a waistcoat, a cravat, and formal trousers with light and dark stripes. It's called morning dress even though you also wear it in the afternoons. In Our World, at the time of publication and still today, most people only wear morning suits to grand occasions such as weddings
he must be a school governor: the governors are the committee who run the school, and are often Important People
a message to the Old Gate House should find me: just in case you thought Our World had no magic…
the oddest feeling of having been in the same situation before: usually called déjà vu, French for "already seen"
This was, as he well knew, Portway Oaks Comprehensive: a comprehensive school is a state school which does not filter its pupils by ability. They have been around since the 1950s
the stupid boy had eaten a handful of tin-tacks for a bet: tin-tacks are steel with a tin coating; these are the spikes (also called studs, and in North America, cleats) from Charles's running shoes. Eating sharp metal objects is known as acuphagia
she was going away for half-term: half-term is a break, usually of a week, in the middle of every school term— presumably for the sake of the teachers' sanity
They had been going to collect money for the guy: children traditionally push a stuffed dummy, around the town in a cart or wheelbarrow and say "Penny for the guy?" (or similar— it's more than a penny these days) to raise money for the bonfire party. Then the dummy, which is supposed to represent Guy Fawkes, is burned on the bonfire. It's rare these days: I'm almost fifty and I've seen it happen ones
since she had arrived at the school from Essex: the next county. You recall that the Archwitch was also from Essex, so Nan's family were
thick as thieves: close friends. It's a strange phrase and the OED doesn't explain why thieves are more likely to be friends with one another than anyone else

Thanks

Researched and written up by Marnanel, with thanks to the list, Farah Mendlesohn, Sheenagh Pugh, Fay Roberts, and others. More names will appear here when we're done.