Readers of alt.fan.pratchett have also engaged in a collective songwriting effort, the results of which can be found in the Pratchett Archives (see Chapter 6 for details), in the file /pub/pratchett/misc/hedgehog-song. See also Chapter 5 for a sample.
* The Song.
The one song that all Discworld fans will be familiar with, is of course Nanny Ogg’s favourite ballad: ‘The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All’ (see also the annotation for p. 36/35 of
Why Was He Born So Beautiful and Other Rugby Songs
The carnal desires of the camel
Are stranger than anyone thinks,
For this passionate but perverted mammal
has designs on the hole of the Sphinx,
But this deep and alluring depression
Is oft clogged by the sands of the Nile,
Which accounts for the camel’s expression
And the Sphinx’s inscrutable smile.
In the process of Syphilization
From the anthropoid ape down to man
It is generally held that the Navy
Has buggered whatever it can.
Yet recent extensive researches
By Darwin and Huxley and Ball
Conclusively prove that the hedgehog
Has never been buggered at all.
And further researches at Oxford
Have incontrovertibly shown
That comparative safety on shipboard
Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone.
But, why haven’t they done it at Spithead,
As they’ve done it at Harvard and Yale
And also at Oxford and Cambridge
By shaving the spines off its tail!
The first version of the song was written and posted by Matthew Crosby (who tried to incorporate all the lines mentioned in the Discworld novels), after which the text was streamlined and many verses were added by other readers of the newsgroup. Currently we have thirteen verses, which makes the song a bit too long to include here in its entirety.
Nevertheless, I thought it would be fun to show what we’ve come up with, so I have compromised and chosen to reproduce just my own favourite verses:
They’ll give you a pain in the worst place they can
The result I think you’ll find will appall:
The hedgehog can never be buggered at all!
Mounting a horse can often be fun
An elephant too; though he weighs half a ton
Even a mouse (though his hole is quite small)
But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.
A fish is refreshing, although a bit wet
And a cat or a dog can be more than a pet
Even a giraffe (despite being so tall)
But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.
You can ravish a sloth but it would take all night
With a shark it is faster, but the darned beast might bite
We already mentioned the horse, you may recall
But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.
For prosimian fun, you can bugger a lemur
To bolster your name as a pervert and schemer
The lemurs cry Frink! as a coy mating call
But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.
Oh the Ball, the Ball of Kerrymuir,
Where your wife and my wife,
Were a-doing on the floor.
CHORUS:
Balls to your partner,
Arse against the wall.
If you never get fucked on a Saturday night
You’ll never be fucked at all.
There was fucking in the kitchen
And fucking in the halls
You couldn’t hear the music for
The clanging of the balls.
Now Farmer Giles was there,
His sickle in his hand,
And every time he swung around
He circumcised the band.
Jock McVenning he was there
A-looking for a fuck,
But every cunt was occupied
And he was out of luck.
The village doctor he was there
He had his bag of tricks,
And in between the dances,
He was sterilising pricks.
And when the ball was over,
Everyone confessed:
They all enjoyed the dancing,
but the fucking was the best.
Lords and Ladies
Please Yourself
.
24
Macbeth
25
26
Hamlet
27
one
one
Hamlet
30
Amongst English (and Australian) children there exists the folk-belief that the seed-heads of dandelions can be used to tell the time. The method goes as follows: pick the dandelion, blow the seeds away, and the number of puffs it takes to get rid of all the seeds is the time, e.g. three puffs = three o’clock. As a result, the dandelion stalks with their globes of seeds are regularly referred to as a “dandelion clocks” in colloquial English.