DISKUS Volume 6 (2000)
http://www.uni-marburg.de/fb03/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus

FANTASY IN THE STUDY OF RELIGIONS: PAGANISM AS OBSERVED AND ENHANCED BY TERRY PRATCHETT.

Graham Harvey
Reader in Religious Studies, 
School of Cultural Studies
King Alfred's College, Winchester, UK
Email: g.harvey@wkac.ac.uk

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ABSTRACT
Paganism, like many other religions, has generated a growing literature. While Pagans have not (yet) elevated any work to the status of scripture, and while no single text is read by all Pagans, the construction and narration of Pagan identity commonly entails reading. It is argued here that the academic study of Paganism is vitiated if it ignores imagination and humour, especially as manifest in fantasy literature. Terry Pratchett's Discworld corpus provides prime examples of such significant stories and images. 
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Paganism sees itself as a creative, imaginative and above all participative spirituality. Pagans develop their understandings and interactions with the world in dialogue with various inspiring sources or in confrontation with various challenging barriers. Although 'nature' (a complex word with many possible meanings and uses - see the article by Marion Bowman in this volume of DISKUS) is the most common answer to questions about what is central to Pagans and their Paganisms, literature is not inconsequential. No Paganism has a dogmatic creed, few of its varieties are fully represented by allegedly authoritative texts, and certainly there is no single writer who is universally persuasive. However, the formation and development of Pagan identities almost always features significant literary sources. Even those Pagans who honestly claim to be uninfluenced by books have generally been inspired by another Pagan who has assimilated someone else's writings. 

So, while it is true that there are lots of books by Pagans for Pagans, and an increasing number of books by academics about Paganism(s), not all of this material expresses the life or touches the heart of Paganism. It is probably true of all religions that they are not best appreciated through such static forms, and the academic Study of Religions requires exploration of many and diverse cultural manifestations and evocations. Nonetheless, carefully approached, literature can be of great value. Finding a form of literature that matches the self-presentation and the inner-dynamics of Pagan activities and world view can be illuminating-for scholars and 'insiders' alike. 

In the case of Paganism, that range of literature labelled "Fantasy" invaluably expresses and explores Paganism and is therefore excellent material for research and teaching. Fantasy literature is perhaps the nearest contemporary literary form to the story-telling (around fires and sometimes in pubs or front-rooms) that is typical of many Pagan events and celebrations. It also contains enchantment and magic that are at the heart of Paganism today. Experimental enchanting ritual and engaging story-telling represent and reveal Paganism far more than explanatory sermons. 

After suggesting the value of some of this literature as educative texts, I will argue that Terry Pratchett's Discworld series not only observes and describes a world recognisable to Pagans, but also that it enables a more participatory, perhaps transformative, knowledge and experience. In other words, Pratchett contributes to Pagan thinking and living in this world as his narrative unfolds the Pagan world of the Disc. I begin by briefly noting that although none of this is new, it does need to be said clearly as more academics become interested in mapping this rich and varied territory which others inhabit. 

PAGAN LITERATURE

The Pagan renaissance of the last two centuries has largely been manifest in creative literature. Pagans have rarely written tracts, creeds, manifestos, discourses and other polemical literature. They have tended rather to express their vision and experience in poetry and novels. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (1989) convincingly argues that Paganism arose as an Enlightenment religion. Within modernity, however, it can be seen as a counter movement, not only rooted in romanticism with its diverse artistic forms, but also anticipating postmodernist revaluation of myth, imagination, ritual, pluralism and diversity. Similarly, as Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (1989), Michael York (1996) and Graham Harvey (1997) have noted, there is a playfulness in Pagan discourse and ritual which is best reflected not in didactic texts but in imaginative ones. 

Ronald Hutton's history of modern Pagan witchcraft (The Triumph of the Moon, 1999) reveals among other things the literary expressions and inspirations of nascent and embryonic Paganism. This complements his previous work on ancient and contemporary Pagan history (Hutton 1991, 1994, 1996). My discussion is intended to highlight one popular literary genre frequently referred to by Pagans as being inspiring or foundational in their discovery and development of this growing Nature Religion. If academics and other observers of Paganism require texts to build their understanding on or to educate others with, they should turn primarily to this literature, rather than to books offering to reveal "What Witches Do". 


INSPIRATIONAL AND TEACHING TEXTS

Both Gerald Gardner's High Magick's Aid (1949) and Dion Fortune's The Sea Priestess (1976) suggest the kind of thing that these writers and foundational figures thought Paganism was and should be. They describe the training and use of Magic(k), portray the kind of deities honoured, and re-enchant the world for their readers. They may not be great literature but they do evoke Paganism at least as well, and probably better, than later more didactic works like Gardner's 1954 Witchcraft Today and his 1959 The Meaning of Witchcraft. 

It is arguable that J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (1954-5) provided metaphorical binoculars through which the realm of Faerie became visible again. By consigning religion and especially Faerie to myth (understood to mean falsehood) the West or the Enlightenment had declared humanity to be alone in the world and separate from it. Bereft of neighbours, modernity wandered aimlessly in shadowy wastelands, disenchanted and considering itself alien to the world. Tolkien gave back the words for those other-than-human persons glimpsed at twilight in the Greenwood, declared Faerie to be vital and necessary-and a whole generation grew up in an enchanted, richly inhabited world. Tolkien not only rebirthed Fantasy as a genre but also enabled Pagans and others to speak of the Faerie realms without raising the spectre of Victorian whimsy. 

Marion Bradley's re-writing of the Arthurian epic from the perspective of its female characters, The Mists of Avalon (1984), is a useful text for exploring the new myth- making and especially for looking at women's spirituality. If Tolkien offered a Catholic never-never land (albeit one which also inspires non-Christian travellers) The Mists of Avalon offers the possibility that paths through the encircling and obscuring mists may be found. As with all good stories the path to "there" begins here: specifically in the physical, gendered, mundane realities of human lives-especially those of women. These lives are not always so ordinary in Bradley, but the main characters are, at least, more like us than they are different. The mists do contain Otherworld beings of beauty and power living non-human lives but the story chiefly concerns human people having human experiences-albeit in "interesting times". Instead of decrying Fantasy writing as "mere" escapism it might be seen as a mechanism for exploring possibilities and potentials: as a form of ritual or prelude to a transformative rite of passage. Fantasy does not necessarily misdirect people away from consciousness raising, it need not be an opiate, but can be the much needed catalyst for change (cp. Monique Wittig on remembrance and invention, 1985: 89). For example, Clarissa Estes' Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992) blends story-telling, myth-making and insightful explanation in the cause of change, personal growth, reclamation and celebration. 

Going far beyond Tolkienesque derivatives ("sword and sorcery") Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood (1984) and its sequels take readers deep into the shadowy realms of the Greenwood. His Otherworld is very near to this world, as it is for many Pagans. It also blends "outer" and "inner" in a way that many Pagans recognise. His journey into the Greenwood is an exploration of the psyche while Paganism might be seen as a kind of holistic therapy which introduces humanity not only to their inner selves but also to the neighbours in Nature. Unlike previous writers Holdstock allows the Greenwood (inner and outer) to confront us with the 'other', the other-than-human. It is more than merely mysterious; that would be too inviting or enticing. Holdstock's Mythago Wood can be a frightening place-perhaps a numinous place where humanity is confronted with its smallness as well as with the results of its adversarial role in the world. 

A number of Pagans have clearly found these books to resonate with their experience. Others, perhaps, have been encouraged to see seemingly ordinary woodlands in an entirely different light. Things glimpsed at the edge of sight which might once have been passed off as tricks of shade and light, meetings of branch and bough, now become elusive woodland spirits. Attention, practice and the shamanic techniques of ecstasy might bring these to full daylight vision. Not a few Pagans describe walking through woods which become maze-like; just when you think you are nearing the heart of the forest you find yourself back at the edge of the field or village where you started. Something or someone rearranges the paths. A country ramble becomes a Zen- like exercise in paying attention or a maze-like encounter with the unusual. To the criticism that this is projection of inner fantasy onto outer reality Pagans might respond that they are well aware of the intentional nature of their exploration of these possibilities. They often suggest that experience(s) should be honoured and tradition-including personal story or life story-should be treated playfully, "as if" it were true, as perhaps it is. In this way the inner life and the outer world can meet. 

At least as many Pagans have been introduced to Shamanism by reading Brian Bates' The Way of Wyrd (1983) or Gibson's Neuromancer (1995) as by studying more obviously academic treatises. The ethics and practise of magic has been taught subtly in enchantment by Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Quartet (1993) as least as much as in formal Lodges and in serious pathworkings. Later study and re-contextualisation of medieval Welsh tales from the Mabinogion are familiar to many Pagans from childhood introductions through Alan Garner's powerful re-telling in The Owl Service (1992). His Wierdstone of Brisingamen (1995) and its sequels are among the books most frequently mentioned as inspirations (and pleasures) by Pagans -- who certainly contribute to their regular reprinting. Similarly, childhood pleasure in the adventures of Asterix the Gaul and his companions has prepared some contemporary Gallic Druids for their ritual "roaring at the sky". 

These books, a small selection of the Fantasy genre of importance to Pagans (and others), join the enchanting and mythopoetic works of previous generations as resources for the Pagan renaissance. They are quoted or alluded to alongside phrases from Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill, Graves' White Goddess, Wagner's operas and earlier evocations of the Moon and other manifestations of deity from Romantic poets, Irish, Welsh, Norse and Finnish epics and Scottish or Breton poetry. It is significant that the primary literature of Paganism is neither theology, text books nor "how to do it" manuals, but fiction. 


DISCWORLD

It is with Terry Pratchett's Discworld that a Pagan place founded in Pagan cosmology and experienced in Pagan imagination and playfulness is encountered. 

The Disc is a flat world on the back of four elephants who in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle. The turtle pays no obvious attention to the elephants let alone the world above them-and it is only sometimes the focus of concern to the people of the Disc. The elephants themselves have little role in the story. This is an ancient image of the cosmos and Pagans are well aware that it is not a scientific description of our world. It is as part of a fantasy that it is useful in Pagan thinking. For example, the Disc is a world in which magic is common while our scientific (and not yet completely postmodern) world is almost empty of enchantment. The remainder of this paper is devoted to Pratchett's Discworld. Initially, it notes that the Discworld provides a laboratory in which magic-or theories about magic-can be tested. 


MAGIC

*The enchantment of the Discworld is deep: this is a world in which magic is part of the fabric of things. It is not always welcome, does not always work and is understood differently by different practitioners, especially witches and wizards. Few people on the Disc, however, would suggest that magic is a strange thing to believe or engage in. At a moment of extreme danger for the Disc, the Elephants and the Turtle, a movement of "star people"-from the star painted on their foreheads-make magic dangerous; as do the priests of Omnia for very different reasons. 

Conversely in our world, the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann's discussion of contemporary magic is founded on an interest in how "people accept outlandish, apparently irrational beliefs... [and] learn to find it eminently sensible" (Luhrmann, 1989: 7). This makes for an interesting but flawed study which keeps the reader on the outside looking in through opaque glass-despite Luhrmann's initiations in various groups. Berel Dov Lerner's (1995) approach enables us to make considerably more sense of magic: as a means of dealing with the contingencies of life which affirms human agency, independence, abilities and growth. The practised eccentricity of some magicians should not obscure the secularity and rationality of their engagement in magic. Magic is closer kin to technological approaches to life's contingencies than to religious, mystical or "superstitious" ones. In the Discworld , as in ours, the practise of magic does not (necessarily) entail belief or worship of deities. It is a way in which some people approach the world and the self. Pratchett says, "Witches normally work with what actually exists in the world, but a wizard can, if he's good enough, put flesh on his imagination" (Pratchett, 1987: 153). More will be said about Witches and Wizards below. For now, I note only that Pratchett here highlights the intimate connections between magic, the real world and imagination. 

Pagan writers about magic (with or without a "k") are keen on hedging the practise with ethical warnings. Magic, they claim, demands responsibility and a high degree of maturity. Pratchett is honest enough to note that anybody can do magic. His books reiterate the point that the problem is not doing magic, but understanding it and getting away with it. Various understandings are offered though none of them amount to a theory of magic in any sense useful to contemporary magicians. Getting away with it is a more productive issue. For example, Victor Tugelbend, star of the silver screen at Holy Wood and perpetual student-wizard, explains that

'it was as if the human race was a field of corn and magic helped the users grow just that bit taller, so that they stood out. That attracted the attention of the gods and - Victor hesitated - other Things outside this world. People who used magic without knowing what they were doing usually came to a sticky end. All over the room sometimes.' (Pratchett, 1990: 180-1). 

This may explain why magic is said to require training (often by those offering such training) but it does not necessarily explain the actual techniques employed, or as Pratchett says, "why wizards cloaked it about with rituals and the whole pointy-hat business" (Pratchett, 1990: 180). For an insight into this we must turn to Granny Weatherwax. 


WITCHES, DRUIDS, SHAMANS....

The Discworld is inhabited by the full panoply of religious types and archetypes known on Earth. There are fundamentalists, inquisitors, priests and others convinced of their monopoly of the truth and willing to eradicate all other beliefs. There are Druids, Shamans, Wizards, Magicians, Sorcerers ("Sourcerers"), Demonologists and countless believers. Those in this last category are fundamental to the existence of the Discworld's deities and more will be said about them below. 

The Witches of the Discworld are particularly recognisable to Pagans today, being close kin. It is hard to believe Pratchett's claim that they are based on general observation of human nature rather than on close observation of the Witches of our world. His (New Age?) Wiccan, Magrat Garlick, is instantly recognisable at Pagan events. There are also not a few witches who think magic requires the wearing of occult jewellery and black cloaks. Some of them really do call themselves names like Diamanda, Perdita or Amanita. Witches like Granny Weatherwax with no time for "paddlin' with the occult" (Pratchett, 1993: 86) but clearly Pagan in her protection of the land can be found. Her explanation or experience of magic is that it is a matter of "headology": the pointy hat and the arcane words make the spell effective because people expect them. On the other hand, she certainly has powers for which the word "occult" might be useful, but she never acknowledges our need for an explanation of these. She is undoubtedly a role model for many Pagans. The more earthy Nanny Ogg, vociferous singer of raunchy songs, is less obvious, regrettably, but not unknown. 

Pratchett rightly points out that "Artists and writers have always had a rather exaggerated idea about what goes on at a witches' sabbat":

'for example, there's the dancing around naked. In the average temperate climate there are very few nights when anyone would dance around at midnight with no clothes on, quite apart from the question of stones, thistles and sudden hedgehogs' (Pratchett, 1991: 18-9). 

This may be an exaggeration or it may explain the popularity of indoor celebrations ("indoor-Paganism" or "virtual Paganism" perhaps). So might his further comments that the "average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned... the natural size of a coven is one" (Pratchett, 1991: 18-9). That there is some truth in this is perhaps suggested by observations of Pagan group formation and division (see Simes, 1996, and Greenwood, 1996). Pratchett's comic presentation is a friendly critique but it must also be noted that most Pagans like to regard group divisions as based on individualism and the encouragement of strong characters rather than the unpleasantness of sectarianism. 

In addition to the Discworld's Witches the major users of magic are Wizards. While some of these are solitary, most inhabit the Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork. I think it would be foolhardy to argue that these Wizards have much in common with the ritual magicians of our world-apart perhaps from the predilection for staffs, robes, arcane symbols and a devotion to hierarchy. 

Similarly, Pratchett's Druids are not quite like those of this world: 

'Like Druids everywhere they believed in the essential unity of all life, the healing power of plants, the natural rhythm of the seasons and the burning alive of anyone who didn't approach all this in the right frame of mind...' (Pratchett, 1986: 56-7). 

Their appearance (white robed) and their frequenting of stone circles (cumbersome and not entirely accurate calculators or almanacs) suggests a kinship-but our world's Druids tend to treat those with whom they disagree rather differently now. 

There is as yet little in the Pratchett canon regarding those who name themselves variously as Odinists, Heathens or Asatruar. Similarly, whilst a number of episodes have explored the issue of female access to the male preserve of wizardry, there are no identifiable followers of the Goddess Spirituality or Matriarchy traditions. Shamanism is represented by the following vignette:

'Something picked [Rincewind] up and threw him into the air. Except that in another sense he was still sitting by the fire-he could see himself there, a dwindling figure in the circle of firelight that was rapidly getting smaller. The toy figures around it were looking intently at his body. Except for the old woman. She was looking right up at him, and grinning' (Pratchett, 1986: 83). 

Perhaps it is worth noting that Pratchett locates this among the nomadic Horse People of the Hubland steppes, who are "born in the saddle, despite the inconvenience" (Pratchett & Briggs, 1994: 122) and not among middle class, suburban Jungians (if such exist on the Discworld). 


BEYOND SPECIESISM

As with Tolkien and other Fantasy writers, Pratchett offers a world in which humanity is far from alone. Rather, it is one of the many races or types of people who inhabit the Discworld. Indicative of the difference between the two worlds is that in ours: 

'One of the recurring philosophical questions is: "Does a falling tree in the forest make a sound when there is no one to hear?" Which says something about the nature of philosophers, because there is always someone in a forest. It may only be a badger, wondering what that cracking noise was, or a squirrel a bit puzzled by all the scenery going upwards, but someone...' (Pratchett, 1992: 6). 

On the Discworld humanity relates to an array of other-than-human people. Some of these are "mythological" (e.g. dwarves, elves, trolls, speaking trees), others are more mundane (e.g. ordinary trees, badgers and, not infrequently, hedgehogs). The human inhabitants of the Discworld-and the subject matter of individual novels-are far too varied for a single ethics or etiquette of relationships to be worked out. The point, however, is that the Discworld series encourages a world-view in which it becomes sensible to ask, "What if I fell in a forest: would a tree hear?" (Dillard, 1974: 89). 

This "ecology of souls" is not an explicit message imposed in the books. Indeed, part of their power is that they do not preach even when making very profound points about the ways in which we live. Nowhere is there a "distillation of Pratchett's message"-if indeed there is a message beyond entertainment. Clearly though, the series is informed by a dislike of fundamentalism, bigotry, hierarchy, closed-mindedness and sermonising. Much of Witches Abroad is devoted to the theme, "don't inflict happy endings on people" just as much of Death's role in the series is the explication of the theme "no one said it would be fair". If there is an ethic in Pratchett's work it is, "live your own life your own way and don't meddle". 


DEITIES AND BELIEVERS

It would be a mistake to reduce the narrative form of the Discworld novels and create a systematic theology. This not only because there is nothing systematic in Pagan theologies, or in polytheistic theologies in general. It is also true because the narrative form allows and encourages an exploration and encounter that linear, hierarchical, systematic distillations prevent. 

So, who are the deities of the Discworld? 

'There are 3,000 known major gods on the Disc, and more are discovered by research theologians every week' (Pratchett, Briggs, 1994: 72). 

They are a disparate group drawn from any and every religion known on Earth. The Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, Aztec and many other pantheons are drawn on. This, however, is not central. Many of these deities live, in differing degrees of disharmony, in 

'a palace of marble, alabaster and uncut moquette three-piece suites they choose to call Dun-Manifestin' (Pratchett and Briggs, 1994: 111) 

located at the very peak of the hub of the Discworld. They are also manifest in temples dedicated to them-though it is never explained how they can inhabit two places at once. In fact the Discworld novels continually reinforce the idea that the true place of deities is in the heart, mind or faith of their believers. Deities are fundamentally products of belief. This may explain why deities do whatever people would like to do if they had the power or the ability. Pratchett shares a view of religion also known to devotees of Monty Python: it becomes dangerous when taken too seriously and is best engaged in or opposed with humour. 

Witches do not believe in deities. This is true in our world and on the Disc. Compare the following statements by Pratchett and Starhawk: 

'Most witches don't believe in gods. They know that they exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don't believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman' (Pratchett, 1991: 19).

'We do not believe in rocks... [and] in the Craft, we do not believe in the Goddess' (Starhawk, 1989: 91). 

Pagans are, in this respect at least, like traditional First Nations people in their approach to deity. Blasphemy against their own deities is not possible for Pagans or in Pagan understandings. It is not only legitimate but traditional to make fun of deities-even those to whom deep reverence is accorded. There are fearsome beings/people in the cosmology of the Discworld and of contemporary Pagans. In an animated world lions, AIDS and earthquakes might be conceived of as careless of human lives if not actively hostile to them-Pagans tend not to inhabit the kind of dualism in which "evil" is a meaningful concept or experience. 

One of the fascinations for an observer of Paganism is that it is evolving or being created in the present. The following section can thus use the faerie folk to illustrate both the "dangerous" category of other-than-human people (Hallowell 1960) and also the changes taking place, partly under the influence of Terry Pratchett's Discworld. 


FAERIE

One of Pratchett's most important contributions to Pagan thinking is his re-discovery of the idea that the inhabitants of Faerie are not necessarily friendly towards humanity. A rich and varied ancient mythology and more recent folklore know the elves or faeries (by various traditional circumlocutions) as tricksters at best, hostile at worst. By the Victorian era faeries had been diminished to cute little flower children. Tolkien and other Fantasy writers have permitted a grander, more noble vision of proud and powerful but elusive inhabitants of the twilight and fringes of the world. However, Tolkien's elves are not at home in human centred Middle Earth; there is always a poignant sense of homesickness and loss about them. Even while celebrating they observe places and people whom they serve in a lordly, indulgent and even condescending way. These are not, in the end, the elves of earlier tradition, native to their forests and fringe lands. They are not the tricksters and kidnappers of Irish folklore, of Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin or the hidden arrow-firing human foes of Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon tradition. Terry Pratchett has reminded his readers of a more ancestral understanding:

'Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No-one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad' (Pratchett 1993: 169-70).

This "badness" is not conceived by contemporary Pagans as moral evil, or implacable antagonism to humanity or anyone else. It is, as in Pratchett's story, that "they" (it is traditional not to name them too many times) are not us. Their difference manifests in a carelessness about what is good for us. Just as we treat hedgehogs badly-running them over on our roads in appalling numbers without malice or intention-they, "the lords and ladies", treat us badly. They are one indigenous European version of the trickster, doing antisocial and dangerous things. Sometimes, however, the tricks result in an increase of wealth, health and happiness: in stories, gold is found at the end of the rainbow.


CREATORS AND ELEMENTALS

To return to divine beings in Pratchett and Paganism, in the cosmology of neither is a supreme creator of any great importance. Too many writers offer the simplistic idea that Paganism has a thoroughly immanent view of deity. Stories told around fires may include many different divine beings, some who have particular concerns with crops, health, war, women, wisdom, mead and so on. Rarely, however, is the creator of the universe of any significance. It is important too not to forget that these stories are not offered as dogma or systematic theology. A story can encapsulate truth here and now, but be embellished or contradicted by another story tomorrow in another place. Neither story is less true; they merely view a partial picture. The picture though does not focus on a creator but on "that which is". 

The cosmology (or is it the geography and geology?) of the Discworld admirably illustrates this aspect of Pagan cosmology. The Disc rides on the back of four elephants who stand on the back of a turtle swimming through the ocean of space. It is not important to ask: 

'how does the Disc move on the shoulders of the elephants? What does the Turtle eat? One may as well ask: what kind of smell has yellow got? It is how things are.' (Pratchett & Briggs, 1994: 32). 

The turtle is of no great interest to the inhabitants of the Disc-most of the time. Nor are the elephants. In Paganism the creator-if there was or is such a being-is rarely of any great concern. The elephants, however, might stand for the four elements which are invoked in almost all Pagan ceremonies. Pagans who cannot agree on the number and nature of deities, share in the celebration of the very real elements of Nature: earth, air, fire and water. These are literally the fundamentals of Pagan ritual, engagement with Nature and life. Thus a Midrash on the Discworld can highlight both the humour and imagination central to Paganism and the elemental heart of Pagan belief and practice. 


DEATH 

A discussion of the Discworld canon cannot be concluded without an introduction to Death, who must be by far the most popular character in the entire corpus. 

One of the most Pagan things about the Discworld is the experience of Death. This is not to say that all Pagans believe in a personal anthropomorphic figure dressed in an intensely black cowled robe, carrying a scythe and riding a white horse called Binky. However, the idea that "it doesn't matter if you're good or bad just so long as you're punctual" is attractive. The additional, "and kind to cats" is pure Pratchett, as is Death's predilection for curry and a brief attempt to learn the banjo. I have not met any Pagans who believe in any sort of judgement, reward or punishment after death. Those ancient deities who weighed souls or hearts against justice, feathers, goodness or piety have not become popular in the Pagan renaissance. Many Pagans do hold a generalised idea of karma-what you do leads to what you will become. Basically, however, Pratchett and Paganism tend to suggest (when they don't actually state) that you get what you expect when you die. If this isn't fair-a Grand Inquisitor goes to heavenly bliss while the basically decent heathen they've made to feel guilty about common human failings like sex, alcohol and minor untruths goes to hell-the Pratchett frequent refrain is "no-one said it would be". 

Elsewhere I have discussed a range of contemporary Pagan views of death and the afterlife (Harvey 1994). There are those who expect to arrive in Valhalla whether they die in battle or, more probably, in bed. There are those who intend to journey to Celtic Otherworlds such as the Islands of Youth or of Women. Some expect to reincarnate and others to transmigrate, perhaps sharing physical form with another "soul". As there are Pagan atheists there are Pagans who expect death to be a final end after which there is nothing and no one to be spoken of (expect in the past tense). These multiple visions of the afterlife should not suggest that death (or Death) is of no interest to Pagans. The cycle of Pagan festivals include more than one in which death is significant. The majority of Pagans celebrate a festival similar to the Christian festival of All Hallows, i.e. Samhain: a time to honour those who have died and to acknowledge one's own mortality (See Edwards, 1996). Those Asatruar who have not adopted this festive cycle tend to engage in very similar ceremonies at around the same time of year. Some, for example, have adopted 11th November, Armistice Day, as an apt occasion for honouring the dead. Winter solstice similarly permits and encourages an awareness of the place of darkness, cold, death, diminishment, restriction, rejection, absence and other negative aspects of the great round of life. In these festivals, but particularly at Samhain, Pagans face Death in typically theatrical rituals. Aside from those "children's games" in which you dip your hand into a bag of peeled grapes or cold spaghetti to be told it is dead people's eyes or entrails, there are more formal ceremonies and visualisations. Each celebrant in turn might face a robed and hooded or masked representative of Death. The entire circle might be guided in an imaginative boat journey across the river of death, to discover something about themselves or about life. These events again combine humour with a vision of an animated world and a very elemental engagement with mortality. At least part of the attraction of both Pratchett's Discworld and of contemporary Paganism is the literalness with which metaphors are taken or encountered. 


CONCLUSION

Paganism is a spirituality centred on celebration of and engagement with Nature. Like many (perhaps most) religions, its experience is more adequately expressed in imaginative stories than in dogmatic assertions. Theatrical rituals and creative stories are closer to its heart than plain descriptions or narratives purporting to say "what witches do". Thus Paganism is better understood and certainly better taught using these forms. Terry Pratchett's Discworld corpus is not alone in describing and contributing to Pagan experience of the world, but it is arguably the best evocation of Paganism currently available. Its combination of humour, literal metaphor, personifications of natural events, magic and animism make the Discworld close to the cosmology Pagans engage with in their ceremonies, imaginations and also in their direct actions against those who value roads and quarries above the diversity of life that is Nature. 

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