Nac Mac Feegle - Culture and Beliefs

Culture and Beliefs

Despite their criminal tendencies, the Nac Mac Feegle do possess a sense of honour. They see no sport in fighting the weak. They may take one cow from a man with a herd of fifty; however, they will not steal an old woman's only pig, or an old man's only pair of false teeth. They claim it was a difference of opinion over when to stop stealing that led to their exile by the Queen of the Fairies. As a rule, the Nac Mac Feegle will never steal from the truly poor.

The Nac Mac Feegle clans that have appeared in the books are the Long Lake Clan, who settled in Lancre in Carpe Jugulum (but were not named until A Hat Full of Sky) and the Chalk Hill Clan who feature in the Tiffany Aching books. The Chalk Hill Clan had, until the arrival of their new kelda Jeannie from Long Lake, a superstition that anything written down could be used against you in a court of law, and each of them carried swords that glowed blue in the presence of lawyers. The Long Lake Clan have similar superstitions about writing and lawyers, but believe it's possible to beat them at their own game and are famed for their "verra com-plic-at-ed documents".

Nac Mac Feegle clans tend to occupy ancient burial mounds. They avoid humans if at all possible, as they are worried this might lead to folklorists and archaeologists invading their privacy and writing things down. Since they can move approximately ten times faster than a human, they find it easy to go unseen when they wish to do so.

The Nac Mac Feegle males treat witches with a nervous mix of fear and respect. All witches, regardless of age, are called "hags". A very important witch, such as Granny Weatherwax, is acknowledged as the "hag o' hags". Feegles seem to know enough about witches to spot and respect a good one, and just as they accept that their keldas know things they do not, they are willing to believe that "the haggin'" has its own secrets. They comically fear witches who know about them, with large amounts of dread being reserved for "the Foldin' o' the Arms", "the Pursin' o' the Lips", and the "Tappin' o' the Feets", followed by "the Explainin". One witch nearly panics them when she harangues them in their own dialect, which they called "the knowin' o' the speakin".

The fearlessness of Nac Mac Feegle warriors in combat is derived from their religious belief that they cannot be killed, because they are already dead; they believe that they are in the afterlife, and that any Feegle who is killed has simply been reincarnated into the world where they have already lived before. They reason that Discworld, with the sunshine, flowers, birds, trees, things to steal and people to fight, must be some sort of heaven, because "a world that good couldn't be open to just anybody". They consider it a kind of Valhalla, where brave warriors go when they are dead. So, they reason, they have already been alive somewhere else, and then died and were allow to come to the Discworld because they have been so good.

Thus, they do not mourn the loss of Mac Feegles who have died in battle on the Discworld, according to The Wee Free Men: "Oh, they've gone back to the land o' the livin'. It's nae as good as this one, but they'll bide fine and come back before too long. No sense in grievin'." Indeed, any grieving a Feegle might do over fallen family members is never about their actual death, but rather over the fact that he did not get to spend more time with them before they rejoined the land of the living.

Despite carrying swords that are nearly as large as they themselves (which is not outlandish, given the already-documented history of Mac Feegle feats of strength), their preferred weapons are the boot and the head; this results in most Feegles' noses being broken.