Terry Pratchett: The Shepherd's Crown

            This is the final novel in a shorter series set within Pratchett’s larger Discworld fantasy series. These novels focus on a young witch named Tiffany Aching who starts out as a child, just discovering her magical power, and end with Tiffany finally taking full control of her power and owning her place in the world.

            I wanted to study this novel despite its weaknesses because Tiffany’s story is built on houses. Her story really begins with the death of her grandmother, a shepherd and unacknowledged witch who lived up on the downs in a shepherd’s hut. Granny Aching’s hut is burned after her death, leaving only the axles and wheels and a pot-belled iron stove. For her education, Tiffany leaves her parents’ home and goes to study with other witches, living in their houses and working for them. But this novel begins with Tiffany’s mentor, Granny Weatherwax, also dying, and leaving her house—and the associated work of taking care of the villagers around it—to Tiffany.

            Splitting her time between Granny Weatherwax’s workload and Tiffany’s home workload overwhelms and exhausts Tiffany, so a great deal of the novel involves her running back and forth and trying to be everywhere at once. The ending has Tiffany finally choosing and deciding to give away Granny Weatherwax’s house and going back up to the downs where her own Granny Aching lived, building herself a new shepherd’s hut using Granny Aching’s old hut’s wheels, and settling down there.

            What is a house? In this world, a witch’s house isn’t just a place to live. It carries a weight of obligation to all the people around it. It’s a job and a responsibility. Granny Weatherwax’s house includes her bees, her garden, and even her old boots, so that someone stepping into Granny’s place really is trying to fill her shoes. Granny’s place is also a tremendous honor, since she’s the de facto leader of all the witches. By willing her house and her position to Tiffany, Granny Weatherwax also gives Tiffany a tremendous compliment.

            This book is the last chapter we’re ever going to get in the Discworld series, since the author died even before its publication. The conclusion feels especially portentous because of it. Tiffany unites her two divergent strands of history by coming back home and taking over the location that has always belonged to her grandmother, who is actually buried right there. By building her own shepherd’s hut, Tiffany refuses to live in anyone else’s house, even the house of the most powerful witch, even when that house comes with great respect.

            I’m still thinking a lot about houses in fiction, houses that make us into who we are, houses that confine, protect, express, and tie down. I can’t think of another instance in fiction where someone rejects a house they were given. I’m sure my own circumstances, and the book I’m working on right now, are affecting how I see houses in general, but it’s interesting to think about how difficult it must be to look a gift house in the mouth. We don’t inherit houses as a rule, these days. People die and their houses are sold, so that we aren’t pulled into that cycle of tradition and obligation. Instead, we go out and choose the house we want to live in. Houses are choices embodied. As a renter, it’s easy (and extremely fun) to look at an available house and imagine myself living there, mentally arrange all of my furniture around the place, consider the direction of sunlight and the logistics of groceries and snow plowing. But it’s almost like trying on clothes in a store. If it doesn’t fit, no big deal. A renter isn’t committed. Apartments are the same, a space that by definition is impermanent. A motel room can be perfectly suitable for overnight, but it would be impossible to imagine living there happily long term.

            As someone slightly obsessed with houses, I’ve read a lot lately about the “tiny house” movement: hand made mobile, self-contained homes on wheels. What a bizarre but fascinating movement! The aesthetic appeal is clear, with the custom woodwork and design features, and of course Tiffany’s shepherd hut is well represented in the tiny house movement, where actual shepherd’s huts like hers appear. The other main point of appeal is that these houses are on wheels and movable. Someone can own a house, but without the dictates of land and the limitations of location. These houses are built on trailers to get around local ordinances about minimum size for permanent housing, but also so that the owners can take them on the road. Looking at the interiors is an exercise in mentally getting rid of accumulated stuff, something that always leads me to think: “This would be great if it were ten times the size and built on an actual foundation, with bookshelves, storage space, plumbing, electricity, cable internet, a washer, a dryer, and a yard.” In other words, an actual house. I admire these exquisitely designed and compact living spaces, and then remember a) I moved in a 26 foot truck the last time (though I asked for 22—they were out), which is much bigger than any tiny house, an insuperable mathematical difficulty to be sure, and b) I’m incredibly claustrophobic. Tiny houses sell the dream of having only the essentials, living a compact and low impact life, being frugal and careful and minimalist. Nothing makes me more aware of my maximalist tendencies.

            Tiny houses are dollhouses for people. They’re miniaturized and idealized versions of real places to live, and as such, more of a way of thinking about our lives than realistic places to live. Fiction works the same way, especially this kind of fiction, set in a fantasy world. And within fiction, fictional houses express the shape of the world as it fits around us. The gothic novel sees the world fitting around us in terrifying ways, constricting, endangering, or confining us. These fantasy novels see the world fitting around us in ways that express obligation and responsibility, as well as history and tradition. What is a house? For this novel, a house carries all of that, including expectation and plans for the future. I’m very glad that Tiffany Aching finally got a house of her own, after bouncing from place to place for six novels, but I’m also glad that it’s on wheels.