Book 6: Wyrd Sisters

In reviewing 'Wyrd Sisters', the great temptation is to dwell on the dramatic resonances, particularly the extended lampoon of 'Macbeth'. But this is a mistake. On close inspection the dramatic mentions, plentiful though they are, form no more than a leitmotif, a catchphrase that the narrative keeps returning to before striking off on its next leg.

The real hub of this story is the notion of the identity between land and king, a central theme of early political theory. The king and the land are one; when the king hates the land, the land hates itself and the land hates the king. Not surprisingly, the whole land is filled with unrest, until even the trees seem oppressive and threatening; but the king can never escape, because what he truly hates is himself. His attempt to scrub the blood from his hand, by effectively destroying the hand, is a microcosm of the Land's attempt to remove him.

The medieval explanation for this sort of discontent is the doctrine of the King's Two Persons, which Plowmen (1571) describes thus:

For the King has in him two bodies, viz, a body natural, and a body politic. His body natural (if it be considered in itself) is a body moral, subject to all infirmities that come by nature or accident, to the imbecility of infancy or old age, and to the like defects that happen to the bodies of other people. But his body politic is a body that cannot be seen or handled, consisting of policy and government, and constituted for the direction of the people, and the management of the public weal, and this body is utterly void of infancy, and old age, and other natural defects and imbecilities, which the body natural is subject to, and for this cause, what the king does in his body politic cannot be invalidated or frustrated by any disability in his natural body.

The anointing and coronation of a king fuse the two persons into a single body, in a way that deliberately parallels Christ's dual nature during the Incarnation; thereafter it is impossible to separate them except by death. This is why dethroning a king without killing him is so difficult, and the king himself cannot simply abdicate; once king, you are king for life.

Pratchett's twist on this ancient doctrine is ingenious. When the "rightful" king emerges, there are literally two candidates - Tomjon and Verence - and the traditional way of determining proper succession (primogeniture) is useless, so the witches (embodying the Land) take the purely pragmatic approach of determining which one would make a better King, i.e. which one is feels more strongly for the land. Tomjon has the gift of self-knowledge; there is no room, in his full consciousness, for the implantation of the Body Politic, requiring as it does personal identification with the Land; so the witches are left with Verence, who fortunately is prepared to love the Land for what it is.

It is interesting to reflect on the role of the witches here. In all they do, the witches are acting on behalf of the land: when they guard the baby Tomjon, they are unwittingly acting to preserve the continuity of kingship; when Nanny meets the old king's ghost (tied, significantly, to a piece of stone, i.e. part of the Land), she establishes the means whereby the Land can heal itself; when Magrat falls in love with Verence, she is acting as a proxy for the Land itself. The animals come together to visit Granny in her cottage and alert her to the desires of the Land, like a town meeting deputising one of their number to act for them.

One term that is conspicuously missing from this analysis is the notion of 'divine right', a Tudor doctrine stating that God Himself ordains who should be king, and he is not answerable to any lesser power. By contrast, it is quite clear that the Land has no views whatever on who should be king, so long as he loves and treats it properly. Pratchett belongs firmly to the conventional thought on this issue, which holds that 'divine right' is a discredited idea. Like almost everyone today, he is a republican - that is, one who believes that government should be directed for the common weal, rather than for the interests of family or flag or constitution.

Mike Kew

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