The Annotated Diana Wynne Jones File

For the earlier chapters, see the tags.

Chapter 10

Your word is my command: another Arabian Nights reference; this is what the genie says to Aladdin, though Simon means it ironically

trying to get himself Invalided out of school: sent home because he's ill

The Inquisitor will be here before dinner time: as so often in British schools, "dinner" here means "lunch"

Several healthy Alsatians were getting out of it: Alsatians are large dogs, known in the rest of the world as German Shepherds. People in Britain began keeping them in 1919, just after a war with Germany, and the owners didn't want to suggest their dogs were German. So they renamed them after Alsace, a region that had recently stopped being part of Germany

He who would valiant be: the first line of a hymn often sung in schools. It began as a song in John Bunyan's 1684 book "Pilgrim's Progress", beginning "Who would true valour see…" Then in 1906 Percy Dearmer rewrote it as "He who would valiant be…", for some reason that escapes me. There are three verses, and the last line of all of them is "To be a pilgrim"

They're trained to tear people to pieces, those police dogs: Dan's imagination is running wild. These dogs are sniffer dogs, and even the police dogs who chase suspects are trained only to hold them until the humans arrive. After all, it would spoil the fun for the Inquisitors

dressed as witches, in long trailing black dresses, pointed black hats and all: witches are often depicted wearing black cloaks and a steeple-crowned hat— a black cone with a wide brim

there was Estelle, looking very trim and pretty in jodhpurs, red sweater and hard hat, with her legs in shiny boots, pointing at Nan with a riding crop: jodhpurs are tight trousers for horseback riding. A crop is a flexible stick about 80cm long with a flap at the end. Technically it's a whip, but you must never punish a horse with it: it's simply an extension of your arm

In my bad dreams like that, I don't have any clothes on at all: apparently this is a common nightmare about fear of vulnerability, which certainly fits Estelle's situation

At length they reached the strange red brick castle which was the Old Gate House: I don't understand the relevance of Miss Cadwallader saying the house was to be knocked down. Was it just to introduce the house's existence, or is there more to it?

Each had a huge red cross on one side: presumably as if they were collecting for the Red Cross

I don't know why they're called the Oaks. Every single tree there is a beech tree: DWJ is doing something clever here and I confess I have no idea what it is

Chapter 11

Bags I the broomstick: "bags I" is a formula for claiming something, as with the radiators in Chapter 4

an old wet-mop propped in one of the buckets: a wet-mop is the kind of mop you use to wash floors with water, as opposed to a dry-mop which is more like a broom

The shoes as a whole became what is known as a Black Forest gâteau: a layered chocolate cake with cream, cherries, and cherry brandy. The Black Forest is in southwest Germany; the cake doesn't come from there but the brandy does. Known as a Black Forest cake in North America

Finally he was slewed through a bed of nettles… The hoe tipped him off into a blackberry bush: both are common weeds, and both are unpleasant places to end up. Nettles (Urtica dioica) cause a painful rash if you touch them. Blackberries (Rubus sp.) grow as brambles, long trailing stems with very sharp thorns which can even tear through denim

Behind the fire… was a small orange tent: small tents are often orange so they stand out if you need to be rescued, though I suppose Brian would have been better off magicking it to a camouflage pattern

He could see green fields through a mass of hazel leaves: like most deciduous trees, hazel (Corylus avellana) has yellow leaves late in the year. Not closely related to witch-hazel, though that would have been funny

Charles Morgan's mop looked as if he had slain an old age pensioner: an "old age pensioner", often written OAP, is someone receiving what was called an "old age pension" until 1946, when it was renamed the "retirement pension". Apparently nobody noticed, because the name "OAP" remained in common use. At the time you had to be at least 65 if you were a man or 60 if you were a woman

she had written, in shaky capitals, how to say this word: KREST-OH-MAN-SEE: DWJ spells out the pronunciation in only three books: in Charmed Life, here in Witch Week, and in the preface to Mixed Magics. There's no obvious order to which mention it and which don't

Having smoothed his hair, this man rearranged his starched white shirt cuffs and straightened his already straight pale grey cravat: this Chrestomanci is therefore Christopher Chant

Chapter 12

"Just outside Larwood Forest," Nan said. "In Hertfordshire.": Hertfordshire is a county just north of London. As mentioned earlier, in Our World it contained no forests at the time of publication

Nan found herself holding Brian's hand… She had never thought the time would come when she would be glad to do that.: other than with very small children, English people hold hands only with romantic partners

He asked… what was the EEC: the European Economic Community, which later became the European Community, and then the European Union. The UK had joined ten years before, in 1973. I am going to assume you know something about Hitler, Gandhi, Walt Disney, and reggae

he examined a lorry parked outside the supermarket: a lorry is called a truck in North America

It was just an ordinary lorry with Leyland on the front of it…: Leyland manufactured lorries with their name in large letters on the front. After this story was published they was nationalised as British Leyland, then privatised again. They're still making lorries, but now with DAF on the front

…and Heinz Meanz Beanz on the side: since 1967, Heinz baked beans have used the slogan "Beanz Meanz Heinz", and although many people believe it was "Heinz Means Beanz", it never has been. So either DWJ knew it was really BMH and was using this as an example of the difference with Our World, or she believed it was HMB and was using it as an example of something ordinary. This is an example of the Mandela effect, a widespread false memory— and funnily enough, some people have cited this sort of thing as evidence of parallel worlds

as far as the tatty draper's: a draper sells cloth and clothing

How long have you had decimal currency?: in Our World, decimal currency began in 1971, replacing the old pounds-shilling-pence system. Chrestomanci's world still uses it

It's down in the cellar, you see, hidden from the Inquisitors under seven tons of coal: for a long time before the 1970s houses were heated with coal. Often this was stored in a coal-cellar, which would have a hatch in the road for the coal delivery people to pour coal down. This made for a good hiding place

I think it was Oliver Cromwell who made the first laws against witches: Cromwell ruled between 1653 and 1658, and is remembered for allegedly banning a lot of things including Christmas

Somebody did once tell me that Elizabeth I was probably a witch. Because of the storm which wrecked the Spanish Armada: the Armada was an invading naval force. It was defeated by the English navy on 8 October 1588, while Elizabeth I was queen. The Armada attempted to run away back to Spain by sailing around Scotland, but the next day a big storm scattered them along the rocks of the whole western coast of Ireland

And now you all propose just to walk out and leave the mess you’ve made. Is that what you mean?: Chrestomanci explicilty refuses to be the "deus ex machina" in this story

Chapter 13

Her hi-fi and tape deck took up most of one wall: a hi-fi is equipment for playing records (CDs hadn't quite come in yet). A tape deck plays audio cassette tapes; presumably it's part of the same system. Even though such systems were generally larger than their modern equivalents, one which takes up a whole wall is particularly fancy

Most of them seemed to be mystery stories: this seems relevant, but I don't see how

Miss— er— Kidwelly: Chrestomanci is getting her name wrong on purpose, the same way Janet Chant does for Mr Balsam in Charmed Life. Kidwelly is the English spelling of Cydweli, a small town in southwest Wales

Come to my study for sherry before lunch: sherry is fortified wine, traditionally drunk (by adults) before going in to lunch

I was chairing a meeting of the Walpurgis Committee: Walpurgis Night is celebrated in continental Europe on 30 April, the evening before a festival commemorating an English nun named St Walpurga. This took over much older spring festivals including bonfires and gatherings of witches. What this has to do with England in November is not clear to me

I think I'm interrupting a Witches' Sabbath: people used to think that groups of witches held regular midnight gatherings along with demons and devils. They were called sabbaths, but they were yearly rather than every week

took hold of the receiver of Mr Wentworth's telephone: the receiver is the handset, with the listening and speaking parts. It's attached to the body of the phone with a curly cord

It gave out a lot of tinkling: when a phone rang, the ringing sound was produced by an actual electric bell inside the body of the phone. If you shook the phone you would hear the striker hitting against the bell

a small gust of wind rustling the papers on Mr Wentworth's desk seemed to prove she was gone: the air must move into the space she was occupying

How can Miss Hodge be a teacher and not use witchcraft at all? I use it all the time. How else can I have eyes in the back of my head?: someone is said to have eyes in the back of their head if they can know what's going on behind them— for example, what's going on in the class while they're writing on the blackboard at the front

Like the Battle of Waterloo. In our world, Napoleon lost it: also in Our World. Waterloo was a major battle in 1815 between the French, led by their emperor Napoleon, and several other countries led by the Anglo-Irish general the Duke of Wellington. Wellington called the battle "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life". Control of Europe was at stake

The only place they speak English there, oddly enough, is in India, where they are very British and eat treacle pudding after their curry: I'm not sure why India, in particular, would avoid a takeover by Napoleon. At the time of Waterloo it was largely run by a British corporation called the East India Company, rather than by the state, so perhaps that made a difference. In Our World there was an uprising in 1857 which led to the British government taking direct control of the Indian colonies

A surprisingly small change always alters the new world almost out of recognition: see Edward Lorenz's concept of the butterfly effect, where the path of a tornado can be different because of a butterfly flapping its wings weeks before

I know that world rather well, because I have a young ward who used to belong in it: Janet Chant. See Charmed Life for her story. Janet's world, 12B, is said to be Our World

There seems to have been a big increase in about 1606: Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament in November 1605

Chapter 14

those must have been thumbscrews: a thumbscrew is a small vice ("vise" in North America) to slowly crush someone's thumb. It was used in the 1600s to torture people and get them to confess to being witches

He took third and fourth helpings and shared them with Brian: when there is food left over once everyone has been served, people who finish their portion can ask for "second helpings" of the remainder

manacles, a noose, festoons of chains, several kinds of scourge and a cat o’ nine tails: manacles are metal restraints for the wrists (on the ankles they're called fetters), and a scourge is a whip with multiple whipcords. A cat o' nine tails is a kind of scourge formerly used at sea, made of an unravelled ship's rope: this kind of rope is a braid of three braids of three cords, giving the whip nine whipcords

labelled PETROL: also called gasoline, as an accelerant for lighting bonfires (don't do this for real, it's dangerous)

The Observer's Guide to Witch-Spotting: there was a series of a hundred books called "The Observer's Book of…" published between 1937 and 2003. I had always thought they were called "The Observer's Guide…" until I researched this annotation

Jack the Ripper: a serial murderer from 1888, whose real identity was never discovered

Chapter 15

Theresa — er — Fish: a mullet is a sea-fish. The haircut called a mullet didn't exist when this book was written. Chrestomanci wouldn't have known it, even if it had

Burke and Hare, Crippen, Judas Iscariot, Nero and Torquemada: Burke and Hare were Scottish serial murderers who sold the bodies of their victims to medical schools for dissection. Burke was hanged in 1829, but Hare was given immunity for informing on him. Dr Crippen was an American medical doctor who murdered his wife in London. He was executed in 1910. Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. Nero was a bloodthirsty Roman emperor. Torquemada was a famous Inquisitor

Saint Theresa: many saints have borne this name, but Theresa is probably thinking of Teresa of Ávila, who died in 1582

Saint George: allegedly died in the year 303. If a real George did exist, we know almost nothing about him

Lady Godiva: saved the city of Coventry by riding naked through the town on a horse (it makes more sense in context)

Attila the Hun, Richard III, Lucrezia Borgia, Joseph Stalin: four famous villains

Anne Boleyn or Galileo: Anne Boleyn was King Henry VIII's second wife, who was beheaded. Galileo was an Italian astronomer who wrote a book saying that the earth moves around the sun, which annoyed the Inquisition for political reasons. In fact, he wasn't executed: he was sentenced in 1633 to house arrest until he died, which was in 1642

Charles I: king of England and Scotland, who was executed in 1649 after the English civil war

Saint Francis: Francis of Assisi, who died in 1226. He is remembered today as a good man, though he wasn't universally liked at the time

unless it was to prove Mr Wentworth was a mastermind: a mastermind is an extremely clever person, sometimes (not here) in the sense of being a master criminal. But this is probably partly in reference to a longrunning British TV quiz show named Mastermind, where contestants are asked many quickfire questions on a specialist subject

Dick Turpin: an English highwayman, who was executed in 1739

Richard the Lionheart: Richard I of England, remembered today with questionable accuracy as a good man and brave soldier

Mum had said 5 November was the end of Witch Week: I can find no reference to this week being called Witch Week in Our World before this book was published. So this was only in that world, or maybe just in Nan's family

the witch-finder was a gold cigarette case: cigarette cases are small boxes for carrying cigarettes in your pocket, rather than letting them get crushed in the cardboard carton they're sold in

"You move, and I'll order you shot!": note how Littleton, whose words words backed by weapons, acts as a foil to Chrestomanci, who can command silence with a cough

Only a hedge wizard would stoop to using a demon: a hedge wizard means an amateur magic user, even in Our World. In fact several famous magic users, such as Aleister Crowley (died 1947) did claim to use demons; magic must be harder to come by here

Chapter 16

Someone walked over my grave: a thing people say when they shudder for no clear reason. Someone in 1868 defined it as a "convulsive shudder which old wives say is caused by a footstep walking over the place of our grave that shall be." I think this could be tested empirically

The janitor was in the classroom: Littleton is now doing the same job as the caretaker in previous chapters. The job title has changed to emphasise

This man… seemed, from his clothes, to be on the way to a wedding: Chrestomanci, a snappy dresser even in his own world, is wearing a morning suit— a single-breasted jacket which is long at the back (called the "tails"), a waistcoat, a cravat, and formal trousers with light and dark stripes. It's called morning dress even though you also wear it in the afternoons. In Our World, at the time of publication and still today, most people only wear morning suits to grand occasions such as weddings

he must be a school governor: the governors are the committee who run the school, and are often Important People

a message to the Old Gate House should find me: just in case you thought Our World had no magic…

the oddest feeling of having been in the same situation before: usually called déjà vu, French for "already seen"

This was, as he well knew, Portway Oaks Comprehensive: a comprehensive school is a state school which does not filter its pupils by ability. They have been around since the 1950s

the stupid boy had eaten a handful of tin-tacks for a bet: tin-tacks are steel with a tin coating; these are the spikes (also called studs, and in North America, cleats) from Charles's running shoes. Eating sharp metal objects is known as acuphagia

she was going away for half-term: half-term is a break, usually of a week, in the middle of every school term— presumably for the sake of the teachers' sanity

They had been going to collect money for the guy: children traditionally push a stuffed dummy, around the town in a cart or wheelbarrow and say "Penny for the guy?" (or similar— it's more than a penny these days) to raise money for the bonfire party. Then the dummy, which is supposed to represent Guy Fawkes, is burned on the bonfire. It's rare these days: I'm almost fifty and I've seen it happen ones.

since she had arrived at the school from Essex: the next county. You recall that the Archwitch was also from Essex, so Nan's family were

propped Mr Towers’s awful book against the stump of an old gas-pipe': there are small pipes carrying natural gas to taps on the top of the bench (that is, the surfaces you work on, not the things you sit on). You connect a rubber tube to the gas tap and the other end to a Bunsen burner

I bet Dulcinea Wilkes used to sit on her broom, gracefully, sidesaddle probably: riding a horse sidesaddle is riding with both your legs on the same side, using a special kind of saddle. It was once thought inelegant for women to ride with one leg on either side

And because it was London, she probably wore an elegant silk dress: I'm not sure where Nan gets her ideas about London people

The houses were all dark, with orange chains of street lights in between: before efficient LEDs, street lights were usually sodium vapour lamps. They're cheap to run, but they only produce yellow-orange light, so everything appears monochromatic

the blackness of Larwood Forest on the hill opposite: there were no forests in Hertfordshire in Our World at the time of publication, though Heartwood has been planted since. Epping Forest is not far over the border with Essex, though

It made particularly heavy weather of lifting Nan upwards: it was working very hard, or at least pretending to be

Come and help put these blankets in the airing cupboard: an airing cupboard contains the hot-water boiler, and slatted shelves where you put clothes after washing them. As the water heats, the heat dries the clothes

"Some theories do say that an Ice Age starts with extreme heat": or at least that extreme heat can bring on an ice age. The heat melts glaciers, and also increases rainfall towards the poles, both of which disrupt ocean currents like the Gulf Stream which ordinarily distribute heat. There's a lot more to it; like most things in climate science, it's very complicated

"Sit in the back bench," he said. "There's a store of comics in the middle, on the shelf underneath": as we soon learn, the detention room in Larwood House is an old science lab. This would have several tables running the width of the room, and pupils sat on one side of them, facing the teacher standing at the blackboard at the front. After the 1960s, open-plan school science labs came into fashion, with tables grouped around the room

"What is honourable," Nirupam said, "about going and telling tales?": telling tales means informing on other students to the teachers, which is seen as a betrayal

a pair of luminous green trainers: trainers are running shoes, called sneakers in North America. Presumably they are fluorescent (they turn invisible ultraviolet light from the sun into their visible green colour). Nobody might have wanted them then, but a few years after this book was published, fluorescent clothes became very fashionable

It was called The Pluckiest Boy In School: the book belongs to a genre of fiction called a school story, about life at boarding schools. They were very popular at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century. Often adults intended them to teach moral lessons to their readers. The "Millie" metafiction elsewhere in the Chrestomanci stories is another pastiche example. In a way, Witch Week itself belongs to the genre

"What ripping fun!" exclaimed Watts Minor. "I'm down for scrum half this afternoon!": "ripping" is archaic slang for "excellent". For some reason, boys in school stories are always called by their surnames (girls are called by their first names). Watts Minor is the younger of two brothers at school; his elder brother will be called Watts Major. "Scrum half" is a position in a rugby team, and "down for" means he's been assigned it by a teacher

"Listen to this!” he was saying. "Swelling with pride, Watts Minor gazed into the eyes of his one true friend. Here was a boy above all, straight alike in body and mind—": part of why this is funny is that the story is trying to encourage readers to admire and emulate boys like Watts Minor's friend. But the prose is so overblown that it sounds like Watts Minor has romantic feelings for his friend, which would have been a shocking idea to the author of that book

cast on stitches for a matinee jacket: casting on is setting up the initial loops of yarn on your knitting needles; a matinee jacket is a woollen cardigan for a baby

something which was not Simon himself, but something which belonged to Simon so personally that any witchcraft worked on it would work on Simon at the same time - a detachable piece of Simon, really: this is called sympathetic magic, and it's a standard kind of witchcraft

Take me down to Matron in the sick bay: a sick bay is the medical room in a school or a ship. It would have beds, bottles of medicine, and the matron's desk. On a ship the room may be an actual bay (that is, a compartment)

Brian had got him over a barrel: Brian would have the advantage over him whatever happened. The saying comes from old punishments in the navy, where people would be bent over a barrel and whipped

Typical Theresa double-think: double-think is a concept from George Orwell's book "1984", where people can learn to believe two contradictory things simultaneously. It seems to me, though, that Theresa doesn't believe what she's saying, which makes it plausible deniability instead

"Yes, everyone knows that witches don't drown," said Delia. "You can put them right under water and they stay alive": occasionally, when someone was accused of being a witch, people would test whether they were guilty by dropping them in water. The idea, which Delia has half-remembered, was that witches were so evil that water would refuse to touch them; sometimes this was linked to the use of water in Christian baptism. If they floated, they were held to be guilty and executed. There is an idea in modern times that if they sank they would drown, so they were bound to die either way. This fits Nan's situation in this scene very well. In fact they had a rope tied around them so they could be hauled out if they sank

Heather turned on the cold tap: mixer taps are rare in England even now, and they were unknown in those days

Stupid hussies!: "hussy" was an old pronunciation of "housewife" which came to mean an insolent girl. Often the word implies promiscuity, but not here

These are pieces of eight. This is a doubloon: both are Spanish coins from around the 1700s, which are remembered in English-speaking countries because they're mentioned in stories about pirates. Pieces of eight were actually made of silver, which I suppose makes Simon's coins extra valuable. A doubloon was a gold coin worth four times as much as a piece of eight. They were called "pieces of eight" because people used to cut them up into halves, quarters, and eighths to make change

Just like that king in the story: Midas, king of Phrygia. Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold, and it was granted. Simon has perhaps forgotten how badly this worked out for Midas

Chapter 6

Charles got up: remember? he hates this school

It sounded as if they were having one of their midnight feasts: eating in dormitories is always forbidden, so it's traditional to rise to the challenge and attempt to smuggle food occasionally for a picnic. These are called midnight feasts, even if they occur at 3am and are only a snack

Charles found the light switch. He moved it down and then up in one swift waggle: lightswitches in Britain are on when they're down and off when they're up, the opposite way from lightswitches in North America

It’s like that game – you know, Simon Says – where you have to do things if they say Simon Says: a party game usually played by kids. The other rule is that you lose if you follow an instruction without "Simon says" before it, but that rule has no bearing on the rest of the story

A stuck up—: haughty, supercilious

outside into the lower quadrangle: a courtyard between the buildings, used for playing games, probably tarmac (asphalt concrete) rather than grass

galoshes: a piece of rubber to go around shoes to keep them clean, rather than a shoe in itself.

Matron's sixteen pairs of stiletto heels: a matron is a school nurse. I doubt she wore stiletto heels at work, but who knows?

the gardener's hobnails: boots strengthened with pieces of metal under the sole

the caretaker's dog, which was manifestly wishing to raise a leg against the pile of shoes: to urinate against them

I don't know who done it: the grammar is a class marker

Chapter 5

The shabby room was blurred and swaying, but Charles could have sworn he was now looking down on it from somewhere near the ceiling: this is another symptom of severe trauma; it's called depersonalisation-derealisation disorder. It's a form of dissociation, when the mind disconnects from reality as it tries to find a way to protect itself

the leader was a cabinet minister: one of the people in charge of a government department

The minister was burnt in Trafalgar Square: a large and famous public square in the middle of London

And that glare had caused Mr Wentworth to disappear… It was what they called the Evil Eye: the Evil Eye is supposedly a curse caused by glaring at someone. In many parts of Our World it's not uncommon to have amulets against it

hitting Brian would be sucking up to Simon: trying to get Simon to favour Charles; being sycophantic

Simon of course was dormitory monitor: the person in charge of enforcing school rules in the dormitory

The candle's only for emergencies: specifically, for lighting during power cuts. Loss of electricity was a regular part of life in the 1970s, for various reasons involving labour disputes

He put out his finger and held it in the small yellow flame: self-harming is yet another common symptom of severe trauma

raced to the lower school girls’ playroom to bag the radiators there: to "bag" something is to claim it; some people call it "calling dibs" on it. Radiators in this time were large; you could easily sit on them, which was good in cold weather. The radiators are chillier in the corridor because they are served from the same hot water system, and the water gets cooler as it circulates

Simon's collection of honour marks: honour marks are positive write-ups in your file. Simon takes all the credit

he had business in the shrubbery, watching the senior boys meeting their senior girlfriends there: there’s very little privacy in a boarding school, so people hide in out-of-the-way places like the shrubbery for kissing. Spying on them is evidently a source of pleasure for Dan

Tell me another: a stock phrase, meaning more or less "what you just said was ridiculous". It implies that the speaker has interpreted what they heard as a joke, and they want to hear another joke

It was like being possessed: like having an evil spirit forcing you to do and say things

"Pig off," he whispered. "Magic out of here": both mean "go away". "Pig off" is a clipped form of "piss off", which you couldn’t write in a children’s book. "Magic" is an obscene word in their world; obscenity works by breaking taboos, and most cultures have taboos about religion, excretion, and sex. The fact that this world also has taboos about magic is important

See that? Mixing the breed: "Mixing the breed" refers to mating different breeds of animal in order to avoid the problems caused by inbreeding. So it’s possible that Dan is denigrating the fat girl by saying she’s a different subspecies to the thin boy. On the other hand, Eric Partridge (a famous expert on slang) says that in the early twentieth century "mixing the breed" was said when someone borrowed a hairbrush, meaning jokingly that the headlice had a chance to interbreed. And DWJ has just said that the boy leant his head against the girl’s head, which is a common vector of headlice transmission in schools

Charles asked the nameless hanging clothes: if they had names written in them, then they would have been claimed; they haven’t, so they stay on the pegs

"Vanish," he said. "Abracadabra… Hey presto": two things said by stage magicians as they work a trick

Take a black mark for that: opposite of an honour mark

I don't like boys who crawl: crawling is being sycophantic, trying to get the teacher’s favour

or you can write five hundred lines every night: writing lines is a punishment. In English-speaking countries it involves writing the same line over and over again, generally a resolution like "I must not lose shoes". French-speaking countries apparently require you to decline the verb

Could you go somewhere and be de-magicked, like clothes were dry-cleaned?: dry-cleaners are shops which clean clothes using solvents (other than water) in large machines

like the school gong when it was hit: if the school has a bell, why does it also have a gong? I don’t know

Born in Steeple Bumpstead, Essex: it sounds fictional, but it's a real place! It’s ten miles from Thaxted, where DWJ grew up, and only has 1600 inhabitants

Dulcinea took a leading part in the Witches' Uprising of 1789: there’s nothing corresponding to this in Our World, except that 1789 was the year the last person was burnt at the stake in England. Her name was Catherine Murphy; she was executed for making counterfeit money, which was seen as high treason at the time

the lead on the roof of St Paul's melted and ran off the dome: St Paul’s is the Anglican cathedral in London, which for some reason is never called "London Cathedral". Its dome is timber, lined with lead to keep the rain out. Lead melts at 327°C, and the middle of a fire is at about 1100°C, so this makes sense if Dulcinea was moving heat from the fire to the lead. But after a short time at 327°C, the timber would have ignited and the cathedral would have caught fire

the work that had been set during the day. It was called devvy at Larwood House, no one knew why: odd, since they learn French at Larwood House. "Devoirs" is French for homework.

Dedication

"This book is for Leo, who got hit on the head with a cricket bat"

Leo is the son of DWJ's agent, Laura Cecil. She writes:

"Indeed I remember the incident, when Leo got hit on the head by a cricket bat. He was about 8 years old and it happened at almost an identical time that Diana was writing the episode in The Lives of Christopher Chant when Christopher receives a blow on the head. As you know, Diana’s writing had an uncanny way of coming true in some way. I think what happened to Leo, was a boy in front of him (they may have been going to a sports ground in a crocodile) was mucking about with a cricket bat and swung it round hitting Leo on the forehead, nearly knocking him out. It wasn’t very serious, and I don’t remember him being checked out in A & E, but I think he got off school for the rest of the day. The boy who hit him accidentally was one of the class bullies, whom Leo disliked. There were two bullies, appropriately called Savage and Maul (Mall?) – the hitter was one of these two. I told Diana about this in a letter, as she knew Leo and he had written her a fan letter about Charmed Life, and she told me it was one of her writing "coincidences". I think you probably would find the most accurate account in my correspondence with Diana in the Seven Stories archive, but what I’ve told you was basically the situation. Leo was very pleased with the dedication and it is his favourite of her books."

[A crocodile is a line of children who are walking somewhere together. A&E is the accident and emergency department of a hospital, often called the emergency room in North America. The "coincidences" are a large group of events which happened in DWJ's close circles in real life, each soon after she had written about a similar event. Seven Stories is a large museum about children's books, in Newcastle upon Tyne in England]

1

when Papa came home from the City: the City is the central part of London, where many of the banks and the large businesses are. The boundaries of the City of London have hardly changed since the Middle Ages: it measures only one square mile, which is about 0.2% of the area of London in general. People call it the City for short, to distinguish it from London as a whole

a figure in a frock coat with a great deal of well-combed black whisker: a formal black coat worn by men. In Our World they went out of fashion in about 1910. Christopher's father must have had a full beard; compare the description of Uncle Ralph in ch2, "the redder foxiness of his moustache. Christopher had seldom seen a man in tweeds or without whiskers".

handing a tall black hat to the footman: a footman is a male servant who acts as a waiter. They were originally employed to run on foot alongside your carriage, to call out if there were potholes or tree roots which the driver should avoid

there is a Reception in this house tonight: this is a formal social gathering with important guests (because they are received by the hosts)

the corner of the night-nursery wall: a nursery is a room of a grand house that is set aside for children; a night-nursery is the same but it's a bedroom

the nursery-maid put him into an unpleasant sailor-suit: children in the 1800s were often dressed in sailor suits, which were based on the uniform of the Royal Navy— a white shirt with a blue flap collar, and white bell-bottomed trousers or shorts. Many East Asian countries still use a variation of this as a school uniform

A good place in Society is worth far more: by "Society" she means fashionable people as a whole

"I thought it might be a dead rat": the pad for bulking out your hair was actually called a hair rat

the only Society he had heard of was the Aid the Heathen Society that he had to give a penny to every Sunday in church: a mission agency, sending missionaries from England to preach to people in Africa and Asia. A similar real example in Our World was the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Christopher's misunderstanding of "Society" as a young child mirrors, for example, DWJ's own misunderstanding of the maker's name "Twyford" on her basin as "typhoid".

She told him Heathens were savages, who ate people. Missionaries were the best people'': it was a common prejudice at the time that people in Africa and Asia, such as the missionaries were sent to, were "savages" with no civilisation at all. "Heathens" was a name for people who were neither Christians, nor Jews, nor Muslims. The nursemaid sees them as "other", which is why Christopher worries about how to recognise them

…and they were the ones Heathens ate: this happened at least once or twice, but people talked about it as though it happened all the time

2

Mama pronounced it Rafe: with a silent L as in "half", though the vowel sound is different. The L was pronounced everywhere until the 1600s, when parts of England began dropping it. In modern England, it's an upperclass pronunciation. Ralph Vaughn Williams and Ralph Fiennes pronounce their names this way

He was wearing tweeds: clothing made of a rough, durable woollen fabric, worn by the upper classes for shooting pheasant and so on, as well as by rural people generally. It has a thin zigzag pattern in a dull colour

arranging for you to start school in autumn: implicitly, an independent boarding school. The British school and academic year begins in September

then your mama is going to recoup a bit by living abroad: she is going to regain some of the money by living abroad more cheaply: In the 19th century it was much cheaper to live in France. Also, creditors couldn't pursue you there

Miss Bell is going to be found another post with glowing references: another job with very good commendations from Christopher's parents, by then her previous employers

tipping his nephew a bright new sixpence: a small coin worth half a shilling, or one fortieth of a pound. In Our World, they were 92% silver between 1551 and 1920, 50% silver and 50% copper between 1921 and 1939, and cupronickel between 1940 and 1968. After that, there were no more sixpences minted until 2016, when 92% silver coins were reintroduced, the same size as in 1968, with a face value of 6p. They're designed specifically for one particular usage of the originals: being hidden in Christmas puddings

If a herring and a half cost three ha'pence: three half-pennies. "Ha'pence" is pronounced /ˈheɪpns/ HAYPns; "ha'penny" is /ˈheɪpni/ HAYPnee. Twelve pennies made a shilling and twenty shillings made a pound, so a pound is 480 ha'pence. By the way, because a ha'penny was so small, little children were often called ha'pennyworths (/ˈeɪpəθ/ AY-puth if you drop the first H). They still are, though few people remember why now

the Last Governess paused in her darning: mending a hole (usually in a sock) with needle and thread. It was an important skill to know before socks became as cheap as they are today

her silver and crystal hair-tidy: also called a hair receiver. The crystal part is a beaker, and the silver part is a lid with a round hole in the middle, though either could be made of other materials. After you brush your hair, you take the loose hairs off the brush and put them in the hair-tidy. When you have a lot of it, you use it for making the hair rats mentioned in the last chapter— though Christopher's Mama also uses it for sympathetic magic

"By Jove," he said: a mild upperclass oath, literally "by Jupiter", the Roman god

He pointed genially to the tuffet: a footstool, after the nursery rhyme about Little Miss Muffet (Roud 20605). The tuffet in that rhyme is probably actually a clump of grass, but people have been interpreting it as furniture for a long time

who can bring back solid items from a spirit trip: spirit walking, also known as astral projection, has practitioners in Our World as well

3

…and shouted. "Hallo!": "hallo" was originally used primarily as a shout for attention, rather than as a greeting— though at this time it was in transition, as can be seen by Uncle Ralph using it in ch2 to greet Christopher. In Our World Thomas Edison is commonly said to have popularised saying "hello!" when you answer a phone call. Alexander Graham Bell preferred "ahoy!"

Tacroy was wearing a green worsted suit: made of cloth from particularly strong and smooth sheep's wool

4

a picture of a boy blowing bubbles on the top: there were many such paintings, part of a tradition called "vanitas" which compared the fragility of life to bubbles. The best known is Sir John Everett Millais's painting "Bubbles", which was used for many years to advertise Pears' Soap

It had a gold sovereign in it: worth exactly a pound. They are still produced. Since they're solid gold, and inflation has made the pound worth so much less, the sovereigns are now worth rather a lot more than their face value

"I could do it standing on my head." "Which is getting a little swelled": that is, "you are becoming conceited". "Big-headed" came to mean "arrogant" in the US in the mid-1800s

"It's supposed to be a horseless carriage": this meant a motor vehicle in Our World (the OED's earliest citation is from 1895), though of course a carriage which moves by magic is just as horseless as a car

she thought I was a goner: she thought I would soon be dead. It rhymes with honour

I couldn't ask either of them to share my garret: a cheap apartment at the very top of a house

the small gilded dolls-house things at the corners of streets: usually called wayside shrines in Our World. They are found in many different cultures

A lady under an electric blue umbrella: not some sort of electric umbrella: "electric blue" is the same colour as lightning

It was like a crisp bird's nest soaked in honey: it sounds like baklava to me

Tacroy said he could only taste it the way you tasted food in dreams: food in my dreams tastes like food, but other people report that it doesn't taste of anything for them

Tacroy stopped quite cheerfully in a baking alley: not an alley with bakeries, just a very hot one

Here's a turn-up: here's something unexpected

long mouse-coloured hair: greyish brown

Throgmorten: Throgmorton, with an O instead of an E, is the name of two streets in the City of London. They are both named after Nicholas Throckmorton (c.1516–1571). Sir Walter Raleigh's wife was named Elizabeth Throckmorton. Throgmorton was also the name of a major character in the comic strip Sparky People, which appeared in The Sparky comic in the 1970s

5

no notes

6

Tacroy said he could only taste them the way you taste food in dreams: food in dreams tastes like food to me, but other people report not being able to taste it properly

the rings were on pylons high above the ground: "pylon" is the word used in Britain for electricity transmission towers, which sounds to me like the sort of thing we're talking about. There is a much older usage meaning a kind of stone gateway in ancient Egypt. The electricity towers were introduced around the time Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered, and ancient Egypt had caught the public's imagination

This is better than a Bank Holiday at Brighton any day!: bank holidays are public holidays in Britain and Ireland, when the banks have historically been closed. They are almost always Mondays, so that you get a long weekend. Brighton is a seaside town about fifty miles south of London, which was once popular for day trips. "Any day" here means "without a doubt"

I could go round all the garrets: Christopher seems not to realise how big London is

''hers were addressed to Baden Baden while Christopher’s said, ‘Penge School, Surrey’'': Baden-Baden is a town in southern Germany, very close to the French border, which was a fashionable resort in the mid-1800s. Penge is a town which was once on the Kent/Surrey? border and is now a suburb of London. I can't find record of a boarding school there in Our World

The small thin one called Fenning: boys at boarding schools were customarily addressed by their surnames

Someone's been sitting in MY chair!: a famous line from a folktale called "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", about three bears of different sizes

Wool-gathering again, Chant?: daydreaming

All sorts of slush: Oneir dismisses it as sentimental drivel

The Arabian Nights (Unexpurgated): a large and ancient collection of stories, also called "The Thousand and One Nights". The framing story is about a king, who was in the habit of executing his wives, who married a woman named Scheherezade. Every night she told him a story, which ended on a cliffhanger— so if he executed her, he wouldn't learn the ending. This will be Richard Burton's translation from the 1880s. It was full of "interesting dirty bits", so it was a schoolchild favourite for a century

Little Tanya and the Fairies: if this is a reference, I can't trace it. Farah says, "I think it's a general nod to a species of "fairy story" that was twee even when written."

I've got this cousin called Caroline: she grew up to be Cat and Gwendolyn's mother

Millie Goes to School… Millie of Lowood House, Millie Plays the Game: these are "school stories", a genre of children's stories set in boys' or girls' boarding schools. The first book of the "Jennings" series by Anthony Buckeridge was called "Jennings Goes to School". For Lowood House, compare Lowood School in Jane Eyre, as well as Larwood House in Witch Week

The books were two and sixpence each. Christopher chose out the first five: so he has spent twelve shillings and sixpence, leaving seven shillings and sixpence for the Arabian Nights

'Unexpurgated' seemed to mean that all sorts of interesting dirty bits had been put in: or rather, weren't taken out. There is a lot of sex and violence in the stories, and editors were happy to cut stories they felt to be unedifying

the one beyond the wash-stands: a wash-stand is a piece of furniture with a basin on top and a jug to fill it with, as well as soap and a towel. They were common in dormitories before running water became easily available there

7

The next day Matron noticed Christopher stumbling about: a matron is the person in charge of the domestic side of boarding, and will manage a lot of practical stuff like clothes, bedding and sleeping arrangements, and general preventative health care. Larger schools would have a number of matrons (for each house or division), and a separate school nurse who would be responsible for actual sick or injured children in an infirmary

a confusing set of people who were called Calendars: the Qalandars are an ethnic group in northeast India. The part of the Arabian Nights with Qalandar characters contains recursive stories: each successive Qalandar is the hero of a story told within the story of the previous chapter

snowballing with the stable lads and Caroline: a play-fight where you throw balls of snow at one another

''he would be carrying parcels of books across the Place Between for the rest of his life'': out of interest, if a parcel of books is worth 12/6, and if Throgmorten is worth, say, £5000, and if Christopher brings the Goddess a parcel every week, it would take him 154 years to clear the debt. Throgmorten no doubt believes his own value to be infinite

8

Christopher found himself at Covent Garden market: it's in West London and it's huge: 57 acres (20 hectares). It's particularly famous for fruit, vegetables, and cut flowers. In Our World the market moved out of the district of Covent Garden in the 1970s, to Nine Elms, three miles away

Uncle Conrad's house in Wiltshire: in the southwest of England, ninety miles (150km) from London. Among other interesting things, it contains Stonehenge

the kind of boy Fenning called a "stuck up pratterel": "stuck up" means pompous, but the splendid "pratterel" appears to be a coinage of Fenning's

never having ridden to hounds: "riding to hounds" is riding a horse, following dogs who are chasing a fox or a hare to kill it. This is traditionally an upper-class activity, but Francis sees Christopher as middle-class, and a soft city boy

from the great height of his trim bay gelding: "trim" means elegantly groomed; "bay" means a reddish-brown horse with black ears, mane, and tail; the word only seems to be used to describe horses. A gelding is a male horse which has been castrated

Papa was well shot of this particular branch: well rid of it

It was the cricket season: cricket is played in the summer, and football is played in the winter

I'm a bowler myself… Slow leg-spin: leg-spin is a bowling technique where the ball spins, to make hitting it more difficult

What are you, an opener?: each of the members of a cricket team takes a turn to bat. The captain decides on the order. Some players are better suited to open— that is, go first— for psychological and other reasons

I fancy myself as a stroke player: any hit is a stroke, but he means the more defensive strokes, rather than a straight cut attacking stroke that sends a ball for six. (A ball out of the boundary will be automatically a six, and you don't have to run.)

forward defensive play: a block stroke. The point is to defend the wicket, rather than trying to make runs— so you keep the ball away from your legs or the wicket

Bags I bat first!: the first person to say this will claim the right to go first

Oh, fudge to your wretched horoscopes: "fudge" is an interjection meaning "stuff and nonsense!". Interestingly, this is the original meaning of "fudge", from the 1700s; the sense of "soft toffee" is from the 1900s

Nobody in that world spoke English: thus it's not one of the Related Worlds at all

9

He was rather afraid that Mama was going to be disappointed in him when he turned out to be a professional cricketer: at the time, there was a distinction between cricketers who were Gentlemen (upper class, and not paid because they didn't need the money) or Players (who were working class, and received a salary for playing). There were regular "Gentlemen v Players" matches between 1806 and 1963. Thus Christopher's ambition to become a professional would have appalled his mother

We shall be sorry to lose our nine days wonder: a nine days wonder is a brief fad, which seems a rather rude way to describe a person. The idea that a fad lasts nine days goes back at least to 1350

These Cambridge dons… We both know what they are: "these members of academic staff at Cambridge— we know their strange habits." Cambridge is a collegiate university, as are Oxford, Durham, and a few others. The University itself deals with lectures, exams, and practicals, but all the academic staff and students are also members of one of the colleges— in Our World, there are thirty-one. These are nominally independent organisations providing small-group teaching, food, housing, and pastoral support. Academic staff are generally called fellows of their college. They were once called dons, but the term has fallen out of use these days

I had to pull a few strings: call in a few favours

''the train drew into the Great Southern terminus… galloping and rattling towards St Pancras Cross'': in Our World, a journey from Penge East into central London would take you to Victoria station, named after Queen Victoria. She presumably never became queen in 12A. Journeying on to Cambridge, you would leave London via King's Cross station. It's next door to St Pancras station, and they seem to be merged in 12A. Usually you would get between Victoria and King's Cross on the Tube (the London Underground railway), rather than in a taxi— so it seems the Tube doesn't exist here either

Monsignor de Witt: the title Monsignor is used by priests of high rank in the Roman Catholic church. Was Gabriel de Witt a priest? Or if the Church of England in 12A never broke with Rome, perhaps this is a papal honour awarded for secular work

looked round the sooty carriage: one of the problems with early rail travel was that the smoke from the engine blew back into the carriages, filling them with soot

all this and the kress toe mancy: as in each book, DWJ shows the reader how to pronounce the title

full of young men in gowns: Cambridge used to be for men only in Our World, and also in this story. A gown is a garment made of rough usually black cloth, with sleeves, open at the front, which reaches down to your knees (if you don't have a degree) or your ankles (if you do). Most universities expect you to wear a gown at graduation, but at Cambridge you wear it on many occasions, though usually without the hat and the hood. Before the 1960s in Our World, and also in this story, you had to wear it whenever you were outside your college

rooms in a lodging house: a sort of extremely cheap and tatty hotel

Dr Pawson's house in the Trumpington Road: the A10 (and A1134), which runs south and then southwest from the city centre, through the village of Trumpington. At one point it was the last part of the journey up from London

unloading the pockets of his Norfolk jacket: a kind of belted tweed jacket with stitched-down pleats, which was a popular uniform at independent schools before the First World War

a chewed rubber: an eraser. The material rubber gets its name from being used to rub out mistakes

peas for Fenning's pea-shooter: a pea-shooter is a small tube used as a toy weapon. You put a dried pea in one end, then blow into the other. The pea shoots out and (hopefully) hits your target

a silver threepenny bit he had not known about: usually pronounced /'θrɛp(ə)ni/ THRUPuhni or /'θrɛpni/ THRUPni, and worth three pence (3d)— so, one quarter of a shilling, and one eightieth of a pound. They were made of silver from 1551 to 1941, and cupronickel with a different shape from 1937 to 1967. Yes, these ranges overlap

or I'll put a Visitation on you: visitation can mean both a visit from a spirit, usually an evil one, and also the aftereffects

you'll have to give up money except for coppers and sovereigns: coppers are copper coins— farthings, halfpennies, and pennies, and in the modern system 1p and 2p coins. They were made of silver before 1797, then actual copper until 1860, then bronze until 1992, and copper-plated steel thereafter. Sovereigns are gold, as previously mentioned

I can dine in college: colleges provide food for their students and fellows. In particular, there is a meal called Formal Hall several nights a week— in some colleges, every night— where you have to wear a gown

Argent means silver: in French, and also in English in heraldic terminology

10

''Be good enough to mend the chamber pot first, and count yourself fortunate, child, that it had not been used'': a chamber pot is a china bowl with a handle, kept under the bed to use instead of a toilet. They were particularly useful before indoor plumbing

''Christopher… toyed with the idea of making the church spire melt like a candle'': the obvious church with a spire is Holy Trinity. There are two other magnificent spires (All Saints, and Our Lady and the English Martyrs or OLEM for short) but they were built a good deal later

''while he was walking up the Trumpington Road, he tried to coax the trees that lined it into a different pattern'': they are poplars, from what I remember. I hope I'm not the only one who tried to do this every time they walked down the Trumpington Road

his hat— which was just rolling under a brewer's dray: a dray is a kind of lorry (also called a truck) which delivers barrels of beer to pubs. In those days they would have been drawn by horses. They have something like curtains on the side which can be drawn aside to get the barrels out. A squirrel nest is also called a drey, but it's spelt differently

He was stumbling among the people who begat other people: "begat" is the past tense of "beget", meaning "became the parent of". It's an archaic word, and shows that this Bible is the Authorised Version (also called the King James version). Several parts of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, consist of little else but person A begetting person B, who begat person C, and so on: genealogy must have been very important to the writers. The first lists begin in chapter 5

Christopher had got well into Sodom and Gomorrah: in Genesis, God destroys these two cities for inhospitality to strangers (though it has often been interpreted as destroying them for homosexuality). The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is in the 19th chapter, which in the Authorised Version is 12000 words in. People read aloud at about 150 words per minute, so Christopher has been reading aloud for almost an hour and twenty minutes

It was a five-pointed star inside a circle: usually called a pentacle in modern times. It's a way of drawing a magic circle, whose purpose (as Pratchett puts it in Eric) is "to divide the universe into two bits, the inside and the outside". For example, Goethe says that demons can be imprisoned in such a circle

That's Civil Servants for you: civil servants are members of the Civil Service, an organisation which carries out the work of government, as directed by whichever politicians happen to be in power. Since Chrestomanci and his staff answer to the government, they are classed as civil servants

My name is Flavian Temple: Flavian is a rather unusual first name, though the surname Temple is unremarkable. The Flavians were Roman emperors in the first century CE, and there was a Flavian Temple in Rome (the Templum Gentis Flaviae). I don't know what relevance that has, if any

a game of Snakes and Ladders: the board has a 10x10 grid of spaces, and some of them are joined by snakes or ladders. Usually called "chutes and ladders" in North America. Players move forwards according to dice rolls; if they land on a snake they go down it, and if they land on a ladder they go up it. In Christopher's time there were the names of various virtues ("Faith", "Generosity" and so on) at the bottom of ladders, and names of vices ("Drunkenness", "Vulgarity" and so on) at the top of snakes

11

And you have to add copper to sublimate… with a modicum of fire… the flaming tincture must then be passed through gold: this is a partial description of an alchemy experiment. Sublimating means making a solid become a gas, which then condenses back to a solid. (It's ambiguous whether Dr Simonson means "sublimate" as a noun or a verb.) A modicum is just a small amount, and doesn't seem to have a specific alchemical meaning. A tincture is the essential part of something, dissolved in a liquid. (In modern chemistry, sublimating means going straight from a solid to a gas, and a tincture is something dissolved in alcohol.) I am unable to discover how you can pass anything through gold-- perhaps a gauze of golden wires, or bubbling the gaseous mixture through molten gold?

Something in Punch made me smile last week: Punch was a weekly magazine which ran between 1841 and 2002. It printed jokes and satire: in modern times, the magazine Private Eye plays a similar role. Punch was named after Mr Punch, the glove puppet in Punch and Judy, who unrelatedly plays a role in The Magicians of Caprona

cedar was part of the funeral pyre from which the Phoenix was reborn: the Phoenix is a large bird from ancient myth. There was only one, and it lived for five hundred (or one thousand) years. After that time it flew to Egypt (or India), gathered aromatic branches, set them on fire, and burned itself to death. Then, when the fire burns down, an egg is found amongst the ashes, and from that egg a Phoenix chick is born. The cedar tree (Cedrus sp.) has sweet-smelling wood. Pomponius Mela wrote in 44 CE that the Phoenix's fire was made of sweet-smelling wood, but he said it was nard, which is a kind of honeysuckle. However, in E. Nesbit's 1904 book "The Phoenix and the Carpet", cedar-wood pencils are among the sweet-smelling things the children burn to hatch the Phoenix egg. I don't know whether the cedar connection goes back further

purring like a football rattle: a device with a gearwheel at the end of a handle, and pieces of wood that slightly connect with it. When you twirl it round, it makes a rattling noise. People used to bring them to football games in order to encourage their side, rather as airhorns are used these days. They went out of fashion in the 1970s; some say they were banned because they were used as weapons by fans, but I can't find any definite evidence of this

chased Throgmorten out with a besom: a broom where all the bristles are attached directly to the broomstick. Nan Pilgrim rides one in Witch Week

what had once been a mullioned window: a window with a vertical column in the middle, to support both the glass and the wall above, or just for decoration. It was a popular style in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance

12

a huge red machine… with a number on it and the words TUFNELL PARK: this is a London bus. They are always painted red. The board on the front tells you where its route ends: Tufnell Park is in Camden in London, and is well served by buses because it has a Tube station. The route numbers change fairly often. I endeavoured to find out what the number might have been at the time of publication, but failed. Besides, who can say what year Christopher was visiting?

fat books by someone named Angela Brazil: a writer of more than fifty boarding school stories, of the kind that the Millie books are pastiching. She was born in 1868, and died in 1947. Her name is pronounced to rhyme with "dazzle"

13

it was still plenty hot enough for someone who had just come from an English summer: especially in Christopher's world and time. Before global heating took hold, the average of temperatures during an English summer was generally about 13°C, but these days it's often about 15°C or 16°C

"Not germs", the Goddess said weakly: so she knows that germs cause disease. In Europe of Our World in the late 1800s, the "germ theory" (that people catch diseases from other people) was only just beginning to win out over the "miasma theory" (that diseases are caused by places and objects). But perhaps the city in Ten is like a city in India, where they've known about germ theory for many centuries

I want to do Prep and eat stodge and learn French and play hockey: prep is the boarding school equivalent of homework; it's short for "preparation". Stodge is boarding school slang for starchy food, or sometimes food in general. Hockey here is field hockey, which was developed at English boarding schools

…cheek the Prefects… and sneak on my friends: cheeking someone is disrespecting them, "talking back". Prefects are pupils given disciplinary powers over the others. Sneaking on your friends means informing on them to the teachers, which is seen as treacherous

"Christopher, get down! Look away!": as noted at the start of ch16, a dragon has the power to transfix you if you catch its gaze. Compare ch14 of Charmed Life, where the workshop dragon transfixes Janet in this way

14

the housekeeper's dug out an oilskin that should fit you: oilskin is cloth that has been treated with oil or wax to make it waterproof. Here it means a garment made of this material, as worn by sailors. The same material is used to make cheap tablecloths

when Christopher could not think of any further ways to spin out the history of the pen of his aunt: "J'ai reçu cette plume de ma tante" (I have received the quill pen of my aunt) was an example sentence in the 1850 book "Cours élémentaire de langue anglaise", which soon became notorious for being at once grammatically correct and completely useless. The equivalents for French-speakers learning English were "My tailor is rich" and "Mr Khettat is an architect"

a young wizard who had come down from Oxford specially: travelling to Oxford (or Cambridge) is "going up", and travelling away is "coming down". I have often wondered what you say if you travel from one to the other

to Christopher's great surprise, Miss Rosalie: for reasons I cannot discover, cricket was formerly seen as unladylike, and women's cricket was a minor thing compared to the men's game. This has changed in the last few decades

carrying his folding stool in one hand and a telegram in the other: a telegram is a short message sent using electrical signalling. You would send one by going to a telegram office in person, or phoning them up, to dictate your message. You paid by the word, so people developed a peculiar abbreviated writing style. Telegrams were abolished in the UK in 1982: not many were sent after it became possible to phone people in other towns

in a striped blazer which looked about a hundred years old and a wide Panama hat: striped blazers in team colours were well known at the time. You wear them to matches, but not while actually playing. Presumably Gabriel played cricket as a young man

lent Christopher some rather large whites: whites are clothes for playing cricket in: a sweater, shirt, and trousers. Traditionally they are white or cream, but in the last twenty years professional cricketers have played in team colours

When the castle began their innings: when it was the castle team's turn to bat

the castle boot-boy: he cleans people's boots and shoes

large horny hands spread out: calloused, from manual labour

15

I'm nearly the age when other people are considered women: it sounds as though the age of maturity differs for women and men. The Goddess is the same age as Christopher, and Wikipedia says he is fifteen in Conrad's Fate a few years later— I can't find this myself, but it seems about right. So she must be about twelve, which suggests that the age of maturity is linked to the onset of puberty, at least for girls. In Christopher's world, assuming it's similar to ours, he wouldn't have been seen as a man until twenty-one

a spicy pancake thing wrapped around hot meat and vegetables: a samosa, perhaps

Time was getting on and it really would be morning at the Castle soon: Christopher assumes (apparently correctly) that time in 12A proceeds at the same speed as in 10, even though the time of day is offset by about seven hours. This isn't always so'': in ch18 Gabriel's party return a minute or so after they leave

Bethi's had a kitten and—: reading this chapter to myself always makes me think of the times I've read it aloud to someone— how challenging the "theatre" is, in this paragraph

16

you will set up a serious singularity throughout Series Twelve: a singularity is anything that stands out as rare. There are specialised meanings of the term in maths and physics; presumably Gabriel is using a specialised meaning in magic. It can also mean a single thing where you'd expect multiple, like Christopher himself: perhaps visiting multiple worlds in the wrong way will draw them together

eating almost more chicken and cream puffs than he could hold: this is ambiguous. It could mean chicken, plus a dessert of "cream puffs", i.e. profiteroles. Or it could mean "chicken and cream puffs", i.e. vols-aux-vent made with cream of chicken soup

the standard reference books— Moore's Almanac, Prynne's List and so forth: there are two almanacs called "Moore's" in Our World: "Old Moore's Almanack" with a K, published in London since 1697, and "Old Moore's Almanac" published in Dublin since 1764. Confusingly, they were started by different Mr Moores. They give astrological information as well as dates of planned events on earth. I found nothing that seemed relevant about Prynne's List, though I doubt DWJ picked the name randomly. Perhaps the heroine of The Scarlet Letter was a real person in 12A

"Mordecai Roberts," one of the policemen said, "you are under arrest and I must warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence later. Do you wish to have a lawyer present with you?": this was roughly the formula used to arrest people in Our World at time of publication in 1988: there was no standard pattern across the whole country until 1995. The basic pattern goes back at least to the 1870s, with "in evidence" often followed by "…against you". In 1995, the formula was changed in England and Wales, to make it clear that you no longer have an absolute right to silence

His boots were handmade calf: the fact that he wears handmade, rather than off-the-shelf, clothes stresses the point that Tacroy has a lot of disposable income

She's my companion these days: as well as its ordinary sense of "person you go around with", "companion" was often a euphemism for "romantic partner". I don't know which is meant here.

Walls have ears: people may be listening to us

17

I brought her feeding bottle with me: because the mother cat is dead, so can't feed her

He'll be in clink for years: in prison. Until 1780, there was a prison called The Clink in Southwark in London. Nowadays it's a slang name for any prison

Of all the hard-hearted, toffee-nosed, superior little beggars I've met: "hard-hearted" means unsympathetic; "toffee-nosed" and "superior" both mean sneering. "Toffee" here is probably from "toff", meaning an upper-class person, and has nothing to do with actual toffee. "Beggar" is a euphemism for the unprintable "bugger", used as a term of contempt

the room seemed suddenly homely: welcoming, like your home

the Goddess in his Norfolk jacket and knee-breeches: for "Norfolk jacket", see the note at ch9. Breeches (rhymes with ditches) are like very tight-fitting trousers. Knee-breeches only reach down to your knees. You first got to wear them at a sort of coming-of-age ceremony when you were about seven, called "breeching". Before that you would wear a dress

there were an awful lot of pink claws— at least seven of them in fact: having extra claws is known as polydactyly. It's inherited, and fairly common in cats in certain places. It affects humans too (we get extra fingers) but much less often

I'll think of a way to get that life back for you: a brief foreshadowing for Conrad's Fate, published seventeen years later. DWJ is playing the long game!

When Millie's friend Cora Hopes-fforbes's father broke his neck hunting: several clues as to Cora's social class: hunting (with dogs, usually chasing foxes), the name beginning with a lowercase "ff", and the double-barrelled surname. Although married couples often hyphenate their surnames nowadays, in the past this was practiced mainly by those wanting to preserve their aristocratic names. In the 1800s, the Duke of Buckingham was an extreme case: his surname was Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville

we were all a bit sweet on him: we were all a bit enamoured of him, we all fancied him

"Gosh!" said the Goddess. It was a word she must have picked up from her Millie books: it's a minced oath for "God", so she wouldn't have heard it growing up in the temple of Asheth

I boiled that packet of tea in the kettle, but it doesn't taste nice: this would have been loose-leaf tea, so she should have put the tealeaves into the boiling water and waited for it to infuse. On the other hand, it's said that people trying the Goddess's method was responsible for the development of the teabag

"Come clean," she said: be honest

I told the butler I'd tax you with it: censure you, blame you, ask you difficult questions about it

18

Tacroy? Is that my spirit name?: interesting that he knows his spirit name when spirit travelling, but not when he's in his own world

the camp bed in the corner: a folding bed. They were originally for use in tents by the army

a pawky sort of grin: pawky means wry

Je suis chef de cuisine: "I am the chief cook" in French. Our word "chef" is short for "chef de cuisine". French cooking has long been prestigious in England

charms and sendings and the like: a sending is a ghost created or raised by a magic user, in order to bother an enemy. Sometimes it takes the form of a living creature

19

all in fancy-dress-like: "fancy dress" in Britain means a costume representing a character, like one from fiction or history. Usually you would wear one to a fancy-dress party, which is called a "costume party" in North America. "Like" here means something like "approximately", and marks him as working class

a billhook or a sharp hoe: a billhook is a knife whose point is curved sideways. You use it for cutting branches. A hoe is a blade on the end of a long stick, for loosening soil or weeding

The Wraith seems to have walked into the Arm of Asheth… It’s an ill wind: this is a stock phrase meaning "something bad can have good side-effects". The full phrase is "it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good", where "ill" has its old meaning of "bad"

He tore off his tight, crumpled collar: in those days, collars were made separately from shirts, and attached with studs

20

when the Dright happens to feel interested: "dright" is an obsolete English word, meaning "ruler"

He's called High Father of the Sept: a sept is a subdivision of a nation— in Scotland and Ireland, in particular, it's a subdivision of a clan. In Eleven, though, it sounds more like the Party in a single-party state

you might mistake them for noble savages: a rather patronising concept from colonial Europe, which saw certain groups of people as having better morals than Europeans despite (or because of) having no civilisation

Eat your elevenses: a mid-morning snack at eleven o'clock. Christopher is using this as a wry reference to Series Eleven. This must vex translators

They’re the people who gave rise to all the stories about Elves: elves are often represented as powerful, crafty, and having an ethical system utterly unlike our own. A lovely bit of punning, which must vex translators even more— other than the German translators, since "Elf" means eleven

Erica's mother's mourning brooch: a black brooch, usually made of jet, which women wore to show they were mourning the death of someone close to them— though the Dright would not have known that

those rather nasty gods— the ones that eat their own children'': which gods are these? In Greek myth, the god Cronus ate his own children, and so did Lamia. I don't know of any others; there's probably something I'm missing, since Gabriel talks as if it's a motif

You can see I couldn’t ask Rosalie…: presumably, he couldn't ask her to marry him if he belonged to someone else

threw him over one shoulder in a fireman's hoist: his waist over Tacroy's shoulder, his legs in front and his head behind, held steady around the knees. Firefighters used to rescue people this way, but they stopped because it risks making spinal injuries worse. Instead they hold people under the armpits and drag them

21

carrying a heavy mace: a club with a metal head and spikes

blurred glassy quartz, in little pieces: uncut diamonds look rather like misshapen ice cubes. Sometimes they are clear, and can be used in jewellery. Others are brownish, and stronger, and are used in industry. Values of uncut diamonds vary widely, but for a quick calculation let's assume these are low-quality small diamonds (say, 64mm³, roughly the size of a single-carat diamond), which are currently (2023) worth about US$100. A chest big enough to stand on is about 36,000cm³, and since diamonds are odd shapes let's say they fill only half of the space— then we have 200,000 diamonds, giving us a value of US$20 million

I usually strip a life off one of the Temple cats: it has long been said that cats have nine lives, which I suppose makes them all enchanters

playing the game: being honourable

employ them as domestics: domestic servants, servants in the household, which seems to include the garden

Thanks

(Use the hashtag for other chapters.)

''raced to the lower school girls’ playroom to bag the radiators there'': to "bag" something is to claim it; some people call it "calling dibs" on it. Radiators in this time were large; you could easily sit on them, which was good in cold weather. The radiators are chillier in the corridor because they are served from the same hot water system, and the water gets cooler as it circulates

''Simon's collection of honour marks'': honour marks are positive write-ups in your file. Simon takes all the credit

''he had business in the shrubbery, watching the senior boys meeting their senior girlfriends there'': there’s very little privacy in a boarding school, so people hide in out-of-the-way places like the shrubbery for kissing. Spying on them is evidently a source of pleasure for Dan

''Tell me another'': a stock phrase, meaning more or less "what you just said was ridiculous". It implies that the speaker has interpreted what they heard as a joke, and they want to hear another joke

''It was like being possessed'': like having an evil spirit forcing you to do and say things

''"Pig off," he whispered. "Magic out of here"'': both mean "go away". "Pig off" is a clipped form of "piss off", which you couldn’t write in a children’s book. "Magic" is an obscene word in their world; obscenity works by breaking taboos, and most cultures have taboos about religion, excretion, and sex. The fact that this world also has taboos about magic is important

''See that? Mixing the breed'': "Mixing the breed" refers to mating different breeds of animal in order to avoid the problems caused by inbreeding. So it’s possible that Dan is denigrating the fat girl by saying she’s a different subspecies to the thin boy. On the other hand, Eric Partridge (a famous expert on slang) says that in the early twentieth century "mixing the breed" was said when someone borrowed a hairbrush, meaning jokingly that the headlice had a chance to interbreed. And DWJ has just said that the boy leant his head against the girl’s head, which is a common vector of headlice transmission in schools

''Charles asked the nameless hanging clothes'': if they had names written in them, then they would have been claimed; they haven’t, so they stay on the pegs

''"Vanish," he said. "Abracadabra… Hey presto"'': two things said by stage magicians as they work a trick

''Take a black mark for that'': opposite of an honour mark

''I don't like boys who crawl'': crawling is being sycophantic, trying to get the teacher’s favour

''or you can write five hundred lines every night'': writing lines is a punishment. In English-speaking countries it involves writing the same line over and over again, generally a resolution like "I must not lose shoes". French-speaking countries apparently require you to decline the verb

''Could you go somewhere and be de-magicked, like clothes were dry-cleaned?'': dry-cleaners are shops which clean clothes using solvents (other than water) in large machines

''like the school gong when it was hit'': if the school has a bell, why does it also have a gong? I don’t know

''Born in Steeple Bumpstead, Essex'': it sounds fictional, but it's a real place! It’s near Haverhill and only has 1600 inhabitants

''Dulcinea took a leading part in the Witches' Uprising of 1789'': there’s nothing corresponding to this in Our World, except that 1789 was the year the last person was burnt at the stake in England. Her name was Catherine Murphy; she was executed for making counterfeit money, which was seen as high treason at the time

''the lead on the roof of St Paul's melted and ran off the dome'': St Paul’s is the Anglican cathedral in London, which for some reason is never called "London Cathedral". Its dome is timber, lined with lead to keep the rain out. Lead melts at 327°C, and the middle of a fire is at about 1100°C, so this makes sense if Dulcinea was moving heat from the fire to the lead. But after a short time at 327°C, the timber would have ignited and the cathedral would have caught fire

''the work that had been set during the day. It was called devvy at Larwood House, no one knew why'': odd, since they learn French at Larwood House. "Devoirs" is French for homework.

For annotations on other chapters, follow the hashtag.

''bags of knitting wool'': in British English, knitting yarn is often called wool even if it's artificial fibre

''We had permission to go shopping'': specifically, permission to go off-site

''She had planned to… galvanise 2Y with her scheme'': in the 1780s, a scientist called Luigi Galvani accidentally discovered that electricity makes the muscles move in the legs of dead frogs. The plan is the electricity, and the dead frogs are 2Y's motivation. Galvani was also responsible for figuring out how to coat steel with zinc, which is why we talk about galvanised iron, but that's not the sense used here

''You have four of the most evil eyes I ever saw'': "four-eyes" is a standard childish insult for someone who wears glasses. For "evil eye", see later

''Please, Miss Hodge, the bell's gone'': schools generally have a bell or a system of bells, usually electric, to signal the end of a lesson period. Sometimes the kids will start packing up their books, whereupon the teacher will growl, "It's a signal to me, not to you."

''Slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails'': a line from a fanciful old rhyme about the different materials stereotypical girls and boys are "made of". In North America, this is usually given as "Slips and snails…" instead

''how he would get from Timbuktu to Uttar Pradesh by bus'': Timbuktu (also spelt Timbuctoo) is a city of about 50,000 people in Mali, and is the standard for faraway mysterious places in English. Uttar Pradesh is a state in northern India, eleven thousand miles from Timbuktu (this is a setup for a joke later). I have tried to find out how to get between the two by bus, but I can't find timetables for Mali. I wonder where Brian was getting his data

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''and then by a prefect'': prefects are pupils given limited authority to enforce rules on other kids

''pale scrambled egg on its own'': because this was supposed to be scrambled egg on toast

''Two purl, one plain, twist two'': a knitting pattern. There are many kinds of stitches used in knitting, and you can make various patterns by repeating a sequence of them. Purl stitches enter the previous line from above, which makes them look like a wavy line across the garment; plain stitches (aka knit stitches) enter from below, which makes them look zigzag; twist stitches (aka plait stitches) are looped around, which makes them bulge out slightly

''in the middle of the morning, during PE'': PE stands for physical education, which is supposed to teach you physical exercise and how to play team games. It happens either indoors in a gym or outside on the school field

''in the floppy divided skirts they wore for PE'': culottes, nowadays called skorts; they are divided down the middle, and pleated, to give you more freedom of movement but still look like you're decorously wearing a skirt. They are worn over underwear

''And there she clung, upside down like a sloth'': Nan's centre of gravity is off, so the rope is bent at her hands and her feet are off to the side rather than below them. This isn't necessarily just clumsiness: puberty affects fat distribution in the body, which makes this sort of thing harder to figure out for a while

''It was against the rules to run in anything but spikes'': spiked shoes are used for sports where you're supposed to run, because they increase friction with the ground

''His double-barrelled nasty look had kept him safe up to now'': "double-barrelled" refers to a kind of shotgun which has two barrels side by side; many of them allow you to fire both sides at once. Applying this to his eyes is a neat metaphor

''I couldn't find my spikes, sir'': in British schools, pupils address teachers as "sir" or "miss" according to the teacher's gender

''You stay there until you find them. Right?'': there is a stereotype that PE teachers are cruel for the sake of cruelty. Mr Towers lives up to this

''My dear Dulcinea! he said. What a charming name you have!'': the original Dulcinea was a metafictional character in the 1605 book "Don Quixote" by Cervantes. Don Quixote believes that he is a knight from the Middle Ages, and makes up a beautiful princess called Dulcinea del Toboso that he serves. I'm not sure how this relates to the Archwitch

''It was as bad as being called Guy Fawkes!'': also in 1605, Guy Fawkes was caught in the act of attempting to blow up the king and Parliament. November 5th, the date he was arrested, is called Guy Fawkes Night and celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. Because of this, everyone in England knows about Guy Fawkes; since he will become important to the plot later, overseas editions carry a note at the beginning explaining about him

''It's a bootee!'': a knitted shoe for a baby

''They will find they are down for lunch at high table'': in formal group dining, high table is a table at one end of the room where the grandest people sit. Sometimes it really is high, up on a dais

''You have to comb your hair and get your blazer clean'': a blazer is a light unlined jacket, worn by children as a standard part of school uniform. Schools in a district have different styles of blazer. The school badge usually appears on the front pocket

''There were a number of teachers, and the Bursar, and an important-looking man called Lord Something-or-other'': the bursar is the school treasurer; we later discover the lord's name to be Lord Mulke; since he has only one name after "Lord", he is a nobleman, either life (he himself was given the title and his children won't inherit it) or hereditary (he inherited the title from his father). At the time, all hereditary lords were automatically lawmakers in Parliament

''We always sit with a gentleman on either side of a lady, don't we?'': this is a formal seating rule. A seating guide I checked claimed it's because if someone is seated with a man and a woman on either side, they will only talk to the person of the same gender. I think this is nonsense. This gives rise to an interesting mathematical question, the "ménage problem", about how many ways such a group can be seated

''They stood there, while Miss Cadwallader was saying grace'': grace is a short prayer said before a meal, giving thanks to God for the food. At formal meals, it is said by one person aloud, while everyone stands. Then they sit down and begin eating

''They were full of yellow stuff, not quite covering little pink things'': the prawns are perhaps served in butter or mayonnaise

''its official name was hot-pot. With it came tinned peas and tinned tomatoes'': this is probably Lancashire hotpot, a lamb or mutton stew with potatoes. The vegetables are specified as being from tins (called cans in North America) to highlight the incompetence of the cooks. To avoid the risk of botulism poisoning, tinned vegetables are sold pasteurised, giving them a peculiar taste. Tinned tomatoes are peeled whole plum tomatoes and they are soggy

''"Now the aim of this dish", she said, "is to use up leftovers"'': this is quite possibly actually true. Some institutional kitchens save the week's leftovers and serve them together in a stew. It's called resurrection pie or resurrection pudding

''It's like the gift of tongues!'': the gift of tongues is an ability given by God in the Bible (Acts 2) to speak in languages which the speaker didn't know. Some Christians claim to be able to do this nowadays; others claim these Christians are speaking gibberish rather than a real language

''Do you know that lovely old house in the High Street?'': the High Street is the most important street in a town, where the big shops and so on are. In North America this is usually called Main Street

''It used to be part of the gate in the old town wall'': there is only one walled town in Hertfordshire, which is St Albans. Since the wall was built in Roman times, before the story's world split from Our World, I think this is definitive

''You know it has a king-pin roof, don't you? …And a queen-pin'': Miss Cadwallader, or perhaps DWJ, has confused "king-pin" (the biggest skittle in ninepin bowling, or a large bolt, or an important person) with "king-post". A king-post in a sloping roof is the post which hangs down from the highest point inside the roof to support the middle of the horizontal tie-beam. Queen-posts are similar except that there are two, each a third of the way across. None of this is common knowledge and it would have been baffling to the children

''stately homes in the country'': grand mansions

''Rice pudding! he exclaimed'': rice pudding is made by boiling starchy rice in milk and then sweetening it with sugar. It's lovely unless you make it like this with too much milk

As usual, these are mirrors. The canonical version is here. For annotations on other chapters, follow the hashtag.

Dedication

Unusually for a DWJ novel, Witch Week has no dedication. I don't know whether this was deliberate.

Chapter 1

in ordinary blue ballpoint: ballpoint pens (aka biros) replaced dip pens and fountain pens in British schools in the 1970s. Before that, ballpoints were strongly discouraged: you were supposed to bring a fountain pen, and if you forgot you had to borrow a school dip pen and a bottle of rather shoddy ink. My dad was apparently still using a fountain pen in sixth form in 1965

He looked out over the bowed heads of Class 2Y: most schools have more students in a year group than can fit in a classroom, so classes are named in many schools with a year number plus a letter. Larwood House appears to use X, Y, and Z in each year. At the time this book was written, 2 would have meant the second year of that particular school, which makes the members of Class 2Y 12 or 13. But the numbering changed when the National Curriculum was introduced in 1988 to count total years of education, so the class would be 8Y nowadays. The US edition changed the class to 6B, confusing everybody

Larwood House was very strict about that rule: it's not clear where the name Larwood House came from. The name is similar to Lowood Hall, the austere boarding school in "Jane Eyre". Lowood Hall is also the name of the school in the "Millie" metafiction in DWJ's Chrestomanci stories. Witch Week is set in Hertfordshire, where oddly enough there is a Larwood School, for "children with social, emotional, and behavioral issues"— but unlike the fictional Larwood, it's a primary school

Nan Pilgrim couldn't get over the vaulting-horse again today: a vaulting-horse was a sort of padded cylinder on legs, about the length of a bicycle, and you ran towards it and used your hands to swing yourself over it. Girls ran towards the side, boys towards the end, but I don't know why. Vaulting horses were banned in athletics competitions around the year 2000, after a number of athletes had broken their backs

I will now describe the Indian rope trick: a standard piece of old stage magic. Generally: a magician threw a piece of rope into the air, but it didn't fall. His assistant, always a boy, then climbed the rope and vanished. Sometimes his body was made to fall down again in pieces

he got called Teddy out of the hymn that goes "Gladly my cross I'd bear". But of course everyone sings "Crossley my glad-eyed bear": school assemblies in England, then and now, are required to have a religious character, generally Christian, and children made to sing hymns every day will quickly invent funny versions. Teddy is a standard name for a cuddly bear. The joke about "Gladly, my cross-eyed bear" is an old one, but I'm not aware of any hymn which actually contains that text. The closest I can find is Fanny Crosby's obscure 1894 hymn "Keep thou my way", whose the final verse contains the line "Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I’ll bear"

he was remembering the witch being burnt: although witches were burnt elsewhere in Europe, people executed for witchcraft in England in Our World were hanged. Witch trials began in the Renaissance, by the way; in the Middle Ages, the official line was that witchcraft did not exist

It was a thing that would keep coming into his head whenever he was not thinking of anything else, much as he tried to forget it: flashbacks like this are a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, when people have had sudden terrible things happen to them in the past

She and Charles had just time to glimpse the bone-fire: the word "bonfire" is derived from "bone-fire", but it's not clear whether this was because it was used to execute people or whether animal bones were used as fuel

He could hear the yells and police whistles: before police began carrying personal radios in the 1960s, they would carry a whistle as a call for backup from any police officers nearby. (Were police whistles in use in the 1970s in the UK in Our World?)

Two witches were burnt this morning inside Holloway Gaol: Holloway prison, in north London, was the largest women's prison in Europe. It was closed in Our World in 2016. "Gaol" is an archaic spelling of "jail", but it's pronounced the same way

I was brought up to be sorry for witches: there is a parallel here with attitudes towards some minorities in Our World. During much of the twentieth century, for example, it was held to be more enlightened to feel pity for gay people than to condemn them. If that was a conscious metaphor on DWJ's part, it was prescient: Section 28, which prevented teachers from publicly affirming gay students in ways parallel to this story, was still seven years in the future

We'll see them all riding round on broomsticks in the sixth form: there is a longstanding idea that witches can fly by riding on a broomstick— that is, a broom for brushing the floor. The illustrations in my copy show a besom, which is a broom where the brush part is attached directly to the handle rather than to a crossbar at the end. The sixth form is a name for the top two years of a high school, when the students are between 16 and 18

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness: a campfire song, with the same tune as "The Old Grey Mare"

Cuckaburra sits in the old gum tree: an Australian folksong about a sort of brown kingfisher (Dacelo novæ-guineæ). Its name is more usually spelt "kookaburra", a borrowing from the Wiradjuri word "guuguubarra", which sounds like its cry. The song was written by Marion Sinclair in 1932, and is often assumed to be in the public domain

The Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird: an English folksong (Roud 413), comparing unfaithful lovers to the notoriously deceitful cuckoo

two curious furry creatures with large pouches: the witch knows that the kookaburra is Australian, and assumes it must be a marsupial

Let's do Witch Week a chapter at a time. Doing the whole book in one go is unwieldy, and a nuisance to format on Tumblr.