Chapter 10
- (Sung at by kids; Fister's advice; Durster's fate)
- Riddley finds that he has an ally, Fister, who advises him to move on to better things; and an enemy, Durster, who is devoured by the Bernt Arse dog pack.
- (64:3) "sqwinting at me with his littl sharp blue eyes"
The only other character described as having "little eyes" is Goodparley.
- (64:27) "it ben a diffrent time ... this ben stil a moving crowd back then"
We have already heard that Riddley's settlement lived at Crippel the Farn before it came to How Fents, but this is a hint that the hunter-gatherers used to be even more nomadic.
- (66:29) "3 black dogs and 1 says, 'The Pry Mincers dead'..."
This is an inverted version of an English folk tale, "The King of the Cats," in which a bemused wanderer starts to tell his host how he witnessed a royal funeral procession of cats in the night; he's interrupted by the host's cat, who shrieks "What? Then I'm the king of the cats!" and flies up the chimney.
- (67:31) "I bes put the red cord strait"
Put the record straight. This is a particularly good example of Hoban's deftness at puns that accurately reflect how idioms really change: someone mis-hears a phrase in a way that seems to make a little more sense than the real phrase, after the original meaning has become unclear. (That is, even if you have no idea what the "red cord" might be, it's easy to imagine pulling a cord straight; and in Riddley's world, rope is a lot more common than written records.) An example of a phrase that has changed in a similar way is "spitting image," which used to be "spit and image." EB
This is referred to as folk etymology if it becomes widespread; for newer instances that have not yet passed the test of time, linguist Geoff Pullum has coined the term eggcorn. RG
A red fiber is a versatile metaphor, so not surprisingly it has been used to represent many things; Victor Mair's survey of such expressions lists several of these, including destiny (the Chinese red thread of fate) and the idea of following through on a theme (possibly derived from the Theseus/Ariadne myth), and there is also a good-luck version in the Kabbalistic red string. EB
Riddley never explains what the "bad-luck-go-away sign" looks like, but it might be the traditional European gesture called the "devil's horns" or mano cornuto: extending the forefinger and pinky. PAM
- (69:4) "keap it in memberment"
I.e., remember it, after Durster has just been dismembered.