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Примечания
1
It’s a sort of rekindling of magic that happened two months before the time of this story, and in which Jennifer played a large part.
2
After a well-argued plea for gender equality at the World Magic Expo of 1962, ‘sorcerers’ refers to male or female practitioners. The feminine ‘sorceress’ is no longer used, except by some of the old duffers who think that a female sorcerer’s place is in the home, conjuring up food and cleaning the house by thought power alone.
3
The so-called ‘Book of Magic’, which, while full of useful stuff, also has a lot in it that is nonsense. The skill is deciding which is which.
4
One thousand Shandars = one MegaShandar, more usu-ally referred to as a ‘Meg’ after ‘Old Meg McMeddoes’, an early proponent of Magical Field Theory.
5
No one knows why. The ‘Rule of Three’ crops up often and is often referred to as ‘Mandrake’s 3rd Dictum’ after the sorcerer who first wrote about it.
6
Snamoo is the Snodd Seaworld’s performing walrus. He can play Eine Kleine Nachtmusik on a xylophone, among other tricks. He only liked being moved by the Prices, and it’s tricky to argue with 1.4 tons of recalcitrant sea-mammal.
7
She was referring to Jennifer’s connection with Dragons. Of the only two Dragons on the planet, she knew them both well enough for them to return her calls. Dragons usually don’t.
8
The moolah is the unit of currency in the Kingdom of Snodd. One hundred Herefordian washers = 1 moolah, which is roughly equivalent to the spondoolip, at 2007 exchange rates.
9
The technical term is a
10
The correct term for this is ‘sarcoluminescence’ and it efficiently converts emotion to power, one of the central pillars of magic. It is one of the first spells to be taught to trainees.
11
Conch: the shell of a sea snail that lends itself well to medium-range communication. Giant clams have been used (and still are) for transcontinental message transmission. Toddlers’ shoes have a range of about sixty yards, but are a lot lighter to carry than conches, and not as delicate.
12
Since carpets cover the whole floor and rugs only a part of it, a ‘flying carpet’ is misnamed. Translated from the Persian – from where all flying rugs originate – as a ‘flying carpet’ in the seventeenth century, the term has become so entrenched that common usage has them now as carpets. A carpeteer is correctly called a Rugeteer, or, if you’re French, a Tapisigator.
