Other Goats: Terry Pratchet and naming goats

from Wikipedia

Here is a note which I received from Marcia, a fan of mine in Montreal:

Dear Heidi,

This is my favorite passage ever about goats, and one of my favorites about anything. It's from Terry Pratchett's comic fantasy "Equal Rites." Eskarina, the young witch-in-training, is learning to live with the senior witch in the neighborhood.
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She found that life in the cottage wasn't entirely straightforward. There was the matter of the goats' names, for example.

"But they've got to have names!" she said. "Everything's got a name."

Granny looked at her around the pear-shaped flanks of the head nanny, while milk squirted into the low pail.

"I daresay they've got names in Goat," she said vaguely, "What do they want names in Human for?"

"Well," said Esk, and stopped. She thought for a bit. "How do you make them do what you want, then?"

"They just do, and when they want me, they holler."

Esk gravely gave the head goat a wisp of hay. Granny watched her thoughtfully. Goats did have names for themselves, she well knew: there was "goat who is my kid", "goat who is my mother", "goat who is herd leader", and half a dozen other names, not least of which was "goat who is this goat". They had a complicated herd system and four stomachs and a digestive system that sounded very busy on still nights, and Granny had always felt that calling all this names like Buttercup was an insult to a
noble animal.

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M.

You have probably figured out that I like just about all things related to goats. If you have a goat "thang" that you want to share, please do. I might even make you famous by posting it on my blog!