"Oh, no," she said, "you don't. Queens ride around in golden coaches and whatnot. Each to their own. Brooms is for witches."

"Now come on, you two," began Nanny Ogg, one of nature's mediators. "Anyway, someone can be a queen and a w-"

"Who cares?" said Magrat, dropping the broomstick. "I don't have to bother with that sort of thing anymore."

She turned, clutched at her dress, and ran. She became a figure outlined against the sunset.

"You daft old besom, Esme," said Nanny Ogg. "Just because she's getting wed."

"You know what she'd say if we told her," said Granny Weatherwax. "She'd get it all wrong. The Gentry. Circles. She'd say it was . . . nice. Best for her if she's out of it."

"They ain't been active for years and years," said Nanny. "We'll need some help. I mean . . . when did you last go up to the Dancers?"

"You know how it is," said Granny "When it's so quiet. . . you don't think about 'em."

"We ought to have kept 'em cleared."

"True."

"We better get up there first thing tomorrow," said Nanny Ogg.

"Yes."

"Better bring a sickle, too."

There isn't much of the kingdom of Lancre where you could drop a football and not have it roll away from you. Most of it is moor land and steeply forested hillside, giving way to sharp and ragged mountains where even trolls wouldn't go and valleys so deep that they have to pipe the sunlight in.

There was an overgrown path up to the moor land where the Dancers stood, even though it was only a few miles from the town. Hunters tracked up there sometimes, but only by accident. It wasn't that the hunting was bad but, well – there were the stones.

Stone circles were common enough everywhere in the mountains. Druids built them as weather computers and since it was always cheaper to build a new 33-MegaLith circle than upgrade an old slow one there were generally plenty of ancient ones around.