The Colour of Magic

20

This is the first occurrence of the name ‘Dunmanifestin’ for the home of the Gods at the top of Cori Celesti. It is used again in several places throughout the other Discworld novels.

This is not only a reference to the many British placenames that begin with ‘Dun’ (a Gaelic word meaning castle or fort and hence town) but also a reference to the supposedly traditional name for a twee retirement bungalow in the suburbs. When people (especially the bourgeois middle classes) retire to the suburbs they always, according to the stereotype, give the house some ‘cute’ punning name. Since the Dun/Done association is well-known, one of the more common names (though it is a matter of discussion if anyone has ever actually seen a house with this name) is ‘Dunroamin’—that is “done roaming”—i.e. the owners of the house have finished “travelling the world” and are now settled down to a life of the Daily Mail, golf and coffee mornings. From this, we get that a retirement home for gods not possessing much taste, might just be named ‘Dunmanifestin’.

A correspondent tells me that ‘Dun’ is also an Old English word for hill.