The Wee Free Men (Terry David John Pratchett) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

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A reference to William Topaz McGonagall, Scotland’s Worst Poet (he was to rhyme and meter what B.S. Johnson was to bricks and mortar, as my correspondent puts it), and also a slight exaggeration of the abilities accredited to bards in Celtic tradition. Note that the gonnagle turns out to be called William.

William McGonagall’s most famous poem is probably The Tay Bridge Disaster which recounts the events of the evening of 28 December 1879, when, during a severe gale, the Tay Rail Bridge near Dundee collapsed as a train was passing over it. The first verse reads:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!

Alas! I am very sorry to say

That ninety lives have been taken away

On the last Sabbath day of 1879,

Which will be remember’d for a very long time.