Nac Mac Feegle

If you do not yet know who the Nac Mac Feegle are:
1) Be grateful for your uneventful life. 2) Be prepared to beat a retreat if you hear anyone about as high as your ankles shout ‘Crivens!’ They are, strictly speaking, one of the faerie folk, but it is probably not a good idea to tell them this if you are looking forward to a future in which you still have your teeth.
The Nac Mac Feegles are a type of fairy that emigrated from another dimension, one where their homeworld was Disc shaped.
They are six inches tall and are a parody of the Victorian concept of mystical and refined fairies, inverting everything about that genre and harkening back to the fairies of folklore, who were generally seen as occasionally helpful thieves and pests.
The Nac Mac Feegles' skin appears blue because it is heavily tattooed and covered with paint, and all have red hair. The tattoos identify a Feegle's clan. Wings or similar features of any kind are out of the question.
The Feegles spend their time drinking, fighting and stealing, alone or in various combinations. The immense strength and rowdiness of these pictsies means that they will fight anything, and they have a particular fondness for headbutting creatures far larger than themselves. In a good fight, a Feegle will take on all comers, fight his fellow Feegles, with such enthusiasm that makes missing someone hazardous ("Crivens! I kicked meself in ma ain heid!").
Some clans have an apparently superstitious fear of their names being written lest their names appear on unwelcome legal documents. Some of the upland clans have mastered the concept of law as a weapon however, and note that it is a good idea "neever te sign a feegle contract; six inch high people write verra small print". Beware the cry, "We've got a cheap lawyer an' we're not afraid to use him!" Their swords glow blue in the presence of lawyers.
Description adapted from: https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Nac_Mac_Feegle

Structure

Nac Mac Feegles possess a eusocial culture similar to bees, termites and other social insects. The clan is made up of hundreds of brothers, and one mother, called a kelda, who plays the role of the "queen". When a Clan's kelda dies, another is imported from a different clan. The new kelda chooses her husband, known as the Big Man, from among her adopted Clan when she arrives, and soon begins the lifelong task of begetting the next generation, often up to twenty tiny baby Feegles at a time. Depending on how long the kelda has been kelda, the majority of the tribe will either be her brothers-in-law (i.e., the sons of the previous kelda) or her sons. Daughters are very rare and, on coming of age, leave to become kelda of another tribe, taking some brothers, probably including a gonnagle (see below) with her. Young keldas are slim, but older keldas are virtually spherical. They also enjoy the odd nip of Special Sheep Liniment (which on no account should ever be given to sheep).
The role of the kelda is, essentially, to do the thinking. The Big Man is responsible for commanding his fellow Feegles and trying to maintain some semblance of order, but in truth the kelda decides what will be done and the Big Man works out the fine (for a Feegle's plans) details--although no Big Man shown so far would go on a serious expedition and not bring along the clan gonnagle (who tend to be much brighter than the other Feegles and have a fund of lore, stories, and ideas they can draw upon). Male Feegles are in dread of losing their kelda because there will be no one 'tae take care o' us'. To help her with this, she is given, before leaving her birth clan, a bottle of water from her mother's leather cauldron - which, of course, contains some of the water from her mother's cauldron, and so on. Theoretically (and on the Discworld theories of this nature tend to work, even if they aren't actually right, owing to narrative causality), the bottle contains water from the cauldrons of Nac Mac Feegle keldas since before history. By mixing a little of the water into her own cauldron, and drinking the result, the kelda can connect with the memories of those who have gone before her - and, more mysteriously, with those who are yet to come.
The males of the clan don't question this, accepting that keldaring is full of secrets (hiddlins) they aren't expected to understand. They are warriors, hunters, and foragers; Nac Mac Feegle foraging consists of taking anything that isn't nailed down (if it is nailed down, they will take the nails as well), up to and including quite large cows if enough foragers can be gathered to do the lifting (given their strength, one for each hoof). If one were to see a sheep rise off the ground six inches and move backward rapidly, four Feegles are sure to be responsible.
Among the warriors of each clan is a gonnagle, or war-poet, whose job is to create terrible poetry that is recited during battles to demoralise the enemy. A well-trained gonnagle can even make the enemy's ears explode and is equipped with "mousepipes" (bagpipes made from mouseskin, often with the ears still attached). A gonnagle tends to be somewhat more intelligent and level-headed than most Feegles, and often acts as advisor to the Big Man. Some of them travel from clan to clan, making sure the old songs and stories are still remembered and sharing the new ones.

Culture

Despite their criminal tendencies, the Nac Mac Feegle do possess a sense of honour. They see no sport in fighting the weak. They may take one cow from a man with a herd of fifty; however, they will not steal an old woman's only pig, or an old man's only pair of false teeth. They claim it was difference of opinion over when to stop stealing that led to their exile by the Queen of the Elves.
The Nac Mac Feegle language is a mix of Common (English) and the Glaswegian dialect: "Crivens! Whut aboot us, ye daftie".
Nac Mac Feegle tend to have human names, usually abbreviated and with some sort of modifier (Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Aggie, No'-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock Jock).
Nac Mac Feegle clans tend to occupy ancient burial mounds. They avoid "bigjobs" (humans) if at all possible, as they are worried this might lead to folklorists and archeologists invading their privacy and writing things down. Since they can move about ten times faster than a human, they find it easy to go unseen when they wish to do so.
The Nac Mac Feegle males treat witches with a nervous mix of fear and respect. All witches, regardless of age, are called 'hags'. A very important witch, such as Granny Weatherwax, is acknowledged as the 'hag o' hags'. Feegles seem to know enough about witches to spot and respect a good one, and just as they accept their keldas know things they do not, they are willing to believe that "the haggin'" has its own secrets. They comically dread witches who know about them, with large amounts of dread being reserved for 'the crossin' o' the arms' and the 'tappin' o' the feets' and one witch nearly panicking them when she began to harangue them in their own dialect, which they called 'the knowin' of the speakin'.
The fearlessness of Nac Mac Feegle warriors in combat is derived from their religious belief that they cannot be killed, because they are already dead; they believe that they are in the afterlife, and that any Feegle who is killed has simply been reincarnated. They reason that the Continent of the Seven Circles, with the sunshine, flowers, birds, trees, things to steal and people to fight, must be some sort of heaven, because a world that good couldn't be open to just anybody. Despite carrying swords, their preferred weapons are the boot and the head; this results in most Feegles' noses being broken.

Feegles have a very unquie way of speaking. The following is a glossery of common words and phrases one might hear from a Feegle.

• Bigjobs: Human beings.
• Blethers: Rubbish, nonsense.
• Carlin: Old woman.
• Cludgie: The privy.
• Crivens!: A general exclamation that can mean anything from “My goodness!” to “I’ve just lost my temper and there is going to be trouble.”
• Dree your/my/his/her weird: Face the fate that is in store for you/me/him/her.
• Geas: A very important obligation, backed up by tradition and magic. Not a bird.
• Eldritch: Weird, strange. Sometimes means oblong, too, for some reason.
• Hag: A witch of any age. Hagging/Haggling: Anything a witch does.
• Hiddlins: Secrets. Mudlin: Useless person.
• Pished: I am assured that this means “tired.”
• Scunner: A generally unpleasant person. Scuggan: A really unpleasant person.
• Ships: Wooly things that eat grass and go baa. Easily confused with the other kind.
• Spavie: See Mudlin.
• Special Sheep Liniment: Probably moonshine whisky, I am very sorry to say. No one knows what it’d do to sheep, but it is said that a drop of it is good for shepherds on a cold winter’s night and
• for Feegles at any time at all. Do not try to make this at home.
• Waily: A general cry of despair.

Mythology & Lore

Feegles do not, as a culture, have any kind of traditional religious structures, or at least, they do not swear fealty or devotion to any authority. This is owed in part to their history rebelling from the Queen of the Elves, and from spending time in realms where Gods were very real, and often 'A bit of Scunner' as a feegle might put it.
They do have very strong spritual and superstitous beliefs, the most prominent being that thay are in fact, already dead, having been so good in 'The Land of the Living'. They see their current existence as a kind of 'Heaven' where they can drink and fight and steal to their hearts content.

Priesthood

"Who's that Bigjob in the dress?" "Dunno, but I ken that Shiny hats worth a coin! GET IM!"
Feegle's are far enough from the idea of an organized faith that the only person in a feegle mound to bear that kind of authority would be Kelda, who serves as Mother and Leader of the Clan.
Feegles also regard any Witch or female mage who they have discerned as 'not a bastard' with significant reverence. The degree to which they respect her beyond that is related to the Clan's relationship with her. There is even tell of a Hag who served as Kelda(briefly, and only for a few days, in case you were worrying about *that* bit of the Kelda's role). She is referred in Feegle Myths as 'The Big Wee Hag'

'Nae King! Nae Quin! Nae laird! We willnae be fooled again!"

"Ooooh not the tappin' of the feet...!"

Disclamer: The Nac Mac Feegle are a creation from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels which have been adapted into this world. The concept and and inspiration belong to the esteemed author, as well as the many cultures he in turn adapted them from.

Type

Geopolitical, Clan

Alternative Names

Feegles, Pictsies, The Wee Free Folk, Red Haired Menaces