From L-Space Wiki:
"The Great Nef is first mentioned in The Colour of Magic. It is an incredibly dry desert, to the point it has negative rainfall. The Great Nef is home to the Dehydrated Ocean, which consists of water in an uncommon fourth state (it dehydrates, leaving a silvery mildew-like freeflowing sand), and Light Dams, which dam up and save the Discworld's slow-moving, syrup-like light."
The name is a play on The Great Fen, a wetland in Cambridgeshire, England.
Since "Nef" is "Fen" backwards, that's also appropriate for a very dry desert.
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So here's what I learned. During the High Middle Ages and Renaissance, a nef was also the name of an extravagant table ornament and container, made of gold or silver, and used to carry salt or spices -- which were very expensive back then, and used to show how rich and important you were. ;-P Wikipedia tells me that the nef could also hold cutlery or even napkins, but this is slightly misleading - here's why:
1. Napkins were definitely used in rich households during the 16th century, but this was because of the fashion for the huge neck-ruffs that people wore, which were a bugger to clean. ;-P Napkins could protect ruffs to a degree. Napkins fell out of favour in the 17th century, when forks were introduced and ruffs became smaller.
2. Knives. Just about everyone in the 1500s carried their own knives for self-protection, so there was no need for the nef to hold any. Europeans started using the rounded "table knives" around the mid-17th century.
3. Forks. Dining forks (as opposed to cooking ones) were introduced to Italy from Byzantium in the 11th century, but the rest of Europe only adopted them between the 16th and 18th centuries. Before that, servants used to carve a piece of meat into small, easily-graspable pieces. The people eating, especially at the high table, had a communal roll of bread, which they tore to pieces. Everyone held a piece of bread between their thumb and index and middle fingers, and used that to grip a piece of meat and eat that - a bit like a juicy beef sandwich. So next time you have a beef burger, it's really nothing more than a more sophisticated version of that.
4. Spoons. This is the one piece that wikipedia gets right. Europeans definitely had spoons in the Middle Ages; early ones were made of wood or horn, but by the 1400s, even commoners had pewter spoons. (Rich people, of course, had silver or golden spoons for centuries; the royal inventory in 1259, for instance, includes silver spoons). So, the medieval Nef would definitely have spoons. If you were rich and living in Elizabethan England, you'd have napkins too ... but probably no forks.
Anyway, if you're interested in medieval Nefs, the wikipedia page is a good enough start. Have fun.
"The Great Nef is first mentioned in The Colour of Magic. It is an incredibly dry desert, to the point it has negative rainfall. The Great Nef is home to the Dehydrated Ocean, which consists of water in an uncommon fourth state (it dehydrates, leaving a silvery mildew-like freeflowing sand), and Light Dams, which dam up and save the Discworld's slow-moving, syrup-like light."
The name is a play on The Great Fen, a wetland in Cambridgeshire, England.
Since "Nef" is "Fen" backwards, that's also appropriate for a very dry desert.============
So here's what I learned.
During the High Middle Ages and Renaissance, a nef was also the name of an extravagant table ornament and container, made of gold or silver, and used to carry salt or spices -- which were very expensive back then, and used to show how rich and important you were. ;-P Wikipedia tells me that the nef could also hold cutlery or even napkins, but this is slightly misleading - here's why:1. Napkins were definitely used in rich households during the 16th century, but this was because of the fashion for the huge neck-ruffs that people wore, which were a bugger to clean. ;-P Napkins could protect ruffs to a degree. Napkins fell out of favour in the 17th century, when forks were introduced and ruffs became smaller.
2. Knives. Just about everyone in the 1500s carried their own knives for self-protection, so there was no need for the nef to hold any. Europeans started using the rounded "table knives" around the mid-17th century.
3. Forks. Dining forks (as opposed to cooking ones) were introduced to Italy from Byzantium in the 11th century, but the rest of Europe only adopted them between the 16th and 18th centuries. Before that, servants used to carve a piece of meat into small, easily-graspable pieces. The people eating, especially at the high table, had a communal roll of bread, which they tore to pieces. Everyone held a piece of bread between their thumb and index and middle fingers, and used that to grip a piece of meat and eat that - a bit like a juicy beef sandwich.
So next time you have a beef burger, it's really nothing more than a more sophisticated version of that.4. Spoons. This is the one piece that wikipedia gets right. Europeans definitely had spoons in the Middle Ages; early ones were made of wood or horn, but by the 1400s, even commoners had pewter spoons. (Rich people, of course, had silver or golden spoons for centuries; the royal inventory in 1259, for instance, includes silver spoons). So, the medieval Nef would definitely have spoons. If you were rich and living in Elizabethan England, you'd have napkins too ... but probably no forks.
Anyway, if you're interested in medieval Nefs, the wikipedia page is a good enough start. Have fun.
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