of the economy is agrarian and communities largely consist of loosely affiliated groups of self-sufficient farms. The Ramtops are known for their harsh winters; snow drifts can rise up to during the worst storms. "Ramtoppers have 18 words for snow," Pratchett says, "none of them printable." Pratchett mentioned that the name of the Ramtops comes from RAMTOP (i.e. top of RAM, or random-access memory), a system variable in the ZX Spectrum computer. Lancre Lancre is situated in the Ramtop mountains, about Hubwards of the city of Ankh-Morpork. It is the best-known of hundreds of tiny countries in the Ramtops, occupying a vertiginous shelf looking over the Sto Plains. Lancre is based mainly on rural areas of Southern England with which Pratchett was familiar. In an article in Folklore entitled, 'Imaginary Worlds, Real Stories,' Pratchett writes, "the kingdom of Lancre [...] I suspect is a somewhat idealised version of the little fold in the Chiltern Hills where I grew up, stirred in with the western area of the Mendips where I spent a great deal of my adult life." Pratchett described the tiny country as "solid folklore"; it is the place all the legends of Earth's countryside really happened. Ankh-Morpork serves a similar function for urban folklore, but not as blatantly. The name seems to echo Lancashire (with the inhabitants called Lancrastians) and the associated witch trials in Pendle in that county in the seventeenth century. Part of the reason for Lancre's mystical quality is that the Ramtops are a major earthing point for the Discworld's magical field. Headless horsemen and walking trees are part of the landscape, as are witches. Lancre is famous for witches, especially since the publication of The Joye of Snackes, an erotic cookbook by "A Lancre Witch", i.e. Nanny Ogg. Though it is not clear if the phenomenon is related to background magic, Lancre also serves as the physical location for (possibly two) independent gateways to a "parasite universe" inhabited by Elves. The other thing Lancre is famous for is young people going off and seeking their fortunes, usually in Ankh-Morpork. Although most maps show Lancre to measure roughly in size, its true area remains unknown – partly because of its mountainous terrain and the fact that it borders on the Ramtops, but also due to the warping effect of high level of background magic. Owing to this background magic, geography in certain areas of Lancre