Jo

Once upon a time, there was a knight who had never slain dragons by his own hand. He was an immensely clever knight, one of the cleverest of all, but he did not care to shoot or slice his way to a better world (and it was not where the peak of his talents lay anyway). He did his good, and earned knighthood in the process, by crafting a mirror. The mirror was called the Discworld.

The mirror Discworld was crafted in an intricate fashion that was a certain kind of beautiful and which could only be crafted by someone as skilled as Sir Pterry (for that was the knight’s name). It reflected many things, but what it reflected most of all was the Earth, and the parts of Earth that it most reflected was human nature trying to squeeze itself into a society.

The mirror was not a perfect one; it magnified some parts of the reflection, while other parts were misty and hard to make out. But this was still useful, for the magnification showed people parts of their Earth that they had never before noticed, and which they had certainly never considered that way.

As the mirror was pleasing to look at for its carving alone, let alone the reflections it gave, Sir Pterry was given his knighthood for his services to the world through art.

He did not live happily ever after, for he died before his threescore and ten; but he lived happily until then, and his legacy lived forever after. And although I never met him, I suspect rather strongly that he would have preferred that to the other way around.