Magic Carpet

A method of magical transportation favoured in Klatch.

Where Hubwards magical practitioners favour the Broomstick, the carpet is the preferred means of mobility Rimwards of the Circle Sea.

It is in all probability more comfortable, so long as the rider can forget that all that stands between them and a speedy downwards plummet is a quarter of an inch of woven wool plus underlay.

It is vitally important to pay attention to certain fundamental details of laminar and spatial arrangements, or the thing will not work as expected.

In non-wizard talk, this means do not lay it out upside-down.

If charged with the correct magic, non-wizards may use them. Gulli, Gulli and Beti (the Patrician, Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs) hijack a magic carpet, when all speed is required to get the Patrician to the correct place in time to surrender Ankh-Morpork's army. Fred Colon is uncomfortably aware he's sitting on the threadbare area that has worn right through: fortunately the carpet is a sturdy one.

Earlier in Jingo, it is learnt that the Klatchian Embassy in Ankh-Morpork uses magic carpets for swift communication with the homeland: evidently these carry Corps Diplomatiques insignia. An autopilot may be fitted as standard.

In the discussion of the country of Syrrit in The Compleat Discworld Atlas, it is revealed that the origins of the flying carpet might lie in a particular breed of sheep to be found in this land. They have evidently evolved to the point where the legendary sure-footedness of the mountain sheep has gone the essential step further, and sheep may have learnt to avoid hitting the ground when they fall off the mountainside. Shepherds here find there is nothing uncommon in discovering a flock of sheep has transferred itself from one side of the mountain to the other practically overnight, and speculate that the poetic simile of sheep looking like a flotilla of small fluffy white clouds may well have found its way into reality here. Fleeces of the Syrrit sheep are usually woven into magic carpets, in fact, and travellers from outside looking to buy such a thing are directed to one of many carpet-herders. Who, with their usual brace of Kh'olli dogs which respond to whistles and hand-signals, gently steer and herd their charges into a safe pen at night.