"But how can a city be alive? It's only made up of dead parts!" said Ludmilla. — Terry Pratchett

In the village in the Ramtops where they understand what the Morris dance is all about, they dance it just once, at dawn, on the first day of spring. They don't dance it after that, all through the summer. After all, what would be the point? What use would it be?

In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence. (pp. 316-317)

Mothers like her exist everywhere, and apparently nothing can be done about them. (p. 313)