Welcome to the Discworld & Pratchett Wiki. Have fun, contribute and be warned articles may contain nuts and spoilers to the plots of the books.
Little Match-Girl
From Discworld & Pratchett Wiki
A concept caused by Narrativium. Sarah, the poor little match girl who dies on Hogswatchnight but gets taken by angels to go to paradise. A story to remind us to be thankful for what we've got, or a thinly-veiled propaganda for laissez-faire economics (take your pick. Death made a political choice at this point)
In the book Hogfather, there was a real match girl whose fate was to die out in the snow, but Death, who was appalled by the idea, and at the time fixated on the idea of fairness to all on Hoswatchnight despite all prevailing social and economic realities, refilled her hourglass. This didn't half annoy the angel who descended to take her to Heaven, when he/she realised there wasn't a soul there in need of comforting and had to return to base empty-handed.
Annotation
"The Little Match Girl" is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young girl who dies selling matches during the cold winter. It was first published in 1848 as part of his fifth volume of Nye Eventyr (New Fairy Tales) as Den Lille Pige Med Svovlstikkerne ("The Little Girl with the Sulphur-sticks").
