Since Billet notices his mistake too late, the staff passes on to her. However, the newborn child is actually a girl, Esk (full name Eskarina Smith). Billet wants to pass his wizard's staff on to his successor. This signifies that the child is destined to become a wizard on the Discworld, the number eight has many of the magical properties that are sometimes ascribed to seven in other mythologies. The wizard Drum Billet knows that he will soon die and travels to a place where an eighth son of an eighth son is about to be born. Pratchett based the character Esk on his daughter Rhianna Pratchett. The protagonist Eskarina Smith does not return until I Shall Wear Midnight, which was published 23 years later.

The novel introduces the character of Granny Weatherwax, who reappears in several later Discworld novels. The title is wordplay on the phrase ' Equal Rights'. Published in 1987, it is the third novel in the Discworld series and the first in which the main character is not Rincewind. Equal Rites is a comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett.

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