“Have you ever heard of the Brothers Grimm?” Fairytale-collecting siblings Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were last mentioned in State of Decay (1980) – with reference to a theory of linguistics developed by Jacob. Now we learn that the “lovely” Bros were in the Doctor’s darts team.
The story recalled by the diamondpunching Doctor is Das Hirtenbüblein (The Shepherd Boy) – a fable anthologised in 1815 as part of the second volume of the brothers’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales). It describes how there was “once on a time a shepherd boy whose fame spread far and wide because of the wise answers which he gave to every question”. Hearing of this, the local king asked the boy three seemingly impossible questions, the last being: how many seconds of time are there in eternity?