Witches

Overview

Witch magic is very different from the wizard magic taught in the Unseen University, and consists largely of finding clever and efficient ways to achieve the right results, often without using magic at all to do so. In contrast to wizard magic, witch magic relies more on common sense, hard work, and a peculiar brand of psychology known as headology, most commonly employed by Granny Weatherwax, and more commonly used on people.

Witch magic is less energy-intensive than wizard magic, which means that a witch can technically do more than an equally-powerful wizard. Also unlike wizards, witches do not make a big deal of their talents and look down on those who employ showy techniques and appearances. Witches unironically acting with melodrama, of which cackling is seen as an early sign, is often an indication of "going to the bad" and becoming a stereotypically wicked witch.

Another later addition to witch skills, established in Maskerade, but first named in the Tiffany Aching books, is First Sight—seeing what is really there instead of what one hopes to see, expects to see, or what others see—and Second Thoughts—thinking about the way one is thinking.

Though witches rarely use magic, a low-level form of magic employed frequently is a 'shamble', a handmade device or construct used by witches for such uses as detecting or amplifying magic, for protection (like a "curse net"), or for sending out a spell. The shamble itself is not seen as having magical properties, being instead something to employ magic through, and can only be made from scratch in the moment it is needed and used only once. A shamble, which can consist of any number of things, must contain something living, such as a fresh egg or a small insect.

Unlike wizard magic, which is taught en masse, witch magic is taught on a one-to-one basis by older witches to apprentices. Although magical talent tends to run in families, witches do not teach their daughters, feeling that this would cause a sort of magical inbreeding.

Discworld Voodoo is considered to be an aspect of witch magic, combined with a sort of do-it-yourself religion, relying heavily on the power of belief. The most powerful Discworld voodoo-women can deliberately create moderately powerful gods for a specific purpose.

Works

Starting with Equal Rites in 1987, the major novels featuring the witches are:

Equal Rites 1987

Wyrd Sisters 1988

Witches Abroad 1991

Lords and Ladies 1992

Maskerade 1995

Carpe Jugulum 1998

The Wee Free Men 2003 (Tiffany Aching)

A Hat Full of Sky 2004 (Tiffany Aching)

Wintersmith 2006 (Tiffany Aching)

I Shall Wear Midnight 2010 (Tiffany Aching)

The Shepherd's Crown 2015 (Tiffany Aching)

Ramtops witches

The majority of Discworld Witches are seen in the Ramtops region of Discworld, and, barring the latest book in the Tiffany Aching series, the primary protagonists of the Witch books are from Lancre, a country in the Ramtops region.

The Lancre Coven

The Lancre Coven is, as mentioned above, the main group of witches in the Discworld novels, and the ones featured in the novels referred to as "The Witches series".

They began as a parody of the Three Witches in Macbeth, and also as a reworking of the Maiden, Mother and Crone archetypes (the Triple Goddess). It could also be said that they each represent a different stereotype of witches: Granny is the classic fairy tale witch, Nanny the village wise woman and Magrat the modern romantic Wiccan.

It has been explained in the books that three witches are required for a coven. Two witches get on each other's nerves; the third one can get them to make up, so they can all get on the nerves of everyone else. If a coven has more than three members, they all get on each other's nerves. (It is also mentioned that the true collective noun for a group of witches is not "coven", but "argument".)

Magrat Garlick is the daughter of Simplicity Garlick, granddaughter of Araminta Garlick and niece of Yvonnel Garlick. She was the original Maiden in the Lancre coven, which consisted of herself, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. She is often described as "a wet hen", generally by Granny Weatherwax. Magrat believes in crystals, folk wisdom, and cycles of nature, and is overall a gentle parody of New Age pagans.

Despite appearances, beneath her silver jewelry and heavy eye makeup, Magrat is surprisingly practical. She can defend herself physically when necessary, and is capable of performing impressive feats of real magic (as seen in Wyrd Sisters when Magrat uses her magic to turn the old wooden door into a rising oak—a display that impresses even Granny Weatherwax). Magrat's gentle personality allows her to serve as a mediator between the often-clashing Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, but she does occasionally display a strong temper herself. In Witches Abroad Magrat was chosen to serve as a Fairy Godmother, but her inability to master the use of the wand (which had a tendency to reset to "pumpkins") prevented her from taking full advantage of the powers associated with this position. Magrat is technically a better doctor than the other two witches, since she actually believes in herbalism while Granny tends to use whatever plant or bottle of coloured water comes to hand as a prop for her headology (in this case the placebo effect), as explained in Lords and Ladies.

Other Ramtops witches

Witch stationed in Sidling Without and who is good with pigs, as acknowledged by Esme Weatherwax. She is mentor to Petulia Gristle, good with animals, and is apparently a pig-borer, cow-shouter and all-round veterinary witch. (The terms "pig-borer" and "cow-shouter" are plays on horse whisperer. According to The Discworld Almanak, pig-boring is a humane form of slaughter in which the animal is talked to death.)

A witch who teaches school over the mountain from Lancre. She takes snuff and does her own shoe repairs, which makes her "All Right" in Nanny Ogg's book, but has a nasty habit of being reasonable when provoked. Appears in Witches Abroad and the short story "The Sea and Little Fishes".

A very old witch who has been fortune telling for so long that she is no longer able to keep her mind in the present (as Granny Weatherwax puts it, she has a "detached retina in her second sight"). Her mouth frequently appears out of sync with her words, and her footsteps often sound ten minutes before she actually makes them. Passing references to Old Mother Dismass are made in Maskerade and Wintersmith. Appears in Witches Abroad and "The Sea and Little Fishes" (where her given name is revealed as "Beryl").

The wife of a retired wizard and a natural organiser, especially of things that don't really need organising. She (and no one else) pronounces her name "Ah-wij" (a possible reference to Hyacinth Bucket from the BBC series Keeping Up Appearances). She wears a great deal of "occult" jewellery that doesn't actually do anything. Granny Weatherwax dislikes Mrs. Earwig, claiming that she reduces witchcraft to "shoppin'". Mrs Earwig isn't actually bad, but is extremely snobbish and self-absorbed (which is later revealed to make her immune to an Elf's power of glamour), has very poor people skills, and tends to assume everyone would really agree with her if they weren't so stupid (so does Granny Weatherwax, of course, but at least she doesn't blame them for being stupid).

Her approach to teaching appears to be to 'trust in the folk wisdom' of the locals when it comes to practical things like birthing and medicine, and focus on such things as crystals, magic circles and soothing chants to help matters along. Annagramma Hawkin is her star (and in fact only) pupil. She is also the (self-appointed) chairwoman of the Witch Trials committee and has written a book about "Magick"; the "k" is to distinguish what she considers the True Craft from the everyday stuff Granny Weatherwax and other witches do—this in turn is a comedic reference on Pratchett's part to the use of ostentatious variant spellings of the word "magic" (ranging from Aleister Crowley's to some Wiccans'). She also appears in "The Sea and Little Fishes", A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith.

Younger witches

Tiffany Aching

A young witch (not yet 16 at the start of I Shall Wear Midnight), Tiffany hails from the Chalk, a region of Downland Rimward of the Ramtops. Her grandmother, Sarah Aching, was a shepherd, and by Ramtop standards was also a witch, although witchcraft was frowned upon on The Chalk, until Tiffany's arrival. Granny Aching was a friend of The Chalk Clan of Nac Mac Feegle (an army of tiny, blue, rowdy, drunken and vaguely Scottish ne'er-do-wells), who befriended Tiffany as the new "hag o' the hills". As Tiffany was their Kelda (Queen) for a short time, the Nac Mac Feegle see her as their responsibility, and there has not been a time in Tiffany's life since then when they have not (in)discreetly watched her.

Trainee "coven"

Though witches have no leader, Tiffany joined an informal "coven" of peer witches she gathers together for sabbats, of which Annagramma Hawkin acted as the self-appointed "boss" due to her having the tallest hat and the loudest voice. This coven was based in the Ramtops region and, it is assumed, no longer continued once the trainee witches received their own steadings.

Annagramma Hawkin was introduced in A Hat Full of Sky and is a peer of Tiffany Aching, whom she initially disdains. Trained by Letice Earwig, she can be extremely snobbish and has strong opinions about what a witch should or should not be, much like her mentor. On her first meeting with Tiffany Aching, Annagramma told Tiffany that she thought Granny Weatherwax was an 'ignorant old woman' who bullied and tricked people into thinking she was powerful, which, in her opinion, was an outdated form of witchcraft. Influenced by Mrs Earwig, she believed that witches should adopt a more professional form of witchcraft by employing 'higher MagicK' and using such tools as sacred circles, written spells, and 'real wands'.

During the events of Wintersmith, Annagramma is assigned her own cottage, taking over from the late Miss Treason. Initially, she is unprepared for the real demands of being resident witch for a village; after Tiffany rounds up their peers, the other members of their makeshift coven, and they are each able to give Annagramma small crash courses in true witchcraft (medicine, etc.) over the winter.

During this time it is revealed that her arrogance may in part be an overreaction to a deep insecurity about dealing with situations she cannot control. She admits to Tiffany, under pressure, that, unlike what her behavior might let people think, her family is quite poor, even for Lancre standards, not even having their own cottage (living in a rented one), nor do they have their own pig. This gives another reason why having her own cottage is so important to her. She later assists Tiffany by temporarily dispelling the Wintersmith's physical form with a fireball and ordering her broomstick to carry Tiffany away before he could re-form himself.

After Tiffany and others from her peer group assist Annagramma, it turns out that she is good enough at the part of witchcraft that consists of being tall, confident, bossy, and giving people a good show to pick up the rest along the way. Granny Weatherwax had suggested that the cottage be taken over by Tiffany, due to the fact that she was too young and Annagramma would be accepted instead (had Granny suggested any other witch, Annagramma would not have gotten the cottage). She later says, upon learning that Tiffany had been helping Annagramma, that she would have expected nothing less, leading Tiffany to conclude that the whole affair had been a ploy to prove to other witches that Mrs. Earwig's kind of witchcraft didn't work.

Witches of the Chalk

In the penultimate Tiffany Aching book, I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany has left the Ramtops area and settled into her steading as the Witch of the Chalk. During the events of the book, she encountered two young women who display latent witch talent.

Sarah "Granny" Aching

Sarah "Granny" Aching (née Grizzel) was Tiffany Aching's grandmother, and very good friends with the Chalk Hill clan of the Nac Mac Feegle. To them she was the "hag-o'-the-hills" (that is, the "witch of the Chalk"). She died two-years before the events in The Wee Free Men occurs, and, this being the case, only appears in flashbacks. There is substantial evidence that she was a witch, although she never said she was one. The Chalk's late Kelda confirms that Granny Aching was one, identifying that Granny Aching had "First Sight" and "Second Thoughts", as does her granddaughter and successor, Tiffany. When Tiffany speaks of Granny Aching to other witches, they often comment that she has many of the qualities of a very skilled witch, and one worthy of much respect, as her influence was such that the people she took care of ended up mostly taking care of each other (a feat only the most skilled witches are able to accomplish). Even the formidable Granny Weatherwax commented that she would have liked to have met Granny Aching.

She could be described as "salt of the earth" as well as the magma that runs beneath it. She was very important in the minds of the people of the Chalk, to the point where they called the thunder "Granny Aching cussin'", the buzzards "Granny Aching's chickens", the fluffy little white clouds of summer "Granny Aching's little lambs" and said she cussed the sky blue. Although people laughed when they said these things, part of them was not joking. For every inhabitant of the Chalk, Granny Aching was the Chalk; its best shepherd, its wisest woman and its memory, to the point that even the Chalk's Feegles say of her that she "[told] the hills what they are, every day. She [held] them in her bones. She [held] 'em in her heart." Granny Aching was "as if the green downland had a soul that walked about in old boots and a smocking apron and smoked a foul pipe and dosed sheep with turpentine". She smoked Jolly Sailor tobacco, and had two sheepdogs, Thunder and Lightning.

In The Wee Free Men, one of the last things that Tiffany saw when she was "truly awake" was Granny Aching, dressed as an ornamental shepherdess. Tiffany also became aware of people leaving small tributes at Granny's general gravesite, leaving her to wonder if Granny Aching is slowly becoming an actual cultural deity on the Chalk.

She was said to have a ringing personality, never lost a sheep in her life, and was taciturn "unless something was worth saying". Her petname for Tiffany, her favorite grandchild, was "Jiggit" (which means "Twenty" in the old counting language of shepherds, as Tiffany was her twentieth grandchild).

Letitia de Chumsfanleigh (née Keepsake)

Letitia de Chumsfanleigh (née Keepsake) was first introduced in I Shall Wear Midnight, as Letitia Keepsake, the daughter of the late Lord Keepsake, was Baron Roland de Chumsfanleigh's fiancée, and later became his wife and the new baroness of the Chalk. Letitia was raised in her father's castle by her mother after his death, and most of the time is cowed by her mother's personality. In the events of the book, it was revealed that having become involved with Roland, she also became insecure about the former fledgling-romantic relationship that had occurred between Roland and Tiffany, so she mail-ordered a spellbook from Boffo's Emporium from down in Ankh-Morpork (which she kept hidden from her mother) and tried to hex Tiffany, but all she accomplishes is to bring Tiffany to the attentions of the Cunning Man earlier than she would have (following the events of Wintersmith).

It was then revealed that, having grown-up in a stone castle, Letitia has a talent for witchcraft, but is untrained, and for years, Letitia was under the impression that what witchcraft entails is what is actually 'Boffo thinking' and wizardry (until Tiffany set her straight). After the climax of the book, Letitia and Roland were married by Tiffany in an ancient marriage ceremony by fire, before they were 'officially' wed the next day by an Omnian priest. Since she is the Chalk's new baroness, she is unlikely to pursue witchcraft as a profession but may instead take up spellcasting as a hobby.

Amber Petty

Amber is a girl who has suffered from domestic abuse at the hands of her father. After learning that she has fallen pregnant to a young man who has pursued a profession as a seamster, a profession he looks down upon in a man, her father beats her in a drunken rage, causing her to lose her baby. When this is discovered, she is left with the Nac Mac Feegle of the chalk for a time by Tiffany to undergo the 'soothing' by Jeannie, the Nac Mac Feegle kelda, who discovers that Amber has "the gift of understanding"; being able, for example, to intuitively understand the old language of the Feegle. As of the end of the events of I Shall Wear Midnight, she is married to her lover in a wedding presided over by Tiffany. She is currently being trained by the Chalk Kelda.

Ankh Morpork witches

In I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany Aching travels to Ankh-Morpork and discovers a number of witches there. In the words of Mrs Proust, "Oh, there's a few of us, Doing our bit, helping people when we can."

Mrs. Proust

Mrs. Proust is the runner of the Boffo Joke Emporium. She naturally looks like the stereotypical "evil witch" of folk stories and appears to be the "lead" witch of the Ankh Morpork coven. She has one son who assists in the Joke emporium.

Miss Cambric

Better known as Long Tall Short Fat Sally, Miss Cambric is one of the witches who accompanies Mrs. Proust to the Chalk. She suffers from tides; her body expands and contracts with the moon's influence. She is being trained by Mrs. Happenstance. Her expanding and shrinking tendencies were very helpful in The Shepherd's Crown, where she was able to inflate and fall on fairies, thereby crushing them.

Mrs. Happenstance

Mrs. Happenstance also accompanies Mrs. Proust to the chalk. Little is known about her other than the fact that she has a small bladder and/or bowel troubles.

Other witches

Other witches featured in the books include:

Aliss Demurrage

Aliss Demurrage, or Black Aliss as she was known (a nod to the name Black Annis, from English folklore, and her surname is a nod to the term 'Demiurge'), never appears in the books, being long dead, but she is a part of why Esme Weatherwax is the way she is. Aliss was an incredibly powerful Discworld witch. She knew all the tricks a witch should know, and had mastered the use of stories; Nanny Ogg said she could be running as many as three of them at once. Unfortunately, after a while she was unable to distinguish reality from her stories and started going mad—hence the name Black Aliss (although Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg claim the name arose because she had black teeth and fingernails due to her love of sweets). She is the wicked witch mentioned in popular fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty, and met her end when she was pushed into the oven of her gingerbread house (à la Hansel and Gretel). Black Aliss is the bad witch in most fairy tales.

Aliss trained Nanna Plumb, who trained Goody Heggety, who trained Nanny Gripes, who trained Granny Weatherwax. Esme is as powerful as Aliss was, if not more so, and is concerned constantly with keeping herself in check lest she end up like Aliss.

While Granny Weatherwax is said to be stronger than Black Aliss, Aliss is unconstrained by right and wrong. This apparently means she could, in addition to simply being evil, extend her own life as well as interfere with the nature of causality, such as preventing swords from cutting her. (Granny did the same in Maskerade, but instead shifted the wound forward in time, and causing it to wait several weeks before she would receive it, when it was more convenient for her.)

A gingerbread house appeared in The Light Fantastic, whose owner had been shoved into her own oven; however, this was a different witch (Goodie Whitlow) who met the same end due to narrative causality.

Hilta Goatfounder

A witch living in Ohulan Cutash (a town fifteen miles away from Bad Ass), who makes her money by selling medicine (says Granny), with names like Tiger Oil, Maiden's Prayer and Husband's Helper. She lives in Ohulan. While she cannot stand the "smoke and fug" of running a witch's tent in the market, she keeps her market stall dim, smoky, and with a dense herbal smell because her customers expect it (see Boffo). She was the one who persuaded Granny to fly on a broom and gave Granny her broom. She appears briefly in the book Equal Rites.

Erzulie Gogol

Mrs Gogol is a practitioner of voodoo living in Genua. After some initial confusion about whether being "foreign" means witchcraft is different, she assists the Lancre coven in getting rid of the Duc and getting Ella (who is hinted to be Mrs Gogol's daughter) into her rightful place on the throne. She has a black cockerel named Legba, which is able to frighten Nanny Ogg's tom Greebo. She resurrected Baron Saturday, Ella's father and a victim of Lilith de Tempscire's, as a zombie. She appears in Witches Abroad.

Brenda Loveknot

Known professionally as "the Evil Brenda", Mistress Loveknot is mentioned in the court transcript in The Illustrated Wee Free Men. She is a professional "evil witch", who was present at Princess Sandy of Brokenrock's christening, and cursed her to be stunned by a falling hamster on her eighteenth birthday. This was done by arrangement with the king, on the understanding that it would lead, inevitably, to marriage to a handsome prince. In the transcript, Mistress Loveknot's lawyer is at pains to point out that she is not, in fact, evil, merely fulfilling a necessary role.

Fairy godmothers

Fairy godmothers are something of a cross between a witch and a wizard. A fairy godmother is a woman, likely always a witch to start with, who, probably through a bequest, acquires a magical responsibility over the life of a single individual. Like wizards, fairy godmothers use a magically imbued rod (in this case a wand, rather than a staff) to produce wizz-bang effects like turning pumpkins into coaches. However, fairy godmothering is probably another aspect of witchcraft, relying heavily on narrative causality.

Desiderata Hollow

A fairy godmother who appears in Witches Abroad, although she dies very early on. Her career meant she travelled a lot, although she was based in Lancre. She was friends with Magrat, since no-one else in the area liked foreign food, and bequeathed her wand to her so she would stop Lilith's stories. Even though she misspells most words in her letters (like Nanny Ogg) and is seen as unintelligent by other witches, she accurately predicts her death (just like the witch Agnes Nutter, from Good Omens) and tells Magrat not to let Granny and Nanny go with her because she knew that was the only way they would agree to go.

Nettle

A fairy godmother, mentioned in The Wee Free Men and named in the court transcript in The Illustrated Wee Free Men. She gave Princess Sandy the traditional gifts of health, wealth and happiness, only to be sued by the princess when she didn't feel very happy. Nettle solved this problem by turning the princess into a mirror and her lawyer into a toad.

Lily Weatherwax

The sister of Granny Weatherwax, featured in Witches Abroad. When Esme was still a child, Lily left Lancre following rows with her family—and possibly some sort of scandal—and changed her name to Lady Lilith de Tempscire (fr. temps cire, "weather wax"). She became a fairy godmother and "turned to the bad"; Granny seems more offended by the fact that Lily was convinced she was the "good one". It is implied that Granny was supposed to be the bad one but made herself good to balance things out. She became heavily involved with narrative magic and using mirrors to boost her power, eventually becoming the power behind the throne of Genua. She looks very much like Esme, only younger (she is actually older). She failed to "find herself" at the end of Witches Abroad after being imprisoned in a dimension of mirrors, and has not been seen since.

Male witches

There are those occupations, like that of blacksmith and beekeeping, that are so old and arcane as to be tinged with witchcraft, and by tradition, considered to have a touch of magic to them, and their practitioners are seen as witches (although male ones).

Geoffrey Swivel

Introduced in The Shepherd's Crown, Geoffrey Swivel is the third and youngest son and child of Lord and Lady Swivel (one of the lordships of the Shires). A well-educated young man and a pacifist, he is naturally dissatisfied with the hunting practices of his father, which he considers barbaric. After a confrontation with his father over this, Geoffrey leaves home and heads up into the mountains, following the wind up towards Lancre, intending to become a witch (after having seen one flying on a broomstick).

Mr. Brooks

In Lords and Ladies he is the beekeeper at Lancre Castle, and has a special understanding of the hives and their denizens.[1] Archived 2015-09-26 at the Wayback Machine

Other media

In the 1995 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Wyrd Sisters the witches were played by:

Granny Weatherwax – Sheila Hancock

Nanny Ogg – Lynda Baron

Magrat Garlick – Deborah Berlin

In the 1997 Cosgrove Hall Films animation of Wyrd Sisters the witches were voiced by:

Granny Weatherwax – Annette Crosbie

Nanny Ogg – June Whitfield

Magrat Garlick – Jane Horrocks

In 2013, a board game named "The Witches", which was designed by Martin Wallace, was published by Treefrog games.