The Shepherd’s Crown

The Witches of Discworld

The witches of Discworld spend rather less time than one might suppose on actually doing magic. Mostly, they are called in to cope with other people’s problems. It is to them that the village turns when a child or a cow falls desperately sick, when a woman is having a difficult labour, when those who are dying cannot actually die. It is then that witches have to bring help — and take responsibility. There is nothing romantic about this work, nothing dramatic, no magic potions to cure the sick in an instant. Witchcraft is mostly about helping people by doing quite ordinary things.

However, cures and advice are more likely to be accepted if they sound magical. On one occasion a rather rational witch had been carefully telling one family that their well was much too close to their privy, so the water was full of tiny, tiny creatures which were making the children sick. They listened politely, but did nothing. Then Granny Weatherwax visited them and told them the illness was caused by goblins who were attracted to the smell of the privy, and that very day the man of the house and his friends began digging a new well at the other end of the garden. A story gets things done.

Witches also often adjudicate in neighbourly disputes; they see to it that where there has been injustice there will be a reckoning. It is a life of hard work, and rather lonely, for though a witch gains respect, she is always slightly feared.

It is also a witch’s duty to defend her homeland against the insidious incursions of malevolent beings from other dimensions, such as elves. She must keep watch, she must guard the borders and the gateways, even if in doing so she puts herself in danger too.

How does a girl become a witch? First, she must have some natural inborn talent, even if she does not yet realize it. Here, heredity can help, and in Tiffany’s case it does: the Achings, like the Weatherwaxes, have witching in their blood. But she needs training too, so when she is about eleven she must leave home and become part servant, part apprentice to an old witch, from whom she will learn about herbs and medicines and magical techniques, and whose area she will normally take over when the old one dies.

These techniques, unlike those of wizards, are not showy. True, there are a few witches who go in for grimoires and occult silver jewellery, but they are either conceited or inexperienced. The best witches use the simplest means — no need for a crystal ball for scrying when a few drops of ink in an old saucer of rainwater are quite as good; no carved wand when any stick will do. Their main tool is the ‘shambles’, a powerful magic-detector and — projector which looks a bit like a particularly complicated cat’s cradle, a bit like a broken set of puppet-strings, and a bit like a very untidy dream-catcher. But even this is formed from the simplest things. You have to make your own, fresh every time, out of whatever happens to be in your pockets. In the centre you put something alive — an egg, say, or a beetle or small worm — and pull the strings, and as the objects twirl past or even through one another, the device works. In the presence of really powerful magic, it may explode.

One of the minor benefits of being a witch is that you know, months or even years in advance, exactly when you are going to die, so you can stage-manage the event to perfection. Having done all the obvious things (cleaned the cottage, made a will, destroyed any embarrassing old letters or spells still lying around), had a nice grave dug ready for you, some witches choose to throw a really good ‘going-away party’. This is like a wake, but with yourself as guest of honour, still taking a keen interest, and distributing pleasant keepsakes to your friends. But there are also some who go in privacy to meet their old acquaintance, the Reaper.