The Witches of Discworld
An ode to the funniest, most fabulous fictional witches of all time.
“Your average witch is not, by nature, a social creature as far as other witches are concerned. There’s a conflict of dominant personalities. There’s a group of ringleaders without a ring. There’s the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is ‘Don’t do what you will, do what I say.’ The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can’t avoid it.”
-Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad
I picked up my first Discworld novel when I was in college. I had previously read Good Omens, which was co-authored by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett about an angel and demon who team up to stop the apocalypse. After laughing my whole way through, I decided it was high time that I read more of Pratchett’s work. (I had already enjoyed many of Gaiman’s books before.)
I was a bit intimidated by the prospect of diving into the Discworld series, with its 41 novels and countless companion books. All of the Discworld books are set in a satirical fantasy world (a flat planet, or the Disc, which rests on the backs of four elephants, who ride atop a giant space turtle sailing through the multiverse—no, I’m not kidding). Instead of following one protagonist, each novel falls within a subgroup: there are the Witches, the Wizards, the City Watch, Death and his relatives, among others. You could read them all in order, or you could read just by sub-series. Where to begin?
I’m a purist, so I chose to read them in order of publication. I read The Colour of Magic when I was twenty years old, and six years later, I am halfway through the series. As you probably guessed, I’m not reading them back-to-back. But after finishing a few other books in between, returning to the next Discworld book feels like visiting old friends.
This is especially true for the witches.
When you read high fantasy novels written by men from the eighties and nineties (when the first half of the Discworld books came out), there are definitely instances in which you’re left wondering if the man in question had ever talked to a woman before. Conversely, when I’m in the company of the Lancre witches, I often forget that Sir Terry (may God rest his soul) wasn’t one of us. A group of ringleaders without a ring. He so understood the intergenerational dynamics as embodied by the Lancre women, from the brilliant, stubborn matriarchs in Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, to the younger girls learning to assert themselves and take their places. I’m reminded of a scene from Witches Abroad that illustrates this push-and-pull, as the older witches discuss the young Magrat Garlick, who possesses a more New Age style of witchery and was in the midst of “finding herself”:
“And she said she wanted to be more self-assertive,” said Granny.
“Nothing wrong with being self-assertive,” said Nanny. “Self-asserting’s what witching’s all about.”
“I never said there was anything wrong with it,” said Granny. “I told her there was nothing wrong with it. You can be as self-assertive as you like, I said, just as long as you do what you’re told.”
As the unofficial leader of the coven, Granny Weatherwax is tough, sometimes cutting, but always does the right thing. In the villages of the Ramtop Mountains, witches play the essential role of tending to the community’s needs. They are herbalists, midwives, professional busybodies, and dispensers of advice, whether you want to hear it or not. The wizards in the chaotic city of Ankh-Morpork live at Unseen University and squabble over magical theories (when they’re not occupied with eating multi-course feasts or plotting the murder of the man above them in the hierarchy). The witches, by contrast, live amongst the people. They roll up their sleeves and get things done.
Pratchett is a giant among satirists; it’s difficult to read his works without laughing out loud. In particular, he used the Witches sub-series to explore, or outright parody, famous stories. Wyrd Sisters parodies Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which the witches must stop a usurper to the throne of Lancre. In Witches Abroad, the fairytale of Cinderella is turned on its head. In Maskerade, they are faced with a murderous ghost in an Ankh-Morpork opera house populated by a ridiculous cast. Fairies, vampires, tyrannical dictators, and dysfunctional bureaucracies—Granny Weatherwax has a plan, Magrat Garlick has a bleeding heart, and Nanny Ogg has a pint and a dirty song.
It’s hard to choose a favorite character; as I said, I’m only halfway through the series, and I haven’t met the beloved Tiffany Aching yet. But if I had to, I would probably pick Nanny Ogg.
Gytha Ogg, called Nanny by younger members of her community, is maybe the most grounded character. At first, she might seem to be there for comedic relief and warm hugs—unlike Granny Weatherwax, who leads an austere lifestyle, Nanny Ogg loves nothing more than to sing, drink, tell raunchy jokes, and move through life with enviable exuberance. But she’s also a woman in a pre-industrial society who has birthed a dozen babies, and buried a few. As she tends to others with the same love that she lavishes on her army of grandchildren, readers see over time that Nanny Ogg’s optimism is hard-won.
While the unstoppable Granny Weatherwax employs a no-nonsense magical attitude, it’s her friend Nanny Ogg who expertly navigates interpersonal relationships to the witches’ benefit. Granny Weatherwax recognizes this in Maskerade, as Nanny deftly interweaves herself among the eccentric characters of the Opera House:
Nanny didn’t so much enter places as insinuate herself; she had unconsciously taken a natural talent for liking people and developed it into an occult science. Granny Weatherwax did not doubt that her friend already knew the names, family histories, birthdays and favorite topics of conversation of half the people here, and probably also the vital wedge that would cause them to open up. It might be talking about their children, or a potion for their bad feet, or one of Nanny’s really filthy stories, but Nanny would be in and after twenty-four hours they’d have known her all of their lives. And they’d tell her things. Of their own free will. Nanny Got On with people. Nanny could get a statue to cry on her shoulder and say what it really thought about pigeons.
Now, I’ll sometimes find myself wondering “What would Granny Weatherwax do? What would Nanny Ogg say?” as I’m inevitably met with the myriad challenges of life. While I’ve loved all the Discworld books, it’s the witches who will always be in my heart. They pack the laughs, but they also stand at the moral center of the cacophonous Discworld, a land only rivaled by the chaos of our own. When asked about her reluctance to use magic to forcefully intervene in others’ lives, even seemingly for good, Granny Weatherwax leaves us with this bit of wisdom:
“You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.”
You can find a complete reading order for the Discworld novels here.
If you’re interested in just reading the Witches sub-series, some start with Equal Rites, which does feature Granny Weatherwax, but otherwise focuses more on the wizards. I’d personally suggest beginning with Wyrd Sisters, followed by Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, and Carpe Jugulum; the sub-series concludes with the Tiffany Aching books for young readers (which I’ve found are equally beloved among Pratchett’s grown-up fans).
I came to this article from your Tiktok. I love Nanny Ogg so much. I read the books out of order starting with the Tiffany Aching series when I was younger. Great article!
The books sound interesting. Thank you for sharing.