Granny Weatherwax

[close] Granny Weatherwax, (full name Esmerelda ("Esme") Weatherwax, Troll name Aaoograha hoa ("She Who Must Be Avoided,") Dwarf name K'ez'rek d'b'duz ("Go Around the Other Side of the Mountain,") Nac Mac Feegle name The Hag O' Hags ("The High Hag,")) is a witch, who lives in a small cottage outside the village of Bad Ass, in the kingdom of Lancre, on the Sto Plains face of the Ramtops.
She is considered, (not least of all by herself,) to be the best witch on the Discworld and is refered to by the Pictsies as the 'Hag O' Hags'. She is the resident witch of Bad Ass, but she tends to regard the whole kingdom, and indeed absolutely anywhere else she happens to be, as her rightful domain, (not unlike Adora Belle Dearheart in that respect.) Her cottage is probably the most traditional of all the witches' cottages in Lancre, complete with archaic thatch, goats, and huge thickets of 'herbs' which move even when there's no breeze. She has a special fondness for bees and keeps several hives in her garden.
She prefers to use "headology" instead of magic as the wizards practise it, believing that magic is not so much flashy lights as knowing things that other people don't know. As a witch she is, on the one hand, feared by the people of the Ramtops and, on the other hand, respected as a midwife, herbalist, and the spiritual version of a coal-mine canary. Granny likes to borrow, a special kind of magic where the user enters the mind of an animal and can see through the eyes of that animal. As this technique renders her own body totally dormant, she now wears a small cardboard sign with the words "I Aten't Dead" on it to avoid unnecessary embarrassment.


Illustrated by Mick Collins
"Granny had been introduced to Broomstick flying quite late in life, and after some initial suspicion had taken to it like a bluebottle to an ancient fish-head. A problem, however, was that Granny saw every flight simply as a straight line from A to B and was unable to get alongside the idea that other users of the air might have any rights whatsoever; the flight migration patterns of an entire continent had been changed because of that simple fact. High-speed evolution among local birds had developed a generation that flew on their backs, so that they could keep a watchful eye on the skies...Granny's implicit belief that everything should get out of her way extended to other witches, very tall trees and , on occasion, mountains," (Wyrd Sisters).
Granny's opinions about other things being in the way of her broomstick has since moved with modern technology, as in Going Postal we hear of an anonymous witch from Lancre who succeeded in bringing the clacks line down by riding her broomstick into one of the towers, damaging its sensitive mechanisms and terrifying the luckless crew.
While this witch is not identified and remains anonymous, a fairly accurate guess could be hazarded as to her name... it is noteworthy that Reacher Gilt himself must have thought twice about pursuing any claim for damages or inconvenience! The Science of Discworld II: the Globe confirms that she has had several such accidents, and believes the towers move into her way. Her broomstick was originally borrowed from a witch called Hilta Goatfounder, and despite the best and continued efforts of the dwarfs servicing her broomstick, it won't take off without a considerable run.
Her elder sister left home in her youth, eventually to become a fairy godmother. Granny seems to harbour a bitter resentment of this fact, because after that she felt compelled to be the "good one" in the family; she also believes that she could have been a lot more evil than her sister. Despite this, she did stay at home and nurse her mother until she died.
Granny's personality would, to many, lend itself nicely to the "bad witch" stereotype: she's competitive, selfish and ambitious, with a quick temper and a sharp tongue. She also wields a gaze stern enough to make bears cower in humiliated shame. Her practical history, however, clearly puts her in the "good witch" camp (a sort of personification of "tough love"), if only because she's too proud to be any other kind.
Granny Weatherwax has faced Death many times, and has not backed down yet. She has also faced and defeated Elves, vampires (or vampyres), and wizards. (See Lords and Ladies, Carpe Jugulum and Equal Rites)
Her companions, as far as a witch can have these, are Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick and Agnes Nitt. She was Eskarina Smith's first teacher in the arts of magic, until she realised that Esk's magic was of a different sort altogether. She gave Tiffany Aching her hat. She was once romantically involved with Mustrum Ridcully. Recently, via Tiffany Aching, she has been acquired by a white kitten called You. This is surprising, as Granny is, by her own admission, not a cat person; Greebo, who knows bad news when it blesses the house, always hides when she visits Nanny Ogg.