Granny Weatherwax Quotes

Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen in a cutting way. She could make something sound stupid just by hearing it.

A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.

Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.

Do you know how wizards like to be buried?" "Yes!" "Well, how?" Granny Weatherwax paused at the bottom of the stairs. "Reluctantly.

Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge.

...Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was...

Esme Weatherwax hadn't done nice. She'd done what was needed.

Find the story, Granny Weatherwax always said. She believed that the world was full of story shapes. If you let them, they controlled you. But if you studied them, if you found out about them... you could use them, you could change them.

Granny Weatherwax was a witch. That was quite acceptable in the Ramtops, and no one had a bad word to say about witches. At least, not if he wanted to wake up in the morning the same shape as he went to bed.

I'm not a lady, I'm a witch.

Well, you know Esme. She wasn't one for that kind of thing - never one to push herself forward* * She hadn't ever needed to. Granny Weatherwax was like the prow of a ship. Seas parted when she turned up.

Well, I suppose there’s no place like home,” she said. “No,” said Granny Weatherwax, still looking thoughtful. “No. There’s a billion places like home. But only one of ’em’s where you live.

Tiffany thought of the little spot in the woods where Granny Weatherwax lay. Remembered. And knew that You had been right. Granny Weatherwax was indeed here. And there. She was, in fact, and always would be, everywhere.

Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.

Granny Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered, silvery world. “Where am I?” INSIDE THE MIRROR. “Am I dead?” THE ANSWER TO THAT, said Death, IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NO AND YES. Esme turned, and a billion figures turned with her. “When can I get out?” WHEN YOU FIND THE ONE THAT’S REAL. “Is this a trick question?” NO. Granny looked down at herself. “This one,” she said.

The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.

I don't want to hurt you, Mistress Weatherwax," said Mrs Gogol. "That's good," said Granny. "I don't want you to hurt me either.

Granny Weatherwax always held that you ought to count up to ten before losing your temper. No one knew why, because the only effect of this was to build up the pressure and make the ensuing explosion a whole lot worse.

She'd never mastered the talent for apologizing, but she appreciated it in other people.

She knew a cutting, incisive, withering and above all a self-evident answer existed. It was just that, to her extreme annoyance, she couldn't quite bring it to mind.

Granny’s implicit belief that everything should get out of her way extended to other witches, very tall trees and, on occasion, mountains.

She strode across the moors as if distance was a personal insult.

If I'd had to buy you, you wouldn't be worth the price.

Then it came to her. She did not deserve to die. And she was not alone. She never would be. Not while her land was beneath her boots. Her land. The land of the Achings. She was Tiffany Aching. Not Granny Weatherwax, but a witch in her own right. A witch who knew exactly who she was and how she wanted to do things. Her way. And she had not failed, because she had barely begun...

Greebo turned upon Granny Weatherwax a yellow-eyed stare of self-satisfied malevolence, such as cats always reserve for people who don’t like them, and purred. Greebo was possibly the only cat who could snigger in purr.

Divers alarums and excursions', she read, uncertainly. 'That means lots of terrible happenings, said Magrat. 'You always put that in plays.' Alarums and what?', said Nanny Ogg, who hadn't been listening. Excursions', said Magrat patienly. Oh.' Nanny Ogg brightened a bit. 'The seaside would be nice,' she said. Oh do shut up, Gytha,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'They're not for you. They're only for divers, like it says. Probably so they can recover from all them alarums.

What some people need," said Magrat, to the world in general, "is a bit more heart." "What some people need," said Granny Weatherwax, to the stormy sky, "is a lot more brain." Then she clutched at her hat to stop the wind from blowing it off. What I need, thought Nanny Ogg fervently, is a drink.

Haven’t you got any romance in your soul?’ said Magrat plaintively. ‘No,’ said Granny. 'I ain’t. And stars don’t care what you wish, and magic don’t make things better, and no one doesn’t get burned who sticks their hand in a fire. If you want to amount to anything as a witch, Magrat Garlick, you got to learn three things. What’s real, what’s not real, and what’s the difference.

Only Granny Weatherwax really knew Granny Weatherwax.

I did start out in witchcraft to get boys, to tell you the truth.' 'Think I don't know that?' 'What did you start out to get, Esme?' Granny stopped, and looked up at the frosty sky and then down at the ground. 'Dunno,' she said at last.'Even, I suppose.

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.

Well, I suppose there's no place like home,' she said. 'No,' said Granny Weatherwax, still looking thoughtful. 'No, there's a billion places like home. But only one of 'em's where you live.

What was it that Granny Weatherwax had said once? "Evil starts when you begin to treat people as things". And right now it would happen if you thought there was a thing called a father, and a thing called a mother, and a thing called a daughter, and a thing called a cottage, and told yourself that if you put them all together you had a thing called a happy family.

Hah!" said Granny Weatherwax. "I should just say it is a folk song! I knows all about folk songs. Hah! You think you're listenin' to a nice song about...cuckoos and fiddlers and nightingales and whatnot, and then it turns out to be about...something else entirely," she added darkly.

Mrs. Earwig (pronounced Ar-wige, at least by Mrs. Earwig) believed in shiny wands, and magical amulets and mystic runes and the power of the stars, while Granny Weatherwax in cups of tea, dry biscuits, washing every morning in cold water and, well...mostly she believed in Granny Weatherwax.

Listen, happy endings is fine if they turn out happy,” said Granny, glaring at the sky. “But you can’t make ’em for other people. Like the only way you could make a happy marriage is by cuttin’ their heads off as soon as they say ‘I do’, yes? You can’t make happiness…” Granny Weatherwax stared at the distant city. “All you can do,” she said, “is make an ending.

On a million hillsides the girl ran, on a million bridges the girl chose, on a million paths the woman stood... All different, all one. All she could do for all of them was be herself, here and now, as hard as she could.

Suddenly there was a humming in the air, and the bees were there too. They flowed out of Granny Weatherwax’s hive, circling Tiffany like a halo, crowning her, and swarm and girl stood on the threshold of the cottage and Tiffany reached out her arms and the bees settled along them, and welcomed her home.

Most people, on waking up, accelerate through a quick panicky pre-consciousness check-up: who am I, where am I, who is he/she, good god, why am I cuddling a policeman's helmet, what happened last night? And this is because people are riddled by Doubt. It is the engine that drives them through their lives. It is the elastic band in the little model aeroplane of their soul, and they spend their time winding it up until it knots. Early morning is the worst time -there's that little moment of panic in case You have drifted away in the night and something else has moved in. This never happened to Granny Weatherwax. She went straight from asleep to instant operation on all six cylinders. She never needed to find herself because she always knew who was doing the looking.

Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. And because the theater was fiction made flesh, she hated the theater most of all. But that was it—hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.

And now the birds were singing overhead, and there was a soft rustling in the undergrowth, and all the sounds of the forest that showed that life was still being lived blended with the souls of the dead in a woodland requiem. The whole forest now sang for Granny Weatherwax.

Humans take. They plough with iron. They ravage the land.' 'Some do, I'll grant you that. Others put back more'n they take. They put back love. They've got soil in their bones.

Ella turned to the fireplace where a blackened kettle hung over what Granny Weatherwax always called an optimist's fire: two logs and hope.

The end of times?" said Nanny. "Look, Tiff, Esme tol' me to say, if you want to see Esmerelda Weatherwax, then just you look around. She is here. Us witches don't mourn for very long. We are satisfied with happy memories - they're there to be cherished.

Mistress Weatherwax is the head witch, then, is she?’ 'Oh no!’ said Miss Level, looking shocked. 'Witches are all equal. We don’t have things like head witches. That’s quite against the spirit of witchcraft.’ 'Oh, I see,’ said Tiffany. 'Besides,’ Miss Level added, 'Mistress Weatherwax would never allow that sort of thing.

I HAVE WATCHED YOUR PROGRESS WITH INTEREST, ESMERELDA WEATHERWAX, said the voice in the dark. He was firm, but oh so polite. But now there was a question in his voice. PRAY TELL ME, WHY WERE YOU CONTENT TO LIVE IN THIS TINY LITTLE COUNTRY WHEN, AS YOU KNOW, YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ANYTHING AND ANYBODY IN THE WORLD? “I don’t know about the world, not much; but in my part of the world I could make little miracles for ordinary people,” Granny replied sharply. “And I never wanted the world—just a part of it, a small part that I could keep safe, that I could keep away from storms. Not the ones of the sky, you

Granny Weatherwax made a great play of her independence and self-reliance. But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed someone around to be proudly independent and self-reliant at. People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.

Now that’s what I call magic—seein’ all that, dealin’ with all that, and still goin’ on. It’s sittin’ up all night with some poor old man who’s leavin’ the world, taking away such pain as you can, comfortin’ their terror, seein’ ‘em safely on their way…and then cleanin’ ‘em up, layin’ ‘em out, making ‘em neat for the funeral, and helpin’ the weeping widow strip the bed and wash the sheets—which is, let me tell you, no errand for the fainthearted—and stayin’ up the next night to watch over the coffin before the funeral, and then going home and sitting down for five minutes before some shouting angry man comes bangin’ on your door ‘cuz his wife’s havin’ difficulty givin’ birth to their first child and the midwife’s at her wits’ end and then getting up and fetching your bag and going out again…We all do that, in our own way, and she does it better’n me, if I was to put my hand on my heart. That is the root and heart and soul and center of witchcraft, that is. The soul and center!

She’d struck Esk once before – the blow a baby gets to introduce it to the world and give it a rough idea of what to expect from life.

There was a wicked ole witch once called Black Aliss. She was an unholy terror. There's never been one worse or more powerful. Until now. Because I could spit in her eye and steal her teeth, see. Because she didn't know Right from Wrong, so she got all twisted up, and that was the end of her. "The trouble is, you see, that if you do know Right from Wrong, you can't choose Wrong. You just can't do it and live. So.. if I was a bad witch I could make Mister Salzella's muscles turn against his bones and break them where he stood... if I was bad. I could do things inside his head, change the shape he thinks he is, and he'd be down on what had been his knees and begging to be turned into a frog... if I was bad. I could leave him with a mind like a scrambled egg, listening to colors and hearing smells...if I was bad. Oh yes." There was another sigh, deeper and more heartfelt. "But I can't do none of that stuff. That wouldn't be Right." She gave a deprecating little chuckle. And if Nanny Ogg had been listening, she would have resolved as follows: that no maddened cackle from Black Aliss of infamous memory, no evil little giggle from some crazed Vampyre whose morals were worse than his spelling, no side-splitting guffaw from the most inventive torturer, was quite so unnerving as a happy little chuckle from a Granny Weatherwax about to do what's best.

...there was possibly something complimentary in the way Granny Weatherwax resolutely refused to consider other people's problems. It implied that, in her considerable opinion, they were quite capable of sorting them out by themselves.

And Granny Weatherwax said, “I was younger when I last danced with you. But I am old now. There will be no more dances for me.

Granny Weatherwax was stretched rigid on her bed. Her face was gray, her skin was cold. People had discovered her like this before, and it always caused embarrassment. So now she reassured visitors but tempted fate by always holding, in her rigid hands, a small handwritten sign which read: I ATE’NT DEAD.

If anyone locked me in a dungeon, there'd be screams.

Typical artist,' said Granny. 'He just painted the showy stuff in the front... And what about these cherubs? We're not going to get them too, are we? I don't like to see little babies flying through the air.' 'They turn up in a lot of old paintings,' said Nanny Ogg. 'They put them in to show it's Art and not just naughty pictures of ladies with not many clothes on.' 'Well, they're not fooling ME,' said Granny Weatherwax.

She sat silently in her rocking chair. Some people are good at talking, but Granny Weatherwax was good at silence. She could sit so quiet and still that she faded. You forgot she was there. The room became empty. Tiffany thought of it as the I’m-not-here spell, if it was a spell. She reasoned that everyone had something inside them that told the world they were there. That was why you could often sense when someone was behind you, even if they were making no sound at all. You were receiving their I-am-here signal. Some people had a very strong one. They were the people who got served first in shops. Granny Weatherwax had an I-am-here signal that bounced off the mountains when she wanted it to; when she walked into a forest, all the wolves and bears ran out the other side. She could turn it off, too. She was doing that now. Tiffany was having to concentrate to see her. Most of her mind was telling her that there was no one there at all.

But the banging of the door as punctuation caused Tiffany to think and she thought suddenly, I want to do it my way. Not how the other witches think it should be done. I can't be Granny Weatherwax for them. I can only be me, Tiffany Aching.

Witches didn't have leaders, of course, but everyone knew that Granny Weatherwax had been the best leader they didn't have, so now someone else would need to step forward to generally steer the witches.

Magrat liked to think she was good with children, and worried that she wasn’t. She didn’t like them very much, and worried about this too. Nanny Ogg seemed to be effortlessly good with children by alternately and randomly giving them either a sweet or a thick ear, while Granny Weatherwax ignored them for most of the time and that seemed to work just as well.

To Tiffany's surprise, Nanny Ogg was weeping gently. Nanny took another swig from her flagon and wiped her eyes. 'Cryin' helps sometimes,' she said. 'No shame in tears for them as you've loved. Sometimes I remember one of my husbands and shed a tear or two. The memories're there to be treasured, and it's no good to get morbid-like about it.

We look to… the edges,' said Mistress Weatherwax. 'There’s a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong… an’ they need watchin’. We watch ‘em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That’s important.

Magrat knew she had lost. You always lost against Granny Weatherwax, the only interest was in seeing exactly how.

This ain’t right, you know. She’s the one who ought to rule, fair enough. And you used magic to help her this far, and that’s all right. But it stops right here. It’s up to her what happens next. You can’t make things right by magic. You can only stop making them wrong.” Mrs. Gogol pulled herself up to her full, impressive height. “Who’s you to say what I can and can’t do here?” “We’re her godmothers,” said Granny. “That’s right,” said Nanny Ogg. “We’ve got a wand, too,” said Magrat. “But you hate godmothers, Mistress Weatherwax,” said Mrs. Gogol. “We’re the other kind,” said Granny. “We’re the kind that gives people what they know they really need, not what we think they ought to want.

You mean it's my destiny? she said at last. Granny shrugged. Something like that. Probably. Who knows?

Look,” said Magrat desperately, “why don’t I go by myself?” “’Cos you ain’t experienced at fairy godmothering,” said Granny Weatherwax. This was too much even for Magrat’s generous soul. “Well, nor are you,” she said. “That’s true,” Granny conceded. “But the point is…the point is…the point is we’ve not been experienced for a lot longer than you.” “We’ve got a lot of experience of not having any experience,” said Nanny Ogg happily. “That’s what counts every time,” said Granny.

understand: there are other kinds.” AND WOULD YOU SAY YOUR LIFE BENEFITED THE PEOPLE OF LANCRE AND ENVIRONS? After a minute the soul of Granny Weatherwax said, “Well, not boasting, your willingness, I think I have done right, for Lancre at least. I’ve never been to Environs.” MISTRESS WEATHERWAX, THE WORD “ENVIRONS” MEANS, WELL, THEREABOUTS. “All right,” said Granny. “I did get about, to be sure.” A VERY GOOD LIFE LIVED INDEED, ESMERELDA. “Thank you,” said Granny. “I did my best.

Granny Weatherwax believes the world is all about stories. Oh well, we all have our funny little ways. Except me, obviously.

Don’t hold with schools,” said Granny Weatherwax. “They gets in the way of education.

Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen in a cutting way. She could make something sound stupid just by hearing it.

And Granny Weatherwax was pretty damn powerful. She was probably an even more accomplished witch than the infamous Black Aliss and everyone knew what happened to her at the finish.

What’s to be afraid of?’ she managed. ‘Us,’ said Granny Weatherwax, smugly. The

She did nothing, although sometimes when she saw him in the village she'd smile in a faint, puzzled way. After three weeks of this the suspense was too much for him and he took his own life; in fact he took it all the way across the continent, where he became a reformed character and never went home again.

No,' she said. 'No, I don't reckon that's what I do now. Are you watchin', Mrs Gogol? Are you watchin' real close?' Her gaze travelled the room and rested for just a fraction of a second on Magrat. Then she reached over, carefully, and thrust her arm up to the elbow into the burning torch. And the doll in Erzulie Gogol's hands burst into flame. It went on blazing even after the witch had screamed and dropped it on to the floor. It went on burning until Nanny Ogg ambled over with a jug of fruit juice from the buffet, whistling between her teeth, and put it out. Granny withdrew her hand. It was unscathed.

Nanny Ogg was sitting in a chair by the fire with a quart mug in one hand, and was conducting the reprise with a cigar. She grinned when she saw Granny’s face. “What ho, my old boiler,” she screeched above the din. “See you turned up, then. Have a drink. Have two. Wotcher, Magrat. Pull up a chair and call the cat a bastard.

The thing about elves is they've got no... begins with m," Granny snapped her fingers irritably. "Manners?" "Hah! Right, but no" "Muscle? Mucus? Mystery?" "No. No. No. Means like... seein' the other person's point of view." Verence tried to see the world from a Granny Weatherwax perspective and suspicion dawned. "Empathy?" "Right. None at all.

she reflected that there was possibly something complimentary in the way Granny Weatherwax resolutely refused to consider other people’s problems. It implied that, in her considerable opinion, they were quite capable of sorting them out by themselves.

at least two of those present tonight were wearing Granny Weatherwax’s famous goose-grease-and-sage chest liniment.

Granny Weatherwax was not a good loser. From her point of view, losing was something that happened to other people.

Granny Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered, silvery world. ‘Where am I?’ INSIDE THE MIRROR. ‘Am I dead?’ THE ANSWER TO THAT, said Death, IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NO AND YES. Esme turned, and a billion figures turned with her. ‘When can I get out?’ WHEN YOU FIND THE ONE THAT’S REAL. ‘Is this a trick question?’ No. Granny looked down at herself. ‘This one,’ she said.

Unlike wizards, who like nothing better than a complicated hierarchy, witches don’t go in much for the structured approach to career progression. It’s up to each individual witch to take on a girl to hand the area over to when she dies. Witches are not by nature gregarious, at least with other witches, and they certainly don’t have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn’t have.

Granny Weatherwax had a primal snore. It had never been tamed. No one had ever had to sleep next to it, to curb its wilder excesses by means of a kick, a prod in the small of the back or a pillow used as a bludgeon. It had had years in a lonely bedroom to perfect the knark, the graaah and the gnoc, gnoc, gnoc unimpeded by the nudges, jabs and occasional attempts at murder that usually moderate the snore impulse over time.

Granny Weatherwax always held that you ought to count up to ten before losing your temper. No-one knew why, because the only effect of this was to build up the pressure and make the ensuing explosion a whole lot worse.

There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats. “And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax. “It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.” “Nope.” “Pardon?” “There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” “It’s a lot more complicated than that—” “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—” “But they starts with thinking about people as things…

Granny Weatherwax personally disliked young Pewsey. She disliked all small children, which is why she got on with them so well. In Pewsey's case, she felt that no one should be allowed to wander around in just a vest even if they were four years old. And the child had a permanently runny nose and ought to be provided with a handkerchief or, failing that, a cork. Nanny Ogg, on the other hand, was instant putty in the hands of any grandchild, even one as sticky as Pewsey "Want sweetie," growled Pewsey, in that curiously deep voice some young children have. "Just in a moment, my duck, I'm talking to the lady," Nanny Ogg fluted. "Want sweetie now." "Bugger off, my precious, Nana's busy right this minute." Pewsey pulled hard on Nanny Ogg's skirts. "Now sweetie now!" Granny Weatherwax leaned down until her impressive nose was about level with Pewsey's gushing one. "If you don't go away," she said gravely, "I will personally rip your head off and fill it with snakes." "There!" said Nanny Ogg. "There's lots of poor children in Klatch that'd be grateful for a curse like that." Pewsey's little face, after a second or two of uncertainty, split into a pumpkin grin. "Funny lady," he said.

Granny Weatherwax was in trouble. First of all, she decided, she should never have allowed Hilta to talk her into borrowing her broomstick. It was elderly, erratic, would fly only at night and even then couldn't manage a speed much above a trot. Its lifting spells had worn so thin that it wouldn't even begin to operate until it was already moving at a fair lick. It was, in fact, the only broomstick ever to need bump-starting. And it was while Granny Weatherwax, sweating and cursing, was running along a forest path holding the damn thing at shoulder height for the tenth time that she had found the bear trap. The second problem was that a bear had found it first. In fact this hadn’t been too much of a problem because Granny, already in a bad temper, hit it right between the eyes with the broomstick and it was now sitting as far away from her as it was possible to get in a pit, and trying to think happy thoughts.

A strange thing,’ she said. ‘They both wear this same badge. Two bears on a black and gold shield. Anyone know what that means?’ ‘It’s the badge of King Verence,’ said Magrat. ‘Who’s he?’ said Granny Weatherwax. ‘He rules this country,’ said Magrat. ‘Oh. That king,’ said Granny, as if the matter was hardly worth noting.

Nanny had an unexpected gift for languages; she could be comprehensibly incompetent in a new one within an hour or two. What she spoke was one step away from gibberish but it was authentically foreign gibberish. And she knew that Granny Weatherwax, whatever her other qualities, had an even bigger tin ear for languages than she did for music.

You mean it's my destiny?" she said at last. Granny shrugged. “Something like that. Probably. Who knows?

Magrat hazarded. “And then we have to raise our consciousness. It really ought to be full moon for that, I’m afraid. Moons are very important.” Granny gave her a long, calculating look. “That’s modern witchcraft for you, is it?” she said. “It’s part of it, Granny. There’s a lot more.” Granny Weatherwax sighed. “Each to her own, I suppose. I’m blowed if I’ll let a ball of shiny rock tell me what to do.” “Yes, bugger all that,” said Nanny. “Let’s curse somebody.

Granny, your hat squeaked,” said Tiffany. “It went MEEP!” “No it didn’t,” Granny said sharply. “It did, you know,” said Nanny Ogg. “I heard it too.” Granny Weatherwax grunted and pulled off her hat. The white kitten, curled around her tight bun of hair, blinked in the light. “I can’t help it,” Granny muttered. “If I leave the dratted thing alone, it goes under the dresser and cries and cries.” She looked around at the others as if daring them to say anything. “Anyway,” she added, “it keeps m’ head warm.

On his chair, the yellow slit of Greebo’s left eye opened lazily. “Get down, You,” said Granny, lifting the kitten off her head and putting it on the floor. “I daresay Mrs. Ogg has got some milk in the kitchen.” “Not much,” said Nanny. “I’ll swear something’s been drinking it!” Greebo’s eye opened all the way, and he began to growl softly. “You sure you know what you’re doing, Esme?” said Nanny Ogg, reaching for a cushion to throw. “He’s very protective of his territory.” You the kitten sat on the floor and washed her ears. Then, as Greebo got to his feet, she fixed him with an innocent little stare and took a flying leap onto his nose, landing on it with all her claws out. “So is she,” said Granny Weatherwax, as Greebo erupted from the chair and hurtled around the room before disappearing into the kitchen. There was a crash of saucepans followed by the groioioioing of a saucepan lid spinning into silence on the floor. The kitten padded back into the room, hopped into the empty chair, and curled up. “He brought in half a wolf last week,” said Nanny Ogg. “You haven’t been hexperimentingi on that poor kitten, have you?” “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” said Granny. “She just knows her own mind, that’s all.

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 their lives. And they’d tell her things. Of their own free will. Nanny Got On with people.

Tiffany’s basket was on the table. It had a present in it, of course. Everyone knew you took a small present along when you went visiting, but the person you were visiting was supposed to be surprised when you gave it to her, and say things like “Oooh, you shouldn’t have.” “I brought you something,” said Tiffany, swinging the big black kettle onto the fire. “You’ve got no call to be bringing me presents, I’m sure,” said Granny sternly. “Yes, well,” said Tiffany, and left it at that. She heard Granny lift the lid of the basket. There was a kitten in it. “Her mother is Pinky, the Widow Cable’s cat,” said Tiffany, to fill the silence. “You shouldn’t have,” growled the voice of Granny Weatherwax. “It was no trouble.” Tiffany smiled at the fire. “I can’t be havin’ with cats.” “She’ll keep the mice down,” said Tiffany, still not turning around. “Don’t have mice.” Nothing for them to eat, thought Tiffany. Aloud, she said, “Mrs. Earwig’s got six big black cats.” In the basket, the white kitten would be staring up at Granny Weatherwax with the sad, shocked expression of all kittens. You test me, I test you, Tiffany thought. “I don’t know what I shall do with it, I’m sure. It’ll have to sleep in the goat shed,” said Granny Weatherwax. Most witches had goats. [...] When Tiffany left, later on, Granny Weatherwax said good-bye at the door and very carefully shut the kitten outside. Tiffany went across the clearing to where she’d tied up Miss Treason’s broomstick. But she didn’t get on, not yet. She stepped back up against a holly bush, and went quiet until she wasn’t there anymore, until everything about her said: I’m not here. Everyone could see pictures in the fire and in clouds. You just turned that the other way around. You turned off that bit of yourself that said you were there. You dissolved. Anyone looking at you would find you very hard to see. Your face became a bit of leaf and shadow, your body a piece of tree and bush. The other person’s mind would fill in the gaps. Looking like just another piece of holly bush, she watched the door. The wind had got up, warm but worrisome, shaking the yellow and red leaves off the sycamore trees and whirring them around the clearing. The kitten tried to bat a few of them out of the air and then sat there, making sad little mewling noises. Any minute now, Granny Weatherwax would think Tiffany had gone and would open the door and— “Forgot something?” said Granny by her ear. She was the bush. “Er...it’s very sweet. I just thought you might, you know, grow to like it,” said Tiffany, but she was thinking: Well, she could have got here if she ran, but why didn’t I see her? Can you run and hide at the same time? “Never you mind about me, my girl,” said the witch. “You run along back to Miss Treason and give her my best wishes, right now. But”—and her voice softened a little—“that was good hiding you did just then. There’s many as would not have seen you. Why, I hardly heard your hair growin’!” When Tiffany’s stick had left the clearing, and Granny Weatherwax had satisfied herself in other little ways that she had really gone, she went back inside, carefully ignoring the kitten again. After a few minutes, the door creaked open a little. It may have been just a draft. The kitten trotted inside...

Smith took a spade from beside the back door and hesitated. “Granny.” “What?” “Do you know how wizards like to be buried?” “Yes!” “Well, how?” Granny Weatherwax paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Reluctantly.

Magrat, folluğa yerleşen iki tavuk gibi kıç tarafta rahat etmeye çalışan iki yaşlı cadıya baktı. "Kürek çekmeyi biliyor musunuz?" dedi. "Bilmemiz gerekmiyor," dedi Nine. Magrat kasvetle başını salladı. Sonra çok minik bir iddialılık kırıntısı, kendisini bir an gösterdi. "Ben de bildiğimi sanmıyorum," diye denedi. "Sorun değil," dedi Ogg Ana hemen. "Yanlış yaptığını görürsek söyleriz. Bay bay, kral hazretleri." Magrat pes etti. İçini çekti ve kürekleri aldı. "Yassı tarafı suya girecek," dedi Nine yardımseverlikle.

That’s the sort of thing they go on about in the High Energy Magic building. And they call themselves wizards! You should hear them talk. The buggers wouldn’t know a magic sword if it bit them on the knee. That’s young wizards today. Think they bloody invented magic.” “Yes? You should see the girls that want to be witches these days,” said Granny Weatherwax. “Velvet hats and black lipstick and lacy gloves with no fingers to ’em. Cheeky, too.

The old woman went pale. Granny Weatherwax could be nasty, but then nastiness was always in the window: you were aware that it might turn up on the menu. Sharpness from Nanny Ogg, though, was like being bitten by a big friendly dog. It was all the worse for being unexpected.

Nanny got up again and wandered over and opened the back door. There was little light left in the sky now, and a few rags of cloud were scudding over the early stars. She sniffed the air. Winter hung on late up here in the mountains, but there was definitely a taste of spring on the wind. A good time, she thought. Best time, really. Oh, she knew that the year started on Hogswatchnight, when the cold tide turned, but the new year started now, with green shoots boring upward through the last of the snow. Change was in the air, she could feel it in her bones. Of course, her friend Granny Weatherwax always said you couldn’t trust bones, but Granny Weatherwax said a lot of things like that all the time. Nanny Ogg closed the door. In the trees at the end of her garden, leafless and scratchy against the sky, something rustled its wings and chattered as a veil of dark crossed the world.

Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world’s great creative forces. But

Then there’s the mystic ointments. By sheer luck, the artists and writers are on firmer ground here. Most witches are elderly, which is when ointments start to have an attraction, and at least two of those present tonight were wearing Granny Weatherwax’s famous goose-grease-and-sage chest liniment. This didn’t make you fly and see visions, but it did prevent colds, if only because the distressing smell that developed around about the second week kept everyone else so far away you couldn’t catch anything from them.