Discworld Challenge

Two of the most influential witches of the Lancre coven

Esmerelda "Esme" Weatherwax (also Granny Weatherwax or Mistress Weatherwax) is a witch and member of the Lancre coven. Granny Weatherwax, if she can help it, wears a plain black dress, a somewhat battered black cloak and a tall, pointed witch's hat, skewered to her 'iron-hard gray bun' hairstyle with multiple hatpins. She is thin, and, while not really that tall, has such a commanding presence that she seems tall.

Esmerelda "Esme" Weatherwax (also Granny Weatherwax or Mistress Weatherwax) is a witch and member of the Lancre coven. Granny Weatherwax, if she can help it, wears a plain black dress, a somewhat battered black cloak and a tall, pointed witch's hat, skewered to her 'iron-hard gray bun' hairstyle with multiple hatpins. She is thin, and, while not really that tall, has such a commanding presence that she seems tall.

The character of Nanny Ogg is based on the Mother stereotype of the Triple Goddess myth. She's had 5 husbands and been married to three of them and has fifteen children who survived their early childhood (one was born some ten years after the death of her last husband). She has as well innumerable grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but that's incidental; what makes her the Mother is her mentality. People go to Granny Weatherwax for help when they have no choice, but they go to Nanny for advice all the time. Granny is respected, but Nanny is actually liked.

Original design

Perspicacia Tick is a "witch finder", a travelling witch with the responsibility of finding young girls who have the potential to be witches. She makes a living as a teacher, a role which has given her a habit of correcting spelling, grammar and punctuation. Since she often finds herself in areas where witches are unwelcome, she has a spring-operated hat that only grows a point when she wants it to. Thanks to her time as a student at the Quirm College for Young Ladies, which views time in cold water as character-building, she has also mastered the ability to stay underwater for prolonged periods, allowing her to escape punishment from superstitious witch-hunters. To aid her in this endeavor, she is the anonymous author of Magavenatio Obtusis (Witch-hunting for Dumb People), which she generously places in the libraries of various witch-hating villages. It includes such vital information as drowning rather than burning a witch, ensuring that the witch has silver coins in her boots, and is given a nice meal of soup and tea before her ducking. Possibly the reason she must spend so much of her energy avoiding hate and harassment, rather than accepting donations of gratitude as other witches do, is that she spends much of her time travelling in areas where witches aren't welcome, looking for girls suitable to becoming witches.

Perspicacia Tick is a "witch finder", a travelling witch with the responsibility of finding young girls who have the potential to be witches. She makes a living as a teacher, a role which has given her a habit of correcting spelling, grammar and punctuation. Since she often finds herself in areas where witches are unwelcome, she has a spring-operated hat that only grows a point when she wants it to. Thanks to her time as a student at the Quirm College for Young Ladies, which views time in cold water as character-building, she has also mastered the ability to stay underwater for prolonged periods, allowing her to escape punishment from superstitious witch-hunters. To aid her in this endeavor, she is the anonymous author of Magavenatio Obtusis (Witch-hunting for Dumb People), which she generously places in the libraries of various witch-hating villages. It includes such vital information as drowning rather than burning a witch, ensuring that the witch has silver coins in her boots, and is given a nice meal of soup and tea before her ducking. Possibly the reason she must spend so much of her energy avoiding hate and harassment, rather than accepting donations of gratitude as other witches do, is that she spends much of her time travelling in areas where witches aren't welcome, looking for girls suitable to becoming witches.

A very young witch (13 at her last appearance), Tiffany hails from the chalk 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) and they have 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 is no time in Tiffany's life since then when they have not (in)discreetly watched her.

Wyrd Sisters features three witches: Granny Weatherwax; Nanny Ogg, matriarch of a large tribe of Oggs, who owns the most evil cat in the world, (Greebo); and Magrat Garlick, the junior witch, who firmly believes in occult jewellery, covens and bubbling cauldrons, much to the annoyance of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.

The cat is Greebo