Granny Weatherwax

From the triple nature of a coven (maiden, mother and crone), Granny Weatherwax is the crone. In fact, it has been suggested that she embodies all three, but the Crone is the most obvious (she has difficulty matching the classic appearance; despite her best efforts, she still has perfect skin, not a single wart and all her teeth, although she has picked up a penetrating stare and plenty of worry lines). In the books, the triple nature of the coven is always referred to as "the maiden, the mother and... the other one" in her presence.

She a very powerful witch, and is reckoned to be more powerful than the most well-known witch on the Discworld, Black Aliss (real name: Aliss Demurrage) who is responsible for any number of witcheries in fairy tales, such as putting a castle to sleep and getting pushed into her own oven by naughty kids. It does seem that her teacher's teacher's teacher's teacher was Black Aliss. ("I learned my craft from Nanny Gripes, who learned it from Goody Heggety, who got it from Nanna Plumb, who was taught it by Black Aliss..." – Granny, in Lords and Ladies).

Granny Weatherwax's reputation even extends beyond species barriers – the trolls of the Ramtops call her Aaoograha hoa ("She Who Must Be Avoided") and the dwarf name for her, K'ez'rek d'b'duz, translates to "Go Around the Other Side of the Mountain" (Maskerade).

Granny Weatherwax nursed her mother until the time of her death, and is a distant cousin to Galder Weatherwax, a former Archchancellor of the Unseen University. As a young woman, she was briefly romantically involved with Mustrum Ridcully. It has been hinted that she married him in an alternative reality and had several children.

She has recruited at least three apprentices in her time, Eskarina Smith, who became the first female wizard and was subsequently never mentioned in canon again; Magrat Garlick, Agnes Nitt and Tiffany Aching. Magrat, Agnes, and Tiffany were officially taught by other Witches, but also learned from Granny Weatherwax from time to time.

Granny's broom is famous for being old and temperamental. It has been repaired so often that little of the original broom remains, and it often requires the user to pick up speed by running along the ground with it before it will start. It is, however, considerably faster than most brooms once it gets going.

Nanny Ogg

Nanny Ogg is based on the Mother stereotype of the Triple Goddess myth. She is probably based, as well, on the character Nannie Slagg, from the Gormenghast series. She's been married three times 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.

Nanny Ogg has a talent for getting along with people and fitting in. As described in Maskerade, people, after knowing her for fifteen minutes, feel like they have known her all of their lives. Granny Weatherwax knows about this ability, and recognizes its use, and wonders sometimes if it would have been worth acquiring it.

She's a lot wiser than Esme (Weatherwax) in some ways, and certainly wise enough not to show it. Gytha Ogg is seen as "one of the people" in a way that Esme isn't. While Granny thinks there's no point in competing if you aren't going to win, Nanny reckons the sympathy you get for being a good runner-up is much better. Granny comes across as judgemental, whereas Nanny has a mind so broad she could tie it under her chin. She appears to be kinder than Granny, but is equally prepared to make tough decisions if necessary.

Contrary to Granny Weatherwax, and indeed the stereotype of witches in general, Nanny Ogg doesn't live in an isolated, crumbly rural cottage but in an expansive and well-looked after town house in the capital called Tir Nani Ogg (Nanny Ogg's place). She fills it with knick-knacks such as pink skulls and rude garden gnomes that serve no useful purpose except to highlight her eccentricities.

The only people who appear to suffer under Nanny Ogg are her daughters in law, of whom she has dozens and rules over with a tyrannical authority. Nanny lives her life exactly as she wishes, and her daughters in law are those who make that possible. If the floors aren't scrubbed, or her breakfast not served on time, there are consequences. Nanny never remembers the names of her daughters in law.

She shares her home with Greebo, a tomcat of evil aroma and astonishing viciousness, whom she can see only as a fuzzy harmless kitten.

In the Discworld amongst the duties of a witch are midwifery and laying out the dead. If possible, people call Nanny for the former and Granny for the latter. In effect Nanny and Granny make a perfect team with Granny doing what needs to be done and Nanny bandaging the wounded. Indeed, in Thief of Time, Nanny Ogg is sought through various timeframes as she is/will become the best midwife in the world.

She has an ambiguous relationship with Count Casanunda, whom she met in Genua. Nanny Ogg is also the muse and center of Leonard of Quirm's masterpiece, the Mona Ogg: her teeth follow you around the room, they say. She briefly took on Tiffany Aching as an apprentice after the death of her previous mentor, Miss Treason.

Nanny has also written several books, including The Joye of Snacks, Mother Ogg's Tales For Tiny Folk and Nanny Ogg's Cookbook . The first two were withdrawn following the publisher realising what they were really about; the third survived with heavy editing.

In The Art of Discworld, Pratchett says, "I've always suspected that Nanny is, deep down, the most powerful of the witches and part of her charm lies in the way she prevents people from finding this out." In his short story The Sea and the Little Fishes Nanny Ogg also identifies herself, and the Ogg family as a whole, as having immense natural magical talent, but as less willing to work it as hard as Weatherwaxes do.

It should also be noted that Nanny really likes to eat and drink. When she's drunk she has a tendency to sing very "special" songs, the most popular being "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All" or simply "The Hedgehog Song". "The Hedgehog Song" was probably borrowed from a Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintok song recorded in 1950 by Cook Records and American Folkways. A close runner up for the most popular Nanny Ogg song is "A Wizard's Staff has a Knob on the End".

Nanny Ogg's bath night, as described in the novel "Lords and Ladies", is an event feared by the entire population of Lancre, chiefly because she sings any and all of the above songs, accompanied by banjo, whilst bathing, and the tin bath amplifies her already overpowering vocal presence such that the audience is not so much "captive" as "hunted down".

Magrat Garlick

Magrat Garlick was the Maiden, and was best described as "a wet hen". She tends to believe in crystals, folk wisdom and cycles of nature, and is, in short, something of a gentle parody of New Age types. However, beneath this she is surprisingly practical, and is quite capable of performing real magic, although she apparently uses it even less than the other two in the coven. She is technically a better doctor than the other two, since she actually believes in herbalism, whereas Granny tends to use whatever plant or bottle of coloured water comes to hand and headology (in this case the placebo effect). She is now Queen of Lancre, having married King Verence, and they have one daughter, Princess Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling. This unusual name was the result of an effort to ensure the naming ceremony didn't suffer the same mistake that led to her being saddled with the name Magrat. Obviously it didn't quite work out. Magrat's name is possibly a play on that of Margaret Gardner, South African title holder of the Miss World in 1978.

Agnes Nitt

Following Magrat's marriage to King Verence II, the role of maiden has been (reluctantly) taken up by Agnes Nitt, a sensible young woman who suffers from a self-induced multiple personality disorder. Tired of being seen as someone with "a nice personality and good hair", she tried to create a new, more exciting persona for herself. Unfortunately, this persona, Perdita X Dream (where the X stands for person who has a cool and interesting middle name), developed an actual existence in her mind. Perdita is even more romantic than Magrat, although more Gothic than New Age.

As a consequence, Agnes Nitt is in two minds about everything. The first mind is herself, good-natured and sensible Agnes; the second is dramatic and rebellious Perdita. Agnes is a short and chubby girl. Perdita is, of course, physically short and chubby as well, but doesn't think like someone who's short and chubby. (It is said that in every fat girl, there is a thin girl trying to get out. This is Perdita.) The Perdita personality very rarely takes control, except in emergencies. Most of the time she's content to sit in the back of Agnes's mind and make sarcastic comments.

We first meet Agnes/Perdita in Lords and Ladies when she is one of the 'cool' new witches, led by Lucy "Diamanda" Tockley. Although she plays a very minor role in this book, Nanny Ogg notices her potential. Agnes is the only new witch other than Diamanda to have any real Talent.

After the coven's break-up, Agnes appears again in Maskerade when she tries to become an opera singer in Ankh-Morpork under the name of 'Perdita X Nitt'. She possesses an amazing talent for singing, partially a side effect of her refusal to face up to her magic abilities. Agnes has the vocal capacity to reach very high and very low pitches, the highest ones can shatter glass objects nearby and the lowest makes everyone in the room feel queasy. She also has the ability to sing in thirds with herself, impossible in reality.

After joining the opera, Agnes meets a beautiful but airheaded aspiring singer named Christine, an obvious parody of Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera. Although Agnes is by far the more talented of the two, she finds herself relegated to the chorus while Christine's career benefits from the attention of the mysterious Phantom. Granny and Nanny soon arrive to complicate things further. In the end, Agnes realizes that her practical nature is unsuited the world of opera. She returns to Lancre and became the new Third Witch.

Her divided personality makes Agnes highly resistant to mental manipulation. Anyone trying to mesmerise or hypnotise Agnes will find the Perdita personality surfacing as Agnes begins to lose control, and vice versa. This ability proves highly useful when Lancre is overrun by vampires with mind-control powers in Carpe Jugulum.