The article about a very good definition of a witch was created to highlight a short but spot-on passage from an otherwise irrelevant novel.
This article contains a few more short quotations about witches. This time around they consist of yet more wise words from writers who have a lot to say about witches and witchcraft and whose books have inspired many articles.
Robin Jarvis's Witching Legacy series succeeds his Whitby Witches series. Although the Legacy books don't inspire long articles the way their predecessors did, they do contain a few good and thought-provoking statements about witches.
The Power of Dark, the first book in the new series, has this definition of a witch:
“...witches exist...people with special gifts, special powers, special responsibilities. They can see and do things that other folks can’t.”
The Devil's Paintbox, the second book, has this to say about what being a modern-day witch entails:
“It's part of being a witch...It’ll turn your life inside out and sometimes you lose those dearest to you. They can't handle what you really are, but if you try to stifle it, pretend you're somethin' you’re not, you’ll make yourself miserable.”
These extracts sound like something that Terry Pratchett might have written!
Nicholas Stuart Gray's fantasy The Apple Stone (1965) is the usual good read, but unlike many of his other stories doesn't inspire much commentary. I did see something that seems worth highlighting though.
Jeremy the boy narrator has some speculative and philosophical thoughts about witchcraft and wickedness while visiting Grandma Webber, an old lady with a reputation for dottiness and weirdness who is said to be a witch:
“My mind went off on its wanderings. ... I wondered about witchcraft . . . how many different forms could it take? . . . did everyone have a trace hidden deep inside them? Or a memory from a past life that drifted near the surface from time to time? Was it used as a protection from loneliness, or age, or hurt pride? ... or just a wish to be different?
Perhaps dottiness happened from the same reasons. Perhaps no one ever really wanted to be wicked, but it just came over them, and they got tangled up in it and couldn't get out. After all, magic was not wicked in itself, only if it became another word for malice. Perhaps. . . .“
There are some interesting ideas here. They might be worth exploring further some time.
