More about Terry Pratchett and the attributes of witches

Some of the main characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books are witches.

From time to time he slips serious statements about them into his amusing stories. I sometimes wonder where he got his ideas about witches and witchcraft from.

There is a little more to add to the article about a good definition of a witch; the new material is based on more quotations from Terry Pratchett’s books.

What a witch really is may not match what many people think a witch is; some of the attributes may be unexpected, but they are the sign of the real thing.

Witches are different

The idea that there is more than one type of human being comes from many independent sources.

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part II: Terry Pratchett’s books

I have found that Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books brighten the atmosphere: they are ideal for driving away black moods and dispersing the dark clouds of depression. 

I particularly like the books that feature his three main witch characters, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. The three witches in Macbeth were the inspiration for these ladies. He said that three is a natural number for witches. It is just a coincidence that when I was at school, someone likened me and my two sisters to the three witches in Macbeth!

Not only do these books entertain, amuse and raise one’s spirits, they also contain material that seems to me to be relevant to some topics on this blog. I have already made a connection between the effects that Terry Pratchett’s illusion-creating elves have on humans and the effects that some glamorous energy vampires have on their victims.

Some of what Pratchett says about magic and how it attracts undesirable entities could apply to unconscious or psychological black magic and how it attracts – or is even caused by - forces that sabotage the lives of the practitioners.