The Discworld - Witches Series in Order

About the Discworld - Witches series

Series Premise

The Discworld witches are not conventional fantasy spell-slingers. They practice “headology” more than flashy magic: understanding people, bending expectations, using a bit of practical psychology, herbalism, and the occasional carefully timed curse or borrowing (taking temporary control of another creature’s body). Their unofficial motto is “Do the right thing, then walk away before anyone asks you to do it again.” The central trio—Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and (initially) Magrat Garlick—live in the small, backward kingdom of Lancre, high in the Ramtops mountains. They keep the local balance: midwife, healer, layer-out-of-the-dead, boundary-setter against the dark. They do not rule; they merely ensure nothing worse does. The books usually begin with a disruption to the natural order—invading elves, theatrical vampires, meddling fairy godmothers, a usurping duke, or a young witch who doesn’t yet know she’s a witch—and escalate into a confrontation that only the Lancre coven can resolve. Recurring motifs include: - narrative causality (“the story wants to happen”) - the difference between appearance and reality - the moral weight of power (“the third wish is always the dangerous one”) - headology vs. wizardly “big magic” - the uncomfortable necessity of being the “bad witch” so other people can be good

Main Characters

Esmerelda “Granny” Weatherwax — The greatest witch alive and the moral center of the series. Fiercely intelligent, iron-willed, and terrifyingly competent. She never uses magic when headology will do; when she does use it, the world pays attention. Proud, prickly, deeply moral, and secretly kind. “I means I’m the best there is at bein’ me.”
- Gytha “Nanny” Ogg — Granny’s oldest friend and opposite. Warm, earthy, cheerfully bawdy, mother of fifteen, grandmother of uncountable grandchildren. The best cook, the best midwife, the best diplomat, and the best drinker in Lancre. She can get along with anybody; Granny uses her as a human shield against people.
- Magrat Garlick (later Magrat Garlick-Ogg) — The youngest witch in the early books. Romantic, well-meaning, and a little vague. Loves romantic notions of witchcraft (baths of moonlight, crystals, folk wisdom). Over the series she matures into a quietly formidable queen and mother.
- Tiffany Aching (later books and spin-off trilogy) — A young witch-in-training from the Chalk country. Practical, stubborn, fiercely moral. She eventually inherits Granny Weatherwax’s hat (and responsibility).
- Supporting cast — King Verence II (Magrat’s gentle, bookish husband), Hodgesaargh the falconer, the Nac Mac Feegle (blue-skinned, kilted pictsies), Letice Earwig (rival witch), and a host of Lancre villagers who treat the witches with a mixture of awe, affection, and mild terror.

Setting

The Discworld is a flat world carried on the backs of four giant elephants standing on the shell of Great A’Tuin, the star turtle swimming through space. The Witches stories are mostly set in the small, backward kingdom of Lancre, high in the Ramtop Mountains—a place so remote that it is often forgotten by maps, taxes, and history. Lancre is poor, muddy, and fiercely independent; its people are stubborn, superstitious, and surprisingly practical. The landscape is quintessential fairytale highlands: jagged peaks, deep forests, rushing rivers, standing stones, and isolated hamlets. The witches’ cottages—Granny’s bare, spotless home with its bee skeps and black kettle; Nanny’s chaotic, overcrowded cottage full of grandchildren and cats—feel lived-in and loved.

Occasional excursions take the witches to Ankh-Morpork (*Maskerade*), Genua (a twisted fairy-tale kingdom in *Witches Abroad*), or the Underworld (*Lords and Ladies*), but Lancre remains the emotional center—a place where the edges of the world fray and old magic still lingers.

Tone & Themes

The tone is witty, humane, satirical, and deceptively light—Pratchett at his most philosophically playful. The prose sparkles with footnotes, wordplay, and sideways observations about human nature, yet the stakes feel real. Granny Weatherwax can be terrifying, Nanny Ogg cheerfully bawdy, Magrat earnestly woolly-headed (and later quietly formidable), but no one is ever mocked for being kind or trying to do the right thing. The humor is dry, affectionate, and frequently laugh-out-loud, but it sits comfortably beside genuine menace (the Queen of the Elves is genuinely chilling; the vampires in *Carpe Jugulum* are genuinely dangerous). The books are optimistic without being sentimental: evil can be defeated, but only by people willing to get their hands dirty and then wash them afterward.

Terry Pratchett’s Lancre witch books—Equal Rites through Carpe Jugulum, with Tiffany Aching carrying the torch in later works—are among the most perfectly balanced entries in the Discworld canon. They combine razor-sharp satire, laugh-out-loud comedy, genuine menace, and deep compassion in a way few authors ever achieve. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, and eventually Tiffany Aching stand as some of the most memorable witches in modern fantasy: proud, practical, flawed, and profoundly moral. Through their eyes we see a world where stories are powerful, people are complicated, and doing the right thing is rarely easy or glamorous—but always worth doing. The Lancre witches remind us that real magic isn’t lightning from the fingertips; it’s headology, stubbornness, kindness when no one is watching, and the quiet refusal to let the dark win. In a universe that runs on narrative causality, these women keep rewriting the ending until it comes out right. Few fictional creations are as wise, as funny, or as fiercely humane.