#Granny Weatherwax's Cottage

[evilcatv]

sir pratchett had to make nanny a raging heterosexual because else she would just be granny's wife

#and they would still live in separate cottages cuz they get on each other's nerve #that's the shit #nanny ogg #granny weatherwax #discworld #yes i know something something complexity of adult relationships something something not all loves have to be romantic something something #if you have different headcanons move along let me have this

[dark-lord-tom-returns]

So I'm reading Witches Abroad and the first time we see Granny use magic is in Desiderata's cottage. Desiderata (deceased) was a big proponent of everyday magic. She was also quite blind. So when Granny and Nanny check on her cottage and definitely are not looking for her wand, there are no matches for the fireplace.

Granny doesn't like everyday magic. She says so. She even tells Nanny that if they found the wand she wouldn't use it, emphatically. She doesn't like the habit. But she's annoyed and wants her tea and needs a fire for that. So she uses magic.

But then she sees the mirror. And the face looking back isn't hers but Lilith's. Heres a quote about Granny:

"Very few people in the world had more self-control than Granny Weatherwax. It was as rigid as a bar of cast iron. And about as flexible."

And she smashes the mirror immediately and without hesitation.

Now we don't know who Lilith is to Granny at this point but upon reread this is a particularly interesting passage. By the end of the book we know Lilith is "the bad witch" and because she is Granny "had to be the good one".

Granny hates the fact she has to be the good one. She knows that if she was the bad one she'd be the most terrifying witch the Disc has ever seen. But she has to be the good one. That's her responsibility since Lilith turned out bad. She has to be good and she has to be responsible, especially since she has the power to be so evil and do so much damage if she ever lost control.

And I think that's why Granny smashes the mirror right then. She was annoyed at the lack of matches, she wanted tea, she used magic to get it. And that's not responsible witchcraft in her mind. So when she find Lilith looking at her through the mirror, she sees the person that forced her to have that self control. That made Granny Weatherwax a good witch when she wanted to be the bad one. And that hurt her.

This is also interesting when you consider Sam Vimes relationship with alcohol. Vimes used alcohol as a way to deal with a feeling of helplessness and lack of control. That addiction numbed the emotional pain and he had to be so careful in later books not to fall back into that habit.

Granny is the opposite. Her power is, maybe not addictive, but something she takes immense pride in. She wants to use it, she became the most powerful witch (not the most talented, that's Nanny) through hard work and dedication. But she can't use it because that wouldn't be responsible. Because everytime she uses it, it becomes a little easier to justify using a little more until she's using it for everything. Or anything. And she can't because she has to be the good one.

How much self control must that take? Granny spent her entire life becoming the best at what she does. Decades of mastering her craft and when she reaches the top she had to essentially stop. To put it aside and only use it in the most responsible way possible because if she slips, it's a long long way to the bottom.

Cast iron indeed.

#discworld #granny weatherwax #nanny ogg

[sing-you-fools]

being a Discworld fan honestly should be, like, the #1 book recommending a person sort of things, and i hate that it's not because so many of his fans get it so wrong. like. i try not to get incensed about people being wrong on the internet, but how anyone reads these books and thinks this man was a bigot, thinks the representation he put in Discworld was at the expense of those represented, like. like. i'm furious about it. every time. especially as he continued to learn and grow both as a writer and as a person. even stuff that was originally meant to be a little silly, like a female dwarf, he found meant a lot to people, and he learned how to better include that story!

(spoilers ahead for Shepherd's Crown)

he leaned into it in the most loving and respectful way. fucking READ The Shepherd's Crown!!!!! the man found out trans women identified with his character so he learned how to represent them! and then, he wrote Jackrum! AND THEN HE WROTE GEOFFREY!!!!! with his last fucking book he gave us a character who says he doesn't really feel like a man or a woman, just himself, fucking ages before anyone else was writing nonbinary characters! AND HE PUT HIM IN GRANNY WEATHERWAX'S FUCKING COTTAGE Y'ALL! LIKE HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS BECAUSE I HAVE SOBBED SO FUCKING MUCH ABOUT IT! (Note that obviously Geoffrey doesn't have/use different language for himself, but that's how he feels and pronouns are not gender.)

thanks to how he handled Cheery and how he went from there, Pratchett included trans representation for ALL of us SO SO SO SO SO LONG before we were on anyone else's radar, and it's honestly so much more respectful than some of the stuff i've seen out there more recently!!!!!

he wasn't perfect, and a lot of social standards have evolved since the earlier Discworld books especially, but he always kept an open mind and listened and tried and grew. and there are people out there insisting he would be this hateful bigot!!!!! i hate them!!!!! let me hire the fucking assassin's guild!!!!!

#GNU TERRY FUCKING PRATCHETT Y'ALL #terry pratchett #gnu terry pratchett #discworld #rant #incensed about people being wrong on the internet #boomers in fb groups make me want to scream #the shepherd's crown #geoffrey swivel #trans representation #book recs #sing-you-fools

[pratchettquotes]

It was a cottage of questioning witches, research witches. Eye of what newt? What species of ravined salt-sea shark? It's all very well a potion calling for Love-in-idleness, but which of the thirty-seven common plants called by that name in various parts of the continent was actually meant?

The reason that Granny Weatherwax was a better witch than Magrat was that she knew that in witchcraft it didn't matter a damn which one it was, or even if it was a piece of grass.

The reason Magrat was a better doctor than Granny was that she thought it did.

Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

#granny weatherwax #esme weatherwax #magrat garlick #lords and ladies #discworld #terry pratchett #witches #Doctors #Magic #Medicine #Research #Questions #spell ingredients #Specialization #Eye of what newt #A better witch #A better doctor

[cdyssey]

My graduation present to myself was a print of Granny Weatherwax’s Cottage. 😭 It’s so gorgeous.

#granny weatherwax #discworld #maggie blogs #f: discworld

[satureja13]

After a long walk they reached Martha's cottage. She invited them in for a late breakfast and told them - again - the unbelievable story that her family farm went invisible after a meteorite impact almost a year ago...

And again she told them about this guy she already found to work there and who told her that only supernaturals can see the farm...

They soon came to an agreement over the conditions (to receive a good share of everything they sell) and eventually went outside to fetch the goats before they go over to the farm. Martha: "Such nice and obedient little goats! They were the only animals I could rescue from the farm. No trace of the horses, though. Not even this guy could find out where they went."

Martha: "Ok little ones, let's go back to your old home with these nice boys who will care for you there! ... OUCH!"

Martha: "Uhm ... *nervous laughter* ...they usually don't do things like this..."

Jack (who is a werewolf and can smell a lie) whispers: "I think they do! We should leave!"

But Vlad and Sai won't listen. A bed and a roof over the head are worth dealing with bratty goats. And so they leave for the invisible farm... Martha luckily just picked three goats for the time being. (The same three goats who watched them in their first night in Chestnut Ridge!)

Martha: "The farm is right over there!" But even though Saiwa, Jack and Vlad are supernaturals, they can't see the farm...

Jack, mumbling: "I don't see anything!" The others shake their head, agreeing. Jack: "So - is she fooling us or did she get fooled by that guy?"

'Tambourines and elephants are playin' in the band Won't you take a ride on the flyin' spoon? Dood-n-doo-doo Wonderous apparition provided by magician Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door'

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Lookin' Out My Back Door

TMI: Martha's cottage is inspired by Granny Weatherwax's cottage (Discworld).

From the Beginning  ~  Underwater Love ~  Latest

#A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! #sims 4 story #sims 4 horse ranch #simblr #ts4 #sims 4 #underwater love #vladimir tepesz #jack callahan #giga byte #saiwa #rider's glen #chestnut ridge #martha #goats #adriano #meteorites

[fyeahcompetentwomen]

Nyota Uhura vs. Esmeralda "Granny" Weatherwax

Remember: don't vote on "who would win in a fight", but on "who, when given a task that fits her skillset and talents, would do that task better: more comprehensively, faster, with more pizzazz, with less collateral, etc."

Endorsements! "What is she good at?"

Nyota Uhura, Star Trek: Her special talents lie in communicating and translating; she speaks a lot of languages and has an intuitive understanding of speech - and music too! She is a good singer, and this ability helps her not just bring joy to her friends and crewmates but also save the day! She's an excellent leader and teacher too.

Esmeralda "Granny" Weatherwax:"Granny Weatherwax wasn't popular with anyone much-- --except when they needed her. When Death was standing by the cradle or the axe slipped in the woods and blood was soaking into the moss, you sent someone hurrying to the cold, gnarly little cottage in the clearing. When all hope was gone, you called for Granny Weatherwax, because she was the best. And she always came. Always. But popular? No. Need is not the same as like. Granny Weatherwax was for when things were serious."

Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith (Quote suggested by anonymous tumblr user)

#fuck yeah competent women #fyeahcompetentwomen #bracket #round of sixteen #nyota uhura #star trek #star trek the original series #star trek strange new worlds #esme weatherwax #esmeralda weatherwax #granny weatherwax #discworld

[manfrommars2049]

Granny Weatherwax’s Cottage by artist David Wyatt via ImaginaryDwellings

#ImaginaryDwellings #Anon_Ymou5

[firstofficerrose]

It is a time of edges

The Querulous Megapode has reached the end of it's long race. It's been a long Year, and not always a good one, but it's run it's course, and can rest now. Before it settles down to build a nest somewhere in Klatch, though, it has one thing to do.

...

The cottage is scrupulously clean; it doesn't do to welcome the new year with the debris of the old one lying around. Not everyone agrees on that point*, but it's always done for her. The cottage is clean, and quiet, and Granny Weatherwax is waiting.

...

As the sun sinks behind the mountains for the last time in the Megapode's very own Year, the Querulous Megapode picks it's way across the track to the cottage. Along the way, it meets a Moribund Aardvark, and they have the sort of discussion that only Years can have. Together, they make their way to the cottage, and before either one can rap on the door, it swings open.

Granny Weatherwax stands in the door with her pointy hat and her plumbline-straight spine. The Megapode, panting a little from the exertion of getting here, bows a bit.

"Took you long enough," she says. The Megapode fluffs it's feathers defensively. Granny Weatherwax regards it, then turns to the Aardvark. She takes a deep breath and carefully does not roll her eyes.

"Blessings," she intones, "Upon This Year. Now git."

And they do.

...

*At Tir Nani Ogg down the mountain, the party was really just getting started. Scumble and shrapnel would be all over the place tomorrow for the battalion of daughters-in-law to clean up, but for now, Nanny was doing a jig on top of the table and inventing new verses for The Hedgehog Song.

#discworld #happy new year #year of the moribund aardvark #granny weatherwax #discworld fanfic

[mcgruffthecrimedog]

I just want discworld lego sets. There are so many great options!

Imagine putting together the post office or Pseudopolis Yard. You could have Granny Weatherwax's cottage and Unseen University. The plausibilities are endless.

#discworld #lego

[charlesoberonn]

Not to burst your bubble, this is a huge nit-pick, but the art that you used for Granny Weatherwax in the most recent "We're not so different" is actually art of Nanny Ogg from the same franchise. Granny tends to be skinnier, and a lot more severe in dress and personality.

There's some official (albeit small/pixelated, sorry) art of the two of them side by side.

Yes, I know. I was confused by Google Images

The painting I used is titled "Granny Weatherwax's Cottage" but the witches featured in it aren't her.

[milfdarthrevan]

magrat: ooh, i can make our cottage aesthetically witchcore! granny weatherwax: you've fucked up our cottage, that's what you've done. look at it, it's got sigils.

#honor reads discworld #discworld #wyrd sisters

[a-ramblinrose]

“Suddenly there was a humming in the air, and the bees were there too. They flowed out of Granny Weatherwax’s hive, circling Tiffany like a halo, crowning her, and swarm and girl stood on the threshold of the cottage and Tiffany reached out her arms and the bees settled along them, and welcomed her home.” ―Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

#The Shepherd's Crown #Terry Pratchett #Discworld #Tiffany Aching #books #book photography #Current Reading #Current Reading Quotes #Reasonably Priced Love and a Hardboiled Egg #Not Out of Void But Out of Chaos

[monstrous-tournament]

Erzulie Gogol vs. Eunice Proust

Erzulie Gogol

Mrs. Gogol is a voodoo witch. She's also a great cook. She lives in the swamp just outside Genua, together with Baron Saturday. She smokes a pipe. Her cottage can move about on duck-like feet over land or water. Mrs. Gogol's Genuan style of magic, besides the entrancing cooking, includes the raising of gods and zombies. She is adept at scrying and headology. The cooking itself may be used as a means of predicting the future, by the bubbles and patterns of ingredients. Her familiar, Legba, is a black cock who can even daunt Nanny Ogg's fearsome cat, Greebo.

Eunice Proust

Mrs. Proust is the Ankh-Morpork witch and owner of the Boffo Joke Shop, where many of the mountain witches get their supplies. She is vastly ugly, with a hooked nose and many warts and blemishes. She bases the masks she creates at the shop on her own face. Mrs Proust is somewhat more blatant with her use of power than Tiffany or the mountain witches, including enchanting a window so that it throws stones back at people who throw stones at it. This shows she is a very talented witch and one with different beliefs from witches such as Granny Weatherwax. Mrs. Proust also provides discreet medical services for Watchmen who are too embarrassed to go to Igor and don't want their mother to know. She also has an Arrangement with Captain Angua von Überwald with regard to treating her hardpad.

#monstrous tournament #witches bracket #erzulie gogol #eunice proust #round 1

[this-curiouscat]

🌠 and 📖

🌠 A game with a mechanic I love.

I really love the Unscene and Echoes in the Night mechanic from The Between by Jason Cordova (a game about Victorian monster hunters in London, inspired by Penny Dreadful).

The Unscene describes a different scene in the same night that is completely unrelated to the main plot and unseen (get it?) by any of the PCs or NPCs. Each Unscene takes place at a different location and is guided by prompts (answered by the players taking turns) and intends to show that a lot more than the PCs plot is going on in London. (It's also a timer for the Night phase but I'm not a huge fan of the strict separation of the Day and Night phases of the game, so we'll ignore that here.)

It ties in with the Echoes in the Night mechanic, which grants you XP when you manage to nevertheless tie the Unscene together with the main plot by echoing an element from one in the other (either way around).

For example, if you first mention the blood-red gloves your character is wearing and then, a little later, describe a theatrical performance that ends with a murderer having blood all over their hands, that's an Echo in the Night.

It incentivizes you to connect images and vibes and not just plotlines, and I think that's a fantastic and very effective idea that I'm just waiting to use in one of my own games eventually.

📖 My favorite class or playbook from a game.

I recently played Dream Apart (a Jewish fantasy of the shtetl) by Benjamin Rosenbaum for the first time, so let's talk about The Midwife.

The Midwife is, well, a midwife. You get to choose a name, a type of hands, an outlook, two advantages, a thing you've seen, someone who you've angered, and 2 shtetl relationships. (Each playbook has different categories in this game.) And that's your Midwife.

You can play Tovah, for example, with stubborn hands and a pantheist outlook (because of course everything is alive in its own way), who has a remarkable sense of smell and the advantage of humility. She may have seen a cottage deep in the forest and have angered the market women by defending the prostitutes (using the game's term her). She may be a young bride's only hope and her lover may have broken her heart.

(Do you see her? Finely attuned to smell the slightest scent of death and disease? Working tirelessly to save as many lives as she can? Being the one the shtetl women go to for contraceptive or abortifacient or soothing herbs and brews? The one who knows about the horse urine and wild licorice? Heart-broken by the woman who left her for a marriage to a man? And always feeling responsible for fixing everyone else's problems and guilty if she can't.)

You can also play Binyamin, for another example, with gentle hands and an idealist outlook, who has perfect memory, and an unflappable sense of humor, despite everything. He may have seen the abbey's catacombs and angered the rabbinical council by defying a ban. He may be resented by the city-educated doctor and suspected by the goyish priest.

(Do you see him? Ever-curious and willing to defy any authority trying to keep him from learning more? Never speaking about what haunts him except in jest? And yet hopeful, steadfast in his belief that a more just world is possible? And lonely, probably a lot more lonely than you'd think.)

The Midwife is blood and birth and death and earthy magic. They're justice and sacrifice and the constant search for balance, within and without themself. Melancholic hope, caring anger, and an awareness of monstrosity, both human and otherwise.

The Midwife makes me think of Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany Aching, of duty and severity, of a plain, practical shell with a core of fiery-soft anger necessary to Do The Work.

It has been a delight to play a Midwife for a few hours, and I hope I'll get to do so again!

#ask me stuff #ttrpg #the between #dream apart #unscene #echoes in the night #midwife playbook #witches gonna witch #sometimes i miss writing poetry

[thewritehag]

I keep thinking of Granny Weatherwax when she made the hard choice to either save a mother or the child:

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

Witches always lived on the edges of things. She felt the tingle in her hands. It was not just from the frosty air. There was an edge somewhere. Something was beginning. […]

“Evening, Mr Ivy,” she said, leaping off [her broom]. “Upstairs, is she?”

“In the barn,” said Ivy flatly. “The cow kicked her … hard.”

Granny’s expression stayed impassive.

“We shall see,” she said, “what may be done.”

In the barn, one look at Mrs Patternoster [the midwife] told her how little that might now be. […]

“It’s bad,” she whispered, as Granny looked at the moaning figure on the straw. “I reckon we’ll lose both of them … or maybe just one …”

There was, if you were listening for it, just the suggestion of a question in that sentence. Granny focused her mind.

“It’s a boy,” she said.

Mrs Patternoster didn’t bother to wonder how Granny knew, but her expression indicated that a little more weight had been added to a burden.

“I’d better go and put it to John Ivy, then,” she said.

She’d barely moved before Granny Weatherwax’s hand locked on her arm.

“He’s no part in this,” she said.

“But after all, he is the—”

“He’s no part in this.”

Mrs Patternoster looked into the blue stare and knew two things. One was that Mr Ivy had no part in this, and the other was that anything that happened in this barn was never, ever, going to be mentioned again.

“I think I can bring ’em to mind,” said Granny, letting go and rolling up her sleeves. “Pleasant couple, as I recall. He’s a good husband, by all accounts.” She poured warm water from its jug into the bowl that the midwife had set up on a manger.

Mrs Patternoster nodded.

“Of course, it’s difficult for a man working these steep lands alone,” Granny went on, washing her hands. Mrs Patternoster nodded again, mournfully.

“Well, I reckon you should take him into the cottage, Mrs Patternoster, and make him a cup of tea,” Granny commanded. “You can tell him I’m doing all that I can.”

This time the midwife nodded gratefully.

When she had fled, Granny laid a hand on Mrs Ivy’s damp forehead.

“Well now, Florence Ivy,” she said, “let us see what might be done. But first of all … no pain…”

As she moved her head she caught sight of the moon through the unglazed window. Between the light and the dark … well, sometimes that’s where you had to be.

INDEED.

Granny didn’t bother to turn around.

“I thought you’d be here,” she said, as she knelt down in the straw.

WHERE ELSE? said Death.

“Do you know who you’re here for?”

THAT IS NOT MY CHOICE. ON THE VERY EDGE YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND SOME UNCERTAINTY.

Granny felt the words in her head for several second, like little melting cubes of ice. On the very, very edge, then, there had to be … judgement.

“There’s too much damage here,” she said, at last. “Too much.”

A few minutes later she felt the life stream past her. Death had the decency to leave without a word.

When Mrs Patternoster tremulously knocked on the door and pushed it open, Granny was in the cow’s stall. The midwife saw her stand up holding a piece of thorn.

“Been in the beast’s leg all day,” she said. “No wonder it was fretful. Try and make sure he doesn’t kill the cow, you understand? They’ll need it.”

Mrs Patternoster glanced down at the rolled-up blanket in the straw. Granny had tactfully placed it out of sight of Mrs Ivy, who was sleeping now.

“I’ll tell him,” said Granny, brushing off her dress. “As for her, well, she’s strong and young and you know what to do. You keep an eye on her, and me or Nanny Ogg will drop in when we can. If she’s up to it, they may need a wet nurse up at the castle, and that may be good for everyone.”

It was doubtful that anyone in Slice would defy Granny Weatherwax, but Granny saw the faintest grey shadow of disapproval in the midwife’s expression.

“You still reckon I should’ve asked Mr Ivy?” she said.

“That’s what I would have done …” the midwife mumbled.

“You don’t like him? You think he’s a bad man?” said Granny, adjusting her hatpins.

“No!”

“Then what’s he ever done to me, that I should hurt him so?” (pp. 35–39)

Exerpt taken, with edits, from the Frumious Consortium

#gnu terry pratchett #granny weatherwax