Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.
This week’s prompt is:
What are some interesting witches in fantasy? Is there a certain portrayal of a character that makes them a “witch” vs. a “sorceress” or other magic worker, in your opinion?
Funnily enough, when I sat down to write this post, I could think of four depictions of witches that stuck with me to try to talk about. And then more and more popped into my mind. I’m not going to pretend that I have an exhaustive list to talk about in a minute, but it’s bigger than I thought.
But let’s start with the second half of the prompt first–what makes a witch different than another kind of magic user? Am I very, very sure that there are technical definitions and better ways to define it than I’m about to use? Sure thing. But I’m not the guy to go to for that (at least not with witches). Their magic is rooted to and tied into nature in some way. There’ll be some connection with ley lines frequently. Not only will there be a tie to nature, some witch depictions will be tied to a type of nature–earth magic, water magic, air magic, etc. There’s a degree of ritual to their magic, ingredients to assemble, key words–if not entire incantations–frequently crop up (and precise words, not just a random pseudo-Latin word that is tied to spell work, like Dresden and his apprentices use). Frequently, to get all the power out of a spell or working, you need to have a full coven, or circle–and that fullness changes from author to author.
Because of the ties to nature and ingredients–frequently involving blood of some sort–other magic users or whatever in a fantasy novel will be distrustful of witches, at the very least, leery of them. They might not be seen as inherently evil, but they’re inherently creepy and you might not want to get to involved with them. In other series/novels, that’s not as prominent, but it’s more common with witches than with wizards or sorcerers, etc.
There’s something I enjoy about the way others react to them that I find appealing. Atticus O’Sullivan starts the Iron Druid Chronicles not trusting any witch, period. And early on, his prejudice seems well-founded and rational–but by the end of the series, and in some of the spin-off stories/series, it seems like Atticus shouldn’t be quite to quick to distrust. But he’s wise to be leery. Adam Hauptman and most of the other North American Werewolves have similar distrust of witches, and there are few reasons to question that. What’s fun about this kind of approach is watching the protagonists have to deal with the witch that seems to be the exception to the rule, and to question their prejudice. Even better is watching them deal with a witch who seems to support the prejudice in the way they act, and then to have our protagonists try to work with them nonetheless.
So, some interesting witches in Fantasy. Here’s the list I came up with:
Amber Benson’s The Witches of Echo Park series, shows a coven of well-established witches bring a new member into their number. Then there’s warfare with people trying to manipulate the group. This is the series that jumped to mind when I saw the prompt.
The Christmas Witch books by Dan Murphy and Aubrey Plaza. They’re written for kids, but these tales of Santa’s sister show someone who fits the above description in a way that will satisfy adult readers.
Patrica Briggs’ Mercy Thompson and Alpha & Omega series (which are really one sprawling series) feature witches that should be kept at a distance. There are three types: a weak type of practitioner who doesn’t use blood in their workings; a stronger type that will use donated/given blood; and the strongest/nastiest who will take whatever blood they want. It’s easy to distrust most of these.
I’ve already talked about the depiction in The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne. What’s nice about Hearne is that you pretty much like every witch in the series, even the ones you shouldn’t (at least at the beginning).
The Brightest Sword (and Arthurian legends/retellings in general) have some great witchy characters.
The Chronicles of Narnia has a fairly narrow depiction of witches. Don’t trust them–they’re either aligned with Jadis consciously, or support her without realizing it (see Prince Caspian).
Alix E. Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches has to be one of the better books about witches–Harrow ties witchcraft into womanhood (not everything on this list is focused on gender), and the alternate history of this book makes the whole thing just a wonder.
The Morris and Chastain Supernatural Investigation series by Justin Gustainis pairs a PI with a white witch to look into supernatural crimes. As I recall (it’s been over a decade), there’s a little conflict with other witches who don’t think she should be helping out the PI, the FBI, etc. The witch was my favorite part of the series, I have to say.
Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series–and the (as of last week) two spin-off series feature witches pretty prominently. Some of the witches are good about interatcting with the broader supernatural community–and even entities like the FBI. Others, aren’t that interested and try to avoid dealing with them at all. This group of series has probably my personal favorite witches and depictions of them on this list.
I can’t believe that the last one to make this list was Kim Harrison’s Hollows Series. What as I thinking? The protagonist, Rachel Morgan, is a first-person narrator and witch. As far as fictional depictions of witches, especially all the work that goes into their spellwork (and the preparation for that work) really shines in Rachel’s life, these 19 books have to make up a part of a discussion of modern witchery (at least one more in-depth than this one).
I haven’t read any of them yet, but I’ve only heard good things about the Witches series within Pratchett’s Discworld.
At the end of the day, they’re not my favorite type of magic user to read about. But since the Grimm boys popularized them so much (not that story tellers going back at least to the Greeks), and even Shakespeare used them so prominently, it’s hard to deny the place of witches in Western fiction. If only for variety’s sake.
Go read some of the other responses to this prompt, they’re likely better thought-out.
Briana | Pages Unbound
It’s interesting you bring up covens because that didn’t occur to me at all while I was writing my posts, but of course that is a large part of many witch stories. But then I feel like I was thinking about a lot of stories where there are loner witches trying to hide their witchiness.