Granny Weatherwax

Sources present Granny as apprenticed into an oral lineage of witches: she recounts learning from Nanny Gripes, who learned from Goody Heggety, who was taught by Nanna Plumb, who was taught by Black Aliss. Accounts in the source material describe her youth as driven toward mastering the craft and moral responsibility within that chain of apprenticeship, including anecdotes of her persistence around earlier teachers' households (camping on Nanny Gripes' garden) and the formative motive to be the "good one" who kept a lid on darker impulses.

Granny Weatherwax is described as an elderly human woman with striking blue eyes and a penetrating gaze, a hooked nose, and a determined set to her jaw. She is thin (sources note a weight of about nine stone) and taller than some fellow witches. She typically wears a plain black dress, a somewhat battered black cloak (sometimes lined dark red), and a tall pointed witch's hat fastened into an "iron-hard grey bun" with multiple hatpins. She rides a well‑repaired hand-me-down broom that must often be run with before it will fly.

Granny is described in the sources as "a very powerful witch" who rarely manifests overt spectacle; she chiefly employs "headology," a pragmatic folk-psychology used to influence people and situations. She is also adept at "Borrowing," the technique of overlaying her mind on another creature in order to see through its eyes and steer its actions. Her craft is learned by apprenticeship and social practice rather than formal liturgy, and she often uses psychological force and an imposing persona as tools of witchwork.