The Folklore of Discworld

your mother’s dead!’ – ‘Dead?’ laughed the daughter. ‘Her bain’t dead, her be out and about now!’
    Shape-changing witches, on the other hand, are extremely common in the lore of this world. The difference is that whereas a Borrower sends her separated mind to ‘ride’ in an animal (which has its own real existence, before, during and after the process), the shape-changer changes herself entirely, body and mind together, into the appearance of an animal. There is no real animal there at all, simply the transformed witch.
    Witches of the Earth could turn into any animal they wanted, but hares seem to have been the favourites, with cats a close second. Being a hare was especially good fun because it gave them the chance to infuriate huntsmen. Stories about this were told throughout Britain well into the twentieth century, for instance one which was collected by members of a local Women’s Institute for their book It Happened in Hampshire (1937):
    When I was a boy, they did say there was a woman over to Breamore that could turn herself to a hare up there on the Downs. If the dogs did press her too much she could turn herself back again and they wouldn’t see nothing but a woman combing her hair. One day the dogs were after her, just as she was getting near her cottage. She did shoot through the keyhole, but they were after her. The children cried out, ‘Run, Granny, run! or the dogs’ll have ’ee.’ But her was up on the top of the old brick oven so they never had her. Whether ’twas true or whether it wasn’t, that is what I did hear when I was a boy.
    The witch-hare did not always escape. If the hounds were particularly fast, or if the huntsman was a good shot with a bullet made from a silver sixpence, she might get bitten or shot in the rump as she bolted indoors. And next day everyone would see that she was limping badly.
    People on the Discworld have heard about this somehow, and those who do not understand Granny Weatherwax sometimes think this is what she gets up to. Thatcher the carter, for instance:
    ‘Cor, she frightens the life out of me, her. The way she looks right through you. I wouldn’t say a word against her, mark you, a fine figure of a woman, but they do say she creeps around the place o’ nights, as a hare or a bat or something. Changes her shape and all. Not that I believes a word of it, but old Weezen over in Slice told me once he shot a hare in the leg one night and next day she passed him on the lane and said “Ouch” and gave him a right ding across the back of his head.’ [ Lords and Ladies ]
    In Equal Rites , there is an argument on this point between Esk, an intelligent little girl, and her brothers Gulta and Cern:
    ‘They say,’ said Gulta, ‘she can turn herself into a fox. Or anything. A bird, even. Anything. That’s how she always knows what’s going on. They say there’s a whole family over Crack Peak way that can turn themselves into wolves. Because one night someone shot a wolf and next day their auntie was limping with an arrow wound in her leg, and …’
    ‘I don’t think people can turn themselves into animals,’ said Esk, slowly.
    ‘Oh yes, Miss Clever?’
    ‘Granny is quite big. If she turned herself into a fox what would happen to all the bits that wouldn’t fit?’
    ‘She’d just magic them away,’ said Cern.
    ‘I don’t think magic works like that,’ said Esk.
    But occasionally, very occasionally, Granny does shape-shift, or appears to do so. This happened during her confrontation with Archchancellor Cutangle of Unseen University, as described in Equal Rites . The Archchancellor had unwisely hurled white fire at her, and she had deflected it towards the roof. Then:
    Cutangle vanished. Where he had been standing a huge snake coiled, poised to strike.
    Granny vanished. Where she had been standing was a large wicker basket.
    The snake became a giant reptile from the mists of time.
    The basket became the snow wind of the Ice Giants, coating the struggling monster with ice.
    The reptile became a sabre-toothed tiger, crouched to spring.
    The gale became a bubbling tar pit.
    The tiger managed to become an eagle, stooping.
    The tar pit became a tufted hood …
    This is what students of folklore on the Earth have labelled The Transformation Combat. A typical instance would be the battle recorded in the medieval Icelandic Saga of Sturlaug Starfsama , between an Icelandic youth and a Lapland wizard. To the bewilderment of the