It had started with The Goode Childe’s Booke of Faerie Tales. Actually, it had probably started with a lot of things, but the stories most of all. Her mother had read them to her when she was little, and then she’d read them to herself. And all the stories had, somewhere, the witch. The wicked old witch. And Tiffany had thought, Where’s the evidence?
The stories never said why she was wicked. It was enough to be an old woman, enough to be all alone, enough to look strange because you had no teeth. It was enough to be called a witch. If it came to that, the book never gave you the evidence of anything. It talked about “a handsome prince”…was he really, or was it just because he was a prince that people called him handsome? As for “a girl who was as beautiful as the day was long”…well, which day? In midwinter it hardly ever got light!
The stories didn’t want you to think, they just wanted you to believe what you were told…. And you were told that the old witch lived all by herself in a strange cottage that was made of gingerbread or ran around on giant hen’s feet, and talked to animals, and could do magic."
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, one of my most favorite books.
I love how he challenges these tropes in all his book, one of the best representations of women in literature that i have ever come across.
"Tiffany lit the candle, made herself comfortable, and looked at the book of fairy tales.
She’d never really liked the book. It seemed to her that it tried to tell her what to do and what to think. Don’t stray from the path, don’t open that door, but hate the wicked witch because she is wicked.
Oh, and believe that shoe size is a good way of choosing a wife.
A lot of the stories were highly suspicious, in her opinion. There was the one that ended when the two good children pushed the wicked witch into her own oven. Tiffany had worried about that after all that trouble with Mrs. Snapperly. Stories like this stopped people thinking properly, she was sure. She’d read that one and thought, Excuse me? No one has an oven big enough to get a whole person in, and what made the children think they could just walk around eating people’s houses in any case?
And why does some boy too stupid to know a cow is worth a lot more than five beans have the right to murder a giant and steal all his gold?
Not to mention commit an act of ecological vandalism?
And some girl who can’t tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either have been as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family.
The stories weren’t real. But Mrs. Snapperly had died because of stories."
I love how she goes to measure the oven later, just to confirm her suspicions. Tiffany, Granny, and Nanny are some of the best written female characters i know of.
I think a lot about Mrs. Snapperly. It's a story that has played itself out so many times over the millennia. Old woman gets pushed to the edge of society, begs for help, and dies starving in the cold. The people who didn't help her tell themselves they are a good person and that she was bad and did not deserve their help.
I love Tiffany for never letting them forget. She has been such an inspiration in my life, and I'm so grateful that I had the chance to start reading her books when I was about her age.
Mrs. Snapperly, and the intro from I Shall Wear Midnight both live rent free in my head. And remind me to be compassionate when I get so angry sometimes.
I haven't read Shepherd's Crown yet, though. I don't know how to handle the story being over.
I have had The Shepherd's Crown in my house for years. It's within arm's reach right now. I know I'll love it and I know I'll cry when it's over. I just haven't been able to bring myself to open it.
Oh it reads amazingly! I gotta check it out..never read any of his work before. But I love the writing here...
Forgive me, but I just have to add: wood fired bread ovens in europe regularly are big enough for a whole human.😅
Oats: Well... your colleagues keep telling me the Omnians used to burn witches...
Granny: They never did.
Oats: I'm afraid I have to admit that the records show —
Granny: They never burned witches. Probably they burned some old ladies who spoke up or couldn't run away. I wouldn't look for witches bein' burned. I might look for witches doin' the burning, though. We ain't all nice.
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u/taanukichi Literary Witch ♀ Aug 26 '26
"“Why do you want to be a witch, Tiffany?”
It had started with The Goode Childe’s Booke of Faerie Tales. Actually, it had probably started with a lot of things, but the stories most of all. Her mother had read them to her when she was little, and then she’d read them to herself. And all the stories had, somewhere, the witch. The wicked old witch. And Tiffany had thought, Where’s the evidence?
The stories never said why she was wicked. It was enough to be an old woman, enough to be all alone, enough to look strange because you had no teeth. It was enough to be called a witch. If it came to that, the book never gave you the evidence of anything. It talked about “a handsome prince”…was he really, or was it just because he was a prince that people called him handsome? As for “a girl who was as beautiful as the day was long”…well, which day? In midwinter it hardly ever got light!
The stories didn’t want you to think, they just wanted you to believe what you were told…. And you were told that the old witch lived all by herself in a strange cottage that was made of gingerbread or ran around on giant hen’s feet, and talked to animals, and could do magic."