Fairy Tales and Fantasy Literature

They had no pictures on this book...

In Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett the character of Lilith is the evil witch and villainess in the story. She has a lot of qualities about her that set her far apart from witches we have read about in the past, such as the White Witch in C.S. Lewis’, The Chronicles of Narnia. First off, Lilith watches the witches’ journey through a mirror in her hall of mirrors. She begins attacking them throughout their journey with incidents similar to story tales we are familiar with. One example was when Granny Weatherwax found herself underneath a house, “Granny Weatherwax turned and found herself looking at a crumbling, unpainted front door. Magrat nearly walked into the backdoor of the same grey, bleached wood” (Pratchett 165). This incident was closely related to that of the Wizard of Oz. Not only did we see things occur similar to that story tale, but also Cinderella was a major one, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Dracula, and Lord of The Rings. Pratchett put his own spin on things by recreating old story tales and incorporating them into his book for a humor aspect. Although, the house similar to that of Wizard of Oz, that Lilith directed towards Nanny Og missed her, because the willow reinforcing in her witches hat saves her. During the part of the book where the ball was occurring, the coach was turned into a pumpkin. However, Lilith took it upon herself to reverse things different from that of Cinderella and turn the coach they had as a pumpkin back into a coach, and the mice back into horses and coachmen. Instead of doing things the traditional way, she does them in reverse. The White Witch was always just using magic to make people miserable, where as Lilith was trying to make their lives more difficult, and trick them, and ruin their plans. Lilith also has the witches thrown into dungeons, where as in the Chronicles of Narnia, the White Witch would have just turned them into stone, or had them killed. The last major difference was the demise of Lilith. Her and Granny end up in the mirror universe and have to find their real self within all the reflections. Granny immediately finds hers, but Lilith is unable to find hers. She is doomed for the rest of time and is trapped, and Granny escapes. That is definitely nothing like what happened with the White Witch. Overall, the White Witch and Lilith were hardly similar witches.