Witches Abroad

Witches Abroad is the twelfth Discworld novel by the English writer Terry Pratchett, published in 1991. It takes the conventions of the fairy tale and puts them through the hands of three witches who have no patience with stories that behave as though they were inevitable.

The witch Desiderata Hollow dies and leaves her wand to Magrat Garlick. Desiderata was not only a witch but also a fairy godmother, and by passing on the wand she makes Magrat responsible for a young woman called Emberella who lives across the Disc in the city of Genua. No instructions come with it, so almost everything Magrat points the wand at turns into a pumpkin.

Desiderata had promised a servant girl, in a version of the Cinderella story, that she would not be made to marry the Duc who leads Genua and who is, in fact, a frog. Magrat and her companions, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, set off for Genua on broomsticks to make sure the promise holds, and the road there is full of vampires, werewolves and houses that fall over at inconvenient moments.