Grand High Witch - Personal Characteristics

Personal Characteristics

The Grand High Witch is described as being "without mercy", "the most evil woman in creation" and "the most evil and appalling woman in the world": one who utterly detests children, disdaining the oblivion of one child per week for each of the eighty-five witches in England as "no use", and indifferent as to whether or not adults are turned into mice and destroyed in the process. She is impatient, volatile, aggressive, and tyrannical, caring nothing as to how her demands are carried out provided they are obeyed and leave no trace of witches being involved. While furious at those who contradict or offer nothing constructive to her plans, she displays a favourable, if terse, attitude towards those witches- particularly "the ancient ones"- who have served her well over the years and eliminated many children, even supplying them with ready-made potion so that they may keep up with their younger counterparts. Her "real" name is never mentioned in the book. She resides in a castle in Norway, where she is known as a wealthy baroness, and operates her business mostly from there. She finances her devious plans with a machine that can make practically any currency in the world. While she forbids lesser witches from contacting their fellows in other countries, she uses her enormous wealth to fund her schemes and journey from place to place to contact them herself. In each country, she books into a hotel, summoning all the native witches and passes them off as a party of ordinary, good-natured women. For this year's meeting, the witches of England style themselves (ironically) as the RSPCC, with the Grand High Witch posing as the chairwoman.

Like all witches within the story's universe, the Grand High Witch has no toes or hair, and has clawed hands. Strangely, she does not remove her wig, gloves, or shoes at any point within the story, perhaps suggesting she has more to hide. She does, however, during her audience with the witches, remove a highly realistic mask from her face, revealing her features to look like "something rotten" and "worm-eaten". She has a somewhat guttural accent (hence her pronunciation of England as "Inkland") that gives her "difficulty" in pronouncing the letters "R" ("rrr") and "W" ("v"). It is most likely she is Norwegian, as the book claims this to be the original homeland of all witches. Her ability to "fry" other witches is implied to be unique to her and to those who become her successors.