Nanny Ogg

To travel all over the world and meet the other witches; Granny Weatherwax, Magrat Garlic and Agnes "Perdita X" Nitt.

If they ever meet it would be nice to take some pisc of them together. Also some meetings with other Disc World characters would be nice...

Maybe some day she should come back here.

Nanny Ogg

The character of Nanny Ogg is based on the Mother stereotype of the Triple Goddess myth. Nanny Ogg has been married three times, with fifteen children who survived their early childhood, and has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What makes her the Mother, however, is her mentality. People go to Granny Weatherwax for help when they have no choice, but they go to Nanny for advice all the time. Granny is respected, but Nanny is actually liked.

Nanny Ogg has a talent for getting along with people and fitting in. As described in Maskerade, people, after knowing her for fifteen minutes, feel like they have known her all of their lives. Granny Weatherwax knows about this ability, and recognizes its use, and wonders sometimes if it would have been worth acquiring it.

Nanny Ogg is wiser than Esme Weatherwax in some ways, and certainly wise enough not to show it. Nanny Ogg is seen as "one of the people" in a way that Esme is not. While Granny sees no point in competing if you aren't going to win, Nanny believes the sympathy you get for being a good runner-up is much better. Granny comes across as judgemental, whereas Nanny is broadminded. She appears to be kinder than Granny, but is equally prepared to make tough decisions if necessary. The difference has also been summarised like this: Granny Weatherwax's legendary reputation around the Ramtops can ensure cooperation. If Granny should be away from where she's known, her commanding presence is usually enough to get people to do what she says. But people don't mind doing things when Nanny asks them.

Contrary to Granny Weatherwax, and indeed the stereotype of witches in general, Nanny Ogg does not live in an isolated, crumbly rural cottage but in an expansive and well-looked after town house in the capital of Lancre (with her eldest and youngest sons living to either side), called Tir Nani Ogg ("Nanny Ogg's place," and a pun on the Tír na nÓg, the Gaelic name for the Land of the Ever-Young). She fills it with knick-knacks such as pink skulls and rude garden gnomes that serve no useful purpose except to highlight her eccentricities. Her family brings back souvenirs for her whenever they go more than a few miles from home. Since she doesn't care whether they're cheap or not, she has several things with legends such as "To The World's Greatest Mum" on them. She shares this home with Greebo, a tomcat of evil aroma and astonishing viciousness, whom she can see only as the fuzzy harmless kitten he arguably must once have been.

In The Art of Discworld, Pratchett says, "I've always suspected that Nanny is, deep down, the most powerful of the witches and part of her charm lies in the way she prevents people from finding this out." Indeed, incurring Nanny's wrath is suggested to be much more dangerous because of her reflexively kind personality. In Pratchett's short story "The Sea and Little Fishes" Nanny Ogg also identifies herself, and the Ogg family as a whole, as having immense natural magical talent, but as less willing to work it as hard as Weatherwaxes do.