The Witches of Appendix N: Jack Vance

 You simply cannot talk about magic and Appendix N without mentioning Jack Vance.

Vancian Magic, Ioun Stones, Vecna, the Most Excellent Prismatic Spray. All of these and more came to Gary while reading Jack Vance's Dying Earth books.  

For me, it has been Javanne the Red Witch, the Black Sabbath, the Witches of the Cobalt Mountains, and Llorio the Murthe.

So much of what is in AD&D now originally came from Vance. Or at least ideas influenced by Vance. So it does seem a little odd to me that the witches from the Dying Earth tales don't make it in. Stranger still when you consider it was Javanne at the Black Sabbath on the first edition of The Dying Earth. Though there is a moon in the image, we have been told there is no moon anymore.  Like "Red Lori" from Gardner Fox's Kothar series, she is another evil redheaded witch at the end of time. Maybe there is something to that.

Much like his Lyonesse books, there are a lot of witches here. Not all of them get detailed. Indeed, that is one of the charms of Vance's storytelling. He builds the Dying Earth not explicitly, but through the lens of his tales. The Witches of the Cobalt Mountains, including one with blue hair, are mentioned but not fully explained. We learn there is no moon in the sky anymore, but we never learn when it was gone or why.

Javanne the Red-Haired Witch

Our first named witch, and indeed our cover girl, is Javanne. She starts out appearing to be good, but it is quickly revealed that she is fairly evil. She steals the face of Etarr, her lover, and gives him the face of a demon. Etarr and the artificial girl T'sais track Javanne down at the Black Sabbath, where she is consorting with demons and other witches, including the aforementioned Witches of the Cobalt Mountains. She is able to summon up demons, cast charm spells, and even dominate others. So pretty typical witch magic. 

In truth, she is very much an archetypal witch. The idea that she (and by extension any witch) survives to these later days pretty much with their witchcraft intact is an interesting notion. Is Vance saying here that witchcraft is universal? And not just magic, but witches. This gets a deeper treatment in the later, post-Appendix-N books.

T’sain

T'sain is another artificial human and a twin to T'sais. She is not really a witch, but she does have some magic and spells. T'sais was created by the wizard Pandelume. T'sain was created by Turjan of Miir, though she dies freeing him from a rival wizard. 

Lith the Golden Witch

A different sort of witch. She pops up in the tale of Liane the Wayfarer. Lith is from the golden land of Ariventa. We don't learn a lot more about her, really. She can command 20 sword-like blades to do her bidding, and she is very attractive. Lith also appears good at first, but soon is revealed to be less so. In the mini scenario from White Dwarf #58, she is also called "Lith the Weaver."

Llorio, the Murthe, the White Witch

Ok. So this one is also outside of scope, but I wanted to include it anyway since it covers my main theme. It is from the fourth book in the series, "Rhialto the Marvellous." Llorio, the Murthe, is depicted on the cover along with Rhialto the Marvellous. So at least two of the four main books in the Dying Earth series featured witches who were important to the stories. 

Witches seem to conform to some sort of color palette. Llorio is a "white witch" but not because of her goodwill, but because of her white hair, white skin, and white clothes. Llorio comes from an earlier age where witches and wizards battled in some sort of magical battle of the sexes in the 17th-18th æon (the current age is the 21st æon). She has come to the future to turn all the world's current male wizards into female witches. 

It is an interesting tale. The witches were poised to win this war until their leader, Llorio the Murthe, was sent to a distant star, to the planet Naos. She has now come back and has discovered that the remaining wizards are nothing more than a group of powerless (by her standards) misogynists. So she decides to turn them all into women. Not a terrible plan, really, and an appropriate one for a witch scorned. 

I won't spoil the ending for you all. But I will add this quote from Llorio that appears near the end of the tale. I think it sums up the whole feeling of the Dying Earth rather well. 

"Hope?" cried Llorio. "When the world is done and I have been thwarted? What remains? Nothing. Neither hope nor honour nor anguish nor pain! All is gone! Ashes blow across the desert. All has been lost, or forgotten; the best and the dearest are gone. Who are these creatures who stand here so foolishly? Ildefonse? Rhialto? Vapid ghosts, mowing with round mouths! Hope! Nothing remains. All is gone, all is done; even death is in the past."

Not only is Llorio powerful, she easily defeats most of the wizards of this time. She also has Ioun (IOUN) stones (something it appears only wizards, not witches, are supposed to use), again a Vance creation added to AD&D. Surely this would rank her as one of the great spellcasters. 

"The Murthe" appears to be a granted title. Akin to "The Simbul" or even "Witch Queen." She certainly has all the requisites to be a witch queen.

All three of Vance's witches seem morally ambiguous. Javanne and Lith start out appearing good, but certainly are not. Llorio starts out as a threat, but maybe she has a point. Also, our protagonists have a hard time justifying fighting against her. I think this gray area, or as I have described it so many times, a liminal space, is where witches do their best work. Wizards, at least in terms of how AD&D and the stories that influenced it and were influenced by it, are always either very good, or very evil. In the cases of Gary's own wizards, they are very neutral, i.e., preserving the balance. Witches are allowed a little more freedom. They can be good, neutral, or evil as they choose. They have their own moral directives.

The Lyonesse Trilogy

Jack Vance revisited the theme of magic decades later with his magnificent Lyonesse Trilogy, consisting of Suldrun’s Garden, The Green Pearl, and Madouc (1983-1989). While the books fall outside the chronological scope of this Appendix N series, they are not so far removed from the theme of witches and magic in fantasy as to pass over without comment. The books are set in the mythical land of the Elder Isles, which lies between Britain and France in a time before King Authr. While they are certainly a product of Vance’s later work, they revisit a great deal of the same ideas concerning ancient magic, mystic powers, and the uneasy relationship between human beings and older supernatural entities that pervade Vance’s earlier works. 

While not strictly within the chronological scope of this series, the Lyonesse books warrant a separate discussion of witches in the context of fantasy magic, so this theme will be revisited at a later date. Maybe for my planned "Beyond Appendix N" series. 

Closing Thoughts

Without the works of Jack Vance the Dungeons & Dragons we play today would look very different. While his Dying Earth is filled with wizards, we only get a few named witches. Largely I think this is due in-universe of the Wizard-Witch war of the 17th and 18th æons. It would have been interesting if Gygax had worked some of that into his design. Granted, the books that mention that war post-date the genesis of D&D and AD&D. But maybe there is something I can do similarly in my own games. Something to explain the obvious dominance of wizardry over witchcraft in the world.

In any case, it has been a lot of fun to revisit these tales. I probably should check out the Dying Earth RPGs at some point, as well.

The Witches of Appendix N: Gardner Fox

Gardner Francis Fox is an interesting member of the Appendix N canon. Fox is one of a small few I can find that has also published in the pages of Dragon Magazine (Issue #44 and Issue #55) (L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's "The Green Magician" was published after Pratt's death). He also had a celebrated career at DC comics, where he created some of my favorite characters, including Zatanna. 

Since today is his birthday, let's dive into his mentions in Appendix N. 

Kothar Series

Kothar is a giant blonde-haired, blue-eyed barbarian from the far north, weilding a mighty sword. His world of Yarth seems to exist at the very end of time. There are five Kothar books, and they are largely collections of shorter novellas. There is a continuity between them, so they do follow one from the other. Here, demons and gods are used somewhat interchangeably. 

The Sword of the Sorcerer

The first Kothar tale gives three different sorts of witches. First is Red Lori, the beautiful redheaded half-succubus witch; she is a proper witch whose skills seem to be both "necromantic" and "priestessly." She haunts Kothar throughout his series. She spends half her time wanting to kill Kothar, the other half taunting him, making me think she actually likes the barbarian. 

Queen Elfa is a Queen, but she is also described as a witch and the main antagonist of Red Lori. She has some sort of relationship with the witch Fristhia, who is our old, hag-like witch.

This tale also gives us hydras, dragons, and a lich. His other books follow a similar pattern of Kothar being broke, hungry, and/or thirsty (for ale, but yeah that other one too) and stumbling into trouble.

The Woman in the Witch-Wood. Here we get a witch, the Lady Alaine, and a warlock. 

The Demon Queen. Queen Candara of Kor is a Queen and part demon. She has some magic and serves a demon-god for youth and beauty. She serves demons, but not so much that she seems to be a warlock.

The Conjuer's Curse. We open the story with Stefanya, who is about to be burned as a witch. She served a wizard named Zoqquanor. Her life is linked to that of Zoqquanor so that if he dies, she dies, and vice versa. Stefanya reminds me a bit of Myrnis later on.  She isn't a witch, but that doesn't stop the angry mob.

There is a flashback to younger Kothar meeting a "wild woman" named Ursula. Later on, he meets another wild woman named Lupilina. They could be described as a "Bear Witch" and "Wolf Witch" respectively.  

In Kothar and the Wizard Slayer, we see Kothar team up with his "arch enemy," the witch Red Lori. I say in quotes because they have been having a love-hate relationship throughout the books. They travel and work together to see who is killing all of the mages and necromancers in the world of Yarth. 

I can't help but think about what I would have done differently with my own witches if I had read about Red Lori beforehand. Would Larina have ended up different? Maybe. Red Lori would have been something like a spiritual godmother to Larina had I read these first. Who knows, maybe some of Red Lori's DNA filtered down via the pages of AD&D to Larina anyway. 

Kyrik Series

Kyirk is, wait for it, a giant blonde-haired, blue-eyed barbarian from the far north, weilding a mighty sword.

There are three Kyrik books. Kyrik starts his tale dead. But we are not going to let that stop him. We actually get a witch, or a sorceress, Aryalla, before any other character. She finds a statue of Kyrik and, with the help of three demons, brings Kyrik back from the dead after a thousand years. 

His girlfriend, Myrnis, sometimes shows witch-like powers, but that usually happens when she is possessed by the demon-goddess Illis. 

Kyrik is described as a warrior-warlock. He does not cast spells, but he does get help from the demon-goddess Illis.  

--

So I have some issues with both series. In Kyrik's series, he was "dead" for 1,000 years, but he finds a gem in a room he had been in 1,000 years earlier, and his hunting lodge is still standing. Maybe if he had been trapped in the statue for 100 years, it would have been more believable. It is a complaint I have for many of Fox's tales. You can reduce any time he gives by 10x and get a better number. Same with Kothar, but here it is 100s of thousands of years. True Kothar is at the very end of time and would be more at home in the Hyperborea RPG than, say, Wasted Lands.

Kyrik seems a little more lustful for life than Kothar. Kyrik also finds the "Romany" girl, Myrnis, and stays with her for the whole series. The only time he is "unfaithful" to her is with a deposed Queen who looks exactly like her. Kothar, for all his lusting, seems relatively tame. Unless the girls he meets, he spends his nights with "off page", his only true obsession (and may I add equal) is the witch Red Lori. Sure, there are, that are more than implied, a serving girl and Queen Candara, for Kothar in particular.

Pretty tame, really, given he was also the author of "Cherry Delight" and "The Lady for L.U.S.T." vintage sleaze spy novels.

The biggest issue between these two tales is that Kothar and Kyrik might as well be the same person. Both are "giant" barbarians with blue eyes and blonde hair. Kothar has the sword "Frostfire," and Kyrik has the sword "Bluefang," both of which are described in remarkably similar ways. OH, take a drink anytime either is described like some sort of cat. You won't make it.

The stories are not great, but they are fun. Not every tale needs to be a full-course meal. These tales are sliders. Again, sometimes you want a steak, other times you want a slider. As far as sliders go, these are pretty good. I mean, it is hard not to like Kothar and Kyrik despite their clichés, or maybe even because of them. 

There is a lot here that is foundational to the AD&D experiences. Fighting demons, ghouls, and undead. Epic quests for gold, glory, and more. And lots, and lots of witches, wizards, and necromancers. "Lich" gets mentioned more than once and almost always in respect to a long-dead/undead wizard. Given everything from these books that did make it into AD&D, it feels odd that witches did not, given how much they feature in all these tales. 

There is one thing to consider. A lot of what made it into AD&D (and D&D) here also came from elsewhere. Kothar and Kyric feel like AD&D adventures because they are dipping into the great well of ideas that AD&D also dipped from: Conan. 

Oerth and its near clones are obviously influenced by Fox's Yarth. It would have been fun to see more of Kothar and Red Lori traveling together; him with Frostfire and her with her magic, going back and forth between wanting to kill each other and still ending up in each other's arms. Especially with the scene where Red Lori shows she is more than a match for Kothar.  I think, honestly, that would have been a much more interesting tale. Something that would have elevated this from just being a Conan clone. 

I wonder if there are any tales like that out there? I mean, there is Thundarr and Ariel from the Thundarr series, but there was never a love/hate relationship between the two of them. I suppose Silverglass also counts. Corson as our fighter/barbarian and Nyctasia as our witch, their relationship is fairly love/hate at the start until they gain mutual respect for each other. 

Final Thoughts

I was prepared to like these at first, but didn't, but once I got into them, I began to enjoy them a lot more. I have been a Gardner Fox fan for a while and these were a lot of fun. Just don't take them very seriously.

The Witches of Appendix N: Andre Norton

 I am now heading into another important entry to the Appendix N. Andre Norton is one of only three women Gygax mentions. We are also getting one of the few books where witches are the key figures. Andre Norton is also notable for playing D&D with Gygax in 1976 and releasing the Greyhawk novel Quag Keep in 1979. 

Norton was a prolific writer and celebrated writer, and it would take much more than this blog post to cover all her contributions to science fiction and fantasy. But do plan to talk about her witches.

Witch World

Witch World is Andre Norton's magnum opus. A series that spans decades of real-world time, generations of in-world time, and even a few authors. 

The first proper series is known as the Estcarp Cycle. This covers the first few books of the Witch World tales. There are a few other books, but these are the five main ones from before 1977 I want to consider.  

• Witch World (1963)
• Web of the Witch World (1964)
• Three Against the Witch World (1965)
• Warlock of the Witch World (1967)
• Sorceress of the Witch World (1968)

The series begins with World War II, as Ex-colonel Simon Tregarth runs for his life. He got into a bit of trouble during the war, and now he needs a way out. Of all things, he finds someone who transports him to another world filled with magic and witches.

Simon meets a witch whose name we don't learn just yet, who introduces him to this world and the land of Estcarp. And to its magic. 

The first two books deal with Simon and his witch wife Jaelithe (I love that name). The next three focus on their witch triplets.

The Witches of Witch World

The Witches of Witch World are not like many of the witches we have seen so far. They are not an old hag in a cottage, nor are they enchantresses who attempt to seduce our hero with equal parts magic and sex appeal. No, these witches are the undisputed rulers of their land; each has a different set of powers, but all are magical in nature: shape changes, sendings, lots of illusion, subtle control, and the like. Simon is very much a "fish out of water" here with his mid-20th-century outlook in a quasi-medieval world. But it turns out that this is what helps him when he and his adoptive land of Estcarp in their battle with the mysterious land of Kolder.

The people of Kolder are also from another world, like Simon, but a different world where they have something more akin to psychic powers to counter the witches' magic. I rather liked this setup, and we see more of it in the second book, Web of the Witch World. The political and magical nature of the witches is then delved into more deeply in the next three books about Simon's and Jaelithe's tripplets, Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea.

The witches themselves are great. Each has its own set of powers, and some are better than others. The cool thing was all the variety of powers.

The Witch Magic vs High Tech / Psychic Powers

One of my favorite parts of the first two books was the whole Witch Magic of Estcarp vs. the High-Tech and Psychic Powers of the Kolder. Like many Appendix N books, there is a bias towards the magical side of the battle. Now I enjoy the Pagan vs. Christianity struggle found in other books and history, but here the witches have a chance of winning. Not a spoiler, since there are so many more books in the series, but the witches win. It is an interesting interplay between Witchcraft and Psychic abilities that reminds me a lot of my own AD&D days, when I was all about the witches and witchcraft, and my high school DM was all about the psychic powers.

The next three books cover the Trigarth children. They represent something new to Estcarp, since the triplets, two boys and one girl, all have magic. Up to this point, only women had magic. The witches want Kaththea, the girl, to train with them to the exclusion of her two brothers, but their magic comes from their link. So they run away and discover more about their world. 

This takes the point of view that magic is inherited. 

These books were fun, but I enjoyed the first two more. The exploration of the parallel worlds, hinted at in the first two books, Earth and the world of Kolder, plays a more central role here, with Kaththea escaping to another world altogether.

The Question of Witches

Witch World is great. It is groundbreaking and pivotal to science fiction and fantasy genres. Andre Norton was even invited to Gary's table to play a game. Note: Quag Keep's protagonists travel to a fantasy world much like Simon Tregarth did in Witch World. 

The question then becomes if Witch World was so important and witches were so different from regular humans, then where are the witches? We even get psionics, the "magic" of Kolder, but not the witchcraft of the witches of Estcarp.

Yes, the magic-user is there as a generic, well, magic-using person. But that is really less than satisfactory, especially since in practice, magic-user was shorthand for wizard.  The witches of Witch World are different. 

Yes, I know this is not the space crack this particular cipher. It is something I do all over the place here. 

The witches of Estcarp are more than just female magic-users. Something I have said about many witches in this series and my own. But it is particularly true about these witches. Obviously, there was still something about that that made them unpalateble to Gygax and the early designers. Though I do know that Frank Mentzer liked witches in general.

I think Witch World is a good example, really. Not of the witch as a class, we have a lot of those in other Appendix N. This is an example that the witch comes with a price. Witches mean covens, structure, and a society. Witch power is socially negotiated.  The Witches of Estcarp demonstrate this with their power and when they work to later keep Jaelithe out and bring Kaththea in. 

Witches live in an ecosystem. I plan to keep exploring that ecosystem.

The Witches of Appendix N: Jack Williamson

“The trouble began when the first witch was hounded and stoned to death by the first savage man. It will go on till the last witch is dead. Always, everywhere, men must follow that old Biblical law: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

- April Bell, Darker Than You Think

Today is the birthday of Jack Williamson. Born on this day 118 years ago. He appears near the end of Gygax's Appendix N, and he is responsible for a couple of books extremely relevant to my exploration of the Witches of Appendix N.

This is also the second of what I think of as the three big "witch-centric" authors of the Appendix N. Last time it was Margaret St. Clair and her quasi-Wicca witches and keepers of Occult Knowledge. Third is Andre Norton. Today, with Williamson, I am looking at two other witches, also keepers of Occult Knowledge, but also different. Different from St. Clair's and different even from each other.

If you go back and look at the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, something rather odd becomes apparent. When Gygax lists his authors in Appendix N, for the most part, you can find at least a couple of works listed for any given author. It was direct, straight from the book into the game (more or less). But Williamson is different. He is (and just a few others are) listed, but no works are mentioned. This was no accident, and it says a great deal about the man and his work. Williamson's contribution to early D&D was not because of any given work, but because of the ideas that are present in all of his work. Ideas of hidden worlds beneath the surface of reality, of old things wearing human faces, and of the disturbing notion that magic isn't learned, but remembered, at least for some.

There are two books of his that I think are crucial to any exploration of Witchcraft from the Appendix N starting point.

Darker Than You Think

This novel began as a novelette in the pages of Unknown back in 1940. Williamson expanded it and its themes to encompass post-War science-fiction rationalism. Occult themes are translated into science fiction, but I'll get to all of these. As a quick aside, this is a really good read. Part science fiction, part occult, and part mystery. Our protagonist, Will Barbee a rough around the edges newspaper man, gives us an almost proto-Kolchak. 

I won't go too deep into the plot of this one because it is a good read, and you look up the details yourself if you really want to (and spoil the big reveal).  Though I will talk about the bewitching (in all senses of the word) April Bell. We meet April Bell, a new reporter, very early in our tale. She is beautiful, with bright red hair (there we go again!), big green eyes, and (dare I say it) a healthy dose of animal magnetism. Our protagonist is smitten right away and, unlike some other heroes I have discussed in this series, is practically dragged around by her. Though that is the point, I think, he has no agency, he is under her spell from the moment he (we) see her.

April Bell admits to being a "witch" and a "witch child." She began her life as a witch when she was only 7. Again, I wonder how my own witches would have been different had I read this first.

April does have some magical abilities like spells, even if there is a "scientific explanation." But mostly their magic involves shape-shifting. I won't spoil the surprise for you, but it is a fairly obvious one. 

The Homo lycanthropus vs. Homo sapiens battle is a parallel to the pagan vs. monotheism/Christian battle I find so compelling.  Casting witches as another species of human is not uncommon, it is something we see in DC Comics, Anne Rice's "Mayfair Witches," and Kim Harrison's "The Hollows" series, just to name a few. And these are also related species to vampires, werewolves, and/or demons in many of these tales as well. This could be related to the psychological phenomena of "the Uncanny Valley," or the human fear of near human, but not quite human, looking beings. Granted, there is no fear of April Bell when we first meet her.  

Witches and Weretigers

While this book did not inspire Gygax to add a witch to AD&D, it very likely contributed to the weretiger we see in the Monster Manual. While many of the lycanthropic creatures are of indeterminate gender, two stand out. The werebear is male and has a rather obvious relation to Beorn of the Hobbit (and both to the berserkers of Norse myth), and the weretiger who is quite obviously female. Indeed almost all art of the weretiger from the Monster Manual on features a female weretiger. I am making the claim that this is directly related to this book and to April Bell. The image of her riding the sabre-tooth tiger must have really resonated.

Including the cover (another witch on the cover of an Appendix N book. Yes I am keeping track) there have been other depictions of April Bell with a tiger.

And then early depections of the AD&D weretiger.

Our "Exhibit A" is the weretiger from David Trampier in the AD&D Monster Manual. I mentioned back when I was exploring the origins of the various Monster Manual monsters that the Weretiger likely had an origin from 1942's "Cat People," just as I speculated that the Cat Lord was influenced by the 1982 remake. 

The original Cat People came out in 1942. The novelette of Darker than you Think came out in the pages of Unknown in 1940. So, there was enough time for the film's producer, Val Lewton, writer DeWitt Bodeen, or director Jacques Tourneur to have encountered the story, but not enough to prove they did. Though there is a more important fact.

The genesis of Cat People was Lewton's own short story, "The Bagheeta," published in Weird Tales magazine (July 1930), about a legendary panther, a "half leopard and half woman ... were-beast." This predates Williamson's tale by 10 years. Digging into this there are many tales equating shape-shifting cat people to witches. The movie Cat People, though, is closer in tone to Williamson's take than to Lewton's original tale.

This doesn't weaken Williamson's claim to the weretiger, but it does show a lineage.  Lewton's "The Bagheeta" only alludes to witchcraft via occult Satanism (or at least an enemy of the Church), Williamson's tale, and Lewton's own "Cat People" make this more explicit. Though this is lost again in the 1982 version. 

In many ways, the "witches" of Darker Than You Think are really closer to shamans than witches. They could have even been part of the mix (along with other sources) of the Druid's ability to change shape.

The Green Girl

Taking place in the far future time of May 4, 1999 (I know I shouldn't be snarky about it) we have a tale of interplanetary travel and alien life. Not really a dungeon crawl, or even magical (almost), but there are still things here to make note of. 

The titular Green Girl, Xenora, has many features of a classical witch, even if Williamson never uses that word here. For starters, there is her green skin, often associated with witches, but that is only superficial. Her best claim to the lineage of witchcraft is her ability to communicate with our protagonist, Melvin "Mel" Dane, via telepathy across great distances. Even more so is her ability to charm or bewitch our hero. 

There is also the Lord of Flame, who is very much like a demoniac figure in this tale. Especially when he responds to anyone speaking his name. 

A lot of this story reads like a tale of a witch and a demon told through the lens of science fiction rather than magic. Though the tech here is so fantastical, it appears like magic. 

Plus I *get* Mel. Much like his Xenora, I have been haunted by Larina. 

Williamson delves into other tales in which strange women act as oracles or seeresses, such as in "After World's End," but that one is weaker. Or even the legacy of occultism and witchcraft, as in "The Mark of the Monster." Here, witchcraft is used as a backdrop. 

Science Fiction Witches

Through both of these works, a pattern emerges that is uniquely Williamson's own. Unlike the other Appendix N authors, who situate their witches in folklore and fantasy, Williamson dresses his in science fiction. 

They are not supernatural, exactly, for they are natural, though natural in a way that ordinary humanity seems to have forgotten or suppressed. "Not supernatural, but superhuman," as quoted from Darker Than You Think. 

They are not taught from books or granted by demons. They are innate, biological, and tied to blood and bone. Telepathy, charm, and hidden sight are not spells, but evolutionary features, the inheritance of something older than civilization itself. This is the way in which Williamson views witchcraft, and this is the way in which he views it in Darker Than You Think, which stands as his definitive work on the subject.

Final Analysis

I think what we have here are two somewhat different interpretations of the witch idea using the lens of science fiction.  Both, though, are good. While I would normally spend this section lamenting that, despite all these examples, we never got a witch, I think I can see what came out of Gygax's reading of these. The weretiger and the druid ability to change shape.  

And neither of those is bad, they are just not witches.

The Witches of Appendix N: Margaret St. Clair

After the previous Witches of Appendix N did not yield any authentic witches, I decided to move ahead to two entries I already know offer substantial material. The first of these is Margaret St. Clair. I am going to go a bit deeper on this one than I have with other authors.

Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) is one of only three women writers included in Appendix N, alongside Leigh Brackett and Andre Norton. Despite her relative obscurity, even among dedicated fans, her influence permeates the foundations of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, particularly in dungeon design and the portrayal of the underground as a mythic and ominous otherworld. Notably, she introduced the term "Underearth," which served as a precursor to what would later be known as the "Underdark" and, arguably, the "Shadow Dark."

Among the lesser-remembered names in Gary Gygax's Appendix N, Margaret St. Clair stands out as a particular interest of mine. Although she is not discussed with the same reverence as Howard, Tolkien, or Lovecraft, her works have made a significant and enduring impact on Dungeons & Dragons and, at least my, conceptualization on fantasy witches.

I will examine the two works by St. Clair referenced in Appendix N.

The Shadow People (1969)

The Shadow People is distinctly a product of 1969 Berkeley, California, authored by one of the prominent women in science fiction at the time. Today, it would be classified as an urban horror-fantasy novel, though it was then considered part of the "counter-culture."

Set in late-1960s Berkeley, the novel follows a young man whose girlfriend is abducted not by a human, but by the Earth itself. Beneath the surface exists the Underearth, a hidden realm isolated from the ordinary world, where ancient beings have survived on a hallucinogenic grain. These beings, reminiscent of ergot's historical associations, have now developed a preference for human flesh. The protagonist ventures into this subterranean world to rescue her, encountering phenomena that challenge his perception of reality. The narrative unfolds as a continuous psychedelic experience, with the protagonist's journey into and out of the Underearth persistently destabilizing any sense of reality.

Despite its horrors, the Underearth exerts a compelling attraction, drawing individuals in and seldom allowing them to escape. The forces of good achieve only a partial and ambiguous victory, as the surface world has itself devolved into a dystopian surveillance society.

Why It's on Appendix N

The influence on Dungeons & Dragons is both significant and highly specific. The Shadow People introduces the "Underearth," a clear precursor to the Underdark. Its subterranean inhabitants are referred to as "elves," and the narrative also features "orcs" and "ettins." The novel presents an addictive hallucinogenic food called "atter-corn," a corrupted fungal grain that maintains the Underearth's residents in a perpetual dream state, reflecting the folkloric caution against consuming food in the faerie realm. St. Clair even cites Robert Kirk's 17th-century work, The Secret Commonwealth, a treatise on faeries, within the novel.

Readers familiar with early Dungeons & Dragons modules will recognize these parallels. The inhabitants of the Underearth, who exist in a perpetual haze due to hallucinogenic cornmeal, anticipate the Cynideceans of module B4: The Lost City, who experience a similar dreamlike state induced by a comparable substance. The novel's depiction of a prolonged descent into the Underearth appears to have influenced adventures such as D1-2: Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Additionally, the inclusion of an intelligent blade, the "word of Merlin," serves as an early example of sentient swords in Dungeons & Dragons.

The Shadow People contributed to the conceptualization of both the drow and the duergar, as well as to Dungeons & Dragons' enduring fascination with expansive underground labyrinths. Gygax maintained a strong interest in eerie fairy realms, and The Shadow People provided a notably distinctive portrayal of dark elves.

The narrative also evokes Richard Shaver's "I Remember Lemuria" and his depiction of the Deros. Given that St. Clair published in Amazing Stories, she was likely familiar with Shaver's work. There is a discernible lineage from Shaver to St. Clair to Gygax (well, and Shaver directly to Gygax, too).

St. Clair's Underearth closely resembles early European conceptions of fairy mounds as portals to the underworld, where faeries, ancient deities, and the spirits of the dead coexist. This represents a unique synthesis of European paganism as interpreted by later Christian communities, forming the same cultural foundation that inspired notions of Wicca, witches, and witchcraft.

Sign of the Labrys (1963)

This is a book I have sought after for a considerable time, and I was finally able to obtain a copy through inter-library loan.

Set in the aftermath of a global pandemic that has decimated the population, Sign of the Labrys centers on Sam Sewell, a survivor residing in an extensive subterranean shelter complex. Government agents suspect that Sam is living with Despoina, a woman believed to be involved in germ warfare, and they pressure him to locate her. Sam is compelled to descend through multiple levels of the shelter, uncovering a concealed world of witchcraft and secret rituals. This narrative structure evokes not only Campbell's Hero's Journey, but also the descents of Ishtar and Inanna into the underworld, as well as the Wiccan initiation rite.

As Sam progresses through the shelter, women enter and exit the narrative, consistently demonstrating greater awareness than he possesses. St. Clair intentionally subverts the conventional pulp narrative: Sam is not a proactive hero, but rather is portrayed as naive and reliant on others to discern his purpose. The women scientists he encounters, along with Despoina, are the true agents of understanding and resolution. Over time, Sam comes to recognize that his journey parallels a Wiccan initiation ritual.

Beneath the remnants of the old world exists evidence of an even more ancient one: a concealed realm that safeguards the pagan traditions of Wicca, purportedly tracing back to the Minoan mosaic chambers. As Sam searches for Despoina, the high priestess, he gradually rediscovers his own forgotten Wiccan identity, which ultimately becomes vital to humanity's renewal.

Thus, according to the novel, witches are essential for humanity's salvation. This theme is presented with considerable directness.

Why It's in Appendix N

Sign of the Labrys likely influenced Dungeons & Dragons through its depiction of underground, multi-level dungeon complexes. The shelter's successive levels, each increasingly strange and perilous, closely parallel the structure of the classic dungeon crawl. Role-playing game enthusiasts will recognize this as a precursor to Castle Greyhawk and its intricate, multi-level design interconnected by secret passages.

Witches and Witchcraft

This aspect is where Sign of the Labrys becomes particularly noteworthy. St. Clair stated that the novel was primarily inspired by Gerald Gardner's books on witchcraft, and her research led to a friendship with Raymond Buckland. St. Clair and her husband were initiated into Wicca three years after the novel's publication, at which point she adopted the Wiccan (craft) name Froniga.

Sign of the Labrys functions almost as an endorsement of Wicca. In the novel, Wicca is depicted not merely as a neopagan religion but as a source of genuine magical abilities. The narrative is replete with traditional pagan elements, such as athames and the use of "Blessed Be" as a greeting, and St. Clair incorporated ceremonial details from Gerald Gardner. Practitioners of Wicca in the novel possess various supernatural abilities, including clairvoyance and invisibility.

What distinguishes this novel for its time is the extent to which it portrays witchcraft as a means of survival. With civilization devastated by plague and the rational, bureaucratic order rendered obsolete, the Wiccans' underground community preserves knowledge, social cohesion, and a path forward. St. Clair's publication of Sign of the Labrys in 1963 predates the formal introduction of Gardnerian Wicca in North America, granting the novel considerable historical significance in the evolution of American Paganism.

Considered together, these two novels illustrate St. Clair's significance to Gygax. In both works, the underground serves as more than a backdrop; it possesses metaphysical significance, being perilous, alluring, transformative, and older than civilization itself. The subterranean realm is associated with secret knowledge, fairy traditions, and witchcraft. In both narratives, as in Campbell's Hero's Journey, the protagonist descends into these realms and emerges fundamentally changed.

Furthermore, the figure of the witch, whether explicitly named in Sign of the Labrys or implied in The Shadow People, occupies a central role in both narratives.

How does this relate to Dungeons & Dragons? The influence is evident in the concept of the dungeon as a series of increasingly strange levels, where deeper exploration leads to a breakdown of reality. Less apparent, but still significant, is the theme that magic—and witchcraft in particular—originates from an ancient, primal stratum of existence largely forgotten by the surface world. This provides a compelling lineage for the D&D witch.

This observation raises an important question: given the significance of Sign of the Labrys within Appendix N, as it is explicitly listed, why does Dungeons & Dragons lack a dedicated witch class?

--

One of the things that makes Margaret St. Clair so important here is not just that she writes about witchcraft, but that she grants it authority, and that authority is unmistakably female. In Sign of the Labrys, the women are not standing at the edges of the story waiting to be rescued, explained, or possessed. They are the ones who understand what is really happening. They preserve the rites, hold the knowledge, and carry forward the spiritual framework that survives when the modern world fails. Sam may move through the story as the reader's, but he is not its true center of wisdom. That belongs to the women, and especially to Despoina.

That is no small thing. In a great deal of fantasy and science fiction from the period, power still tends to flow through familiar channels: male adventurers, male scholars, male priests, male rulers. Women may be mysterious, alluring, or dangerous, but they are rarely allowed to be the custodians of the deeper truths of the world. St. Clair breaks from that pattern. Her women are not merely magical in a decorative sense. They are the ones who keep the old knowledge alive. They remember what the surface world has forgotten. They do not just practice ritual; they embody continuity.

This is where the witchcraft in St. Clair becomes more than color or atmosphere. It is not a handful of spooky props scattered across the page. It is a living structure of meaning, memory, and survival. In Sign of the Labrys, witchcraft is what endures when bureaucracy, technology, and the rational systems of the old order have all proven fragile. The world above may imagine itself modern, organized, and superior. However, the hidden, female-centered religious tradition below still knows how to make sense of catastrophe and guide renewal. That is a radical move, and a powerful one.

For a series like Witches of Appendix N, that matters enormously. St. Clair is not simply one of the few women on GygGygax's list; she is one of the few writers on the list who imagines feminine spiritual power as foundational rather than secondary. Her witches are not side characters in someone else's heroic narrative. They are the keepers of the flame while the rest of the world stumbles in the dark. If we want to talk seriously about witches in the imaginative roots of D&D, that is not a minor detail. It is one of the central things worth recovering.

While the multi-tiered "dungeons" and underground ecosystems certainly were vital to the early days of D&D, it feels odd that these were the only things kept from St. Clair's works. There was so much more here that could have also been used. Rather than speculate as to why, I'll just take the material that Gygax etal discarded for my own works.

The Witches of Appendix N: Philip José Farmer

Philip José Farmer had one of the most enduring legacies on the earliest days of Dungeons & Dragons; the endless underground dungeons. His "World of Tiers" series detailed a world (multiple worlds) stacked on top of each other, providing the archetype of the dungeon and even the planes of existence. It is no suprise then really that Gygax was a huge fan of his work.

*I* became a fan of Philip José Farmer due to his Wold Newton family concept (along with Win Scott Eckert), something I spent a lot of time on working through back in the 1990s. I discovered it for myself in the earliest days of the Internet, and I was absolutely fascinated. I was already a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, and this concept was OCD gold for me. One day, I need to dedicate some time to do this properly. But he even manages to connect it to Angelique of Dark Shadows. So you know, I have to dig into it more for that reasn alone.

But today I want to discuss his Appendix N books and his potential witches.

World of Tiers

The World of Tiers gave us an archetypal dungeon environment, a place where monsters of all sorts from myth and legend lived. This includes some witch-like characters, but not a lot. The secret here, of course, is that these are not monsters of myth but a science fiction setting in which the magic of the Lords of the tale is really high technology.  

There are a few characters that might qualify, but none of which are a great fit. At least none that are close to what I am defining as a witch.

Riverworld

I want to make a quick mention of this series. I remember flipping through it in the 80s, but it never really grabbed me. I revisited it again in college and had pretty much the same opinion. I recall the GURPS book for it, but I don't believe there were any witches in this at all, unless it was a historical figure that was accused of witchcraft. 

Image of the Beast

This is an odd one. First, it is a modern tale, though one set in a supernatural, horror world. Secondly, it is often referred to as "porn," which is not... unmerited. There is witchcraft, of sorts, but no named witch. There are ghosts, vampires, and even snake women. 

Flesh

I mention this one only because it deals with a future where Earth has reverted to Paganism and Goddess worship. It has some witch-like trappings, but it is a sci-fi tale. While often derided, it is not as salacious or lurid as Image of the Beast.

So easy to see why Gary Gygax went with World of Tiers, but not a lot of witches here.

The Witches of Appendix N: Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock is easily one of the biggest influences on Dungeons & Dragons. Certainly, his contributions rival those of Howard or Tolkien in shaping the structure of the D&D multiverse. Indeed, one can barely talk about the Multiverse of D&D without invoking Moorcock.

When people talk about Michael Moorcock in Appendix N, they usually go straight to Elric of Melniboné, Corum Jhaelen Irsei, Dorian Hawkmoon, and the eternal war between Law and Chaos. 

When I talk about Michael Moorcock and witches, I am not really talking about witches in the broom-riding, cottage-dwelling sense. I am talking about the pact-making sorts of witches. The ones who contact the beings from other planes (something that happens a lot in Moorcock's tales) and the ancient pacts that bind them.

Moorcock does not give us a village wise women. He gives us bloodlines that traffic with elementals, tribes that call heroes out of myth, and archetypes that echo across realities. His magic is not tidy. It is not academic. It is relational, dangerous, and deeply personal.

Which is why it works so well for me.

Elric the Prototype Warlock

Let’s be clear about something. Elric is not a wizard.

He does not memorize formulae in a tower and sling fire from careful study. His power comes from calling upon Arioch and other Lords of Chaos. He names them. He binds them. He bargains.

That is not arcane spellcasting in the later D&D sense.

That is a pact.

In the One Man's God post I wrote before on the Melnibonéan mythos, I pointed out that their religion and their magic are inseparable. The Lords of Chaos are not distant gods in shining heavens. They are immediate, responsive, volatile. They answer when called, but they always take something in return.

Elric’s magic is closer to a warlock than a magic-user.

Stormbringer itself is a kind of patron made steel. It feeds him power and keeps him alive, but it also owns him. That dynamic, that exchange of strength for service, is pure warlock logic.

And this is important when we talk about witches in Appendix N.

Because if Moorcock gives us a prototype warlock in Elric, he also gives us the larger framework that witches later inhabit in D&D. Magic is not a neutral force you manipulate. It is something you negotiate with.

That idea runs straight into warlocks, and through them, into witches who deal with dragons, animal lords, witch queens, and stranger patrons still.

Corum and the Old Religion

If Elric shows us the aristocratic pact, Corum shows us something closer to folk magic.

In the Corum stories, the human tribes are not sophisticated sorcerers. They do not maintain demon treaties stretching back millennia. They have rites. They have memory. They have belief.

And when the world is in peril, they summon Corum.

Not as a cleric would call upon a god for a spell. They call him as part of an older set of magical rules. A returning champion tied to the fate of their land, one who was prophesied.  This feels less like wizardry and more like the Old Religion made manifest. 

It is communal magic. It survives conquest and catastrophe because it is embedded in culture rather than codified in books. 

If I were looking for Appendix N roots of the Wicce or of the Craft of theWise, I would not find them in shining cathedrals. I would find them here, in tribal rites that blur the line between prayer and spell.

The magic works because the people believe in the pattern. That is witchcraft.

It doesn't hurt that Corum and his people are often thought of as "elves" and that much of his tales are based on a psuedo-Celtic past. 

Named Witches 

There are very few named witches, and fewer still that are called "witch." 

Myshella, the Sleeping Sorceress, is one. Though she is not called a witch, she certainly fills that role. 

Jerry Cornelius is not a witch. Not by any stretch, really, but he is fragmented. Self-aware. Reality bending around him. He shapes his reality as much as reality shapes him.  

Moorcock’s Eternal Champion is not a simple reincarnation. He is an archetype that keeps reasserting itself in different circumstances. And this is where I see the parallel to how I have played Larina over the years.  Different systems. Different worlds. Different rules. Same witch.  He is not a witch, but he and the other Eternal Champions have shaped my notions of my archetypal witches.

Moorcock’s Legacy for Witches and Warlocks

Moorcock’s influence on D&D is usually discussed in terms of Law and Chaos. Planes of exsistences and an eternal, if not Eternal (capital "E"), struggle.

But for witches, the more interesting legacy is this:  Magic is relational. Magic is cyclical. Elric shows us the warlock bound to his patron. Corum’s summoners show us the persistence of pagan rites.

That is fertile ground for witches.

Not because Moorcock hands us a cottage and a cauldron.

But because he gives us a universe where magic is negotiated, myth returns, and some souls are simply meant to walk the long road again and again.

Wasted Lands: The Dying Age

 In my rereading of many of the classic Appendix N titles, I have come around again to Jack Vance's Dying Earth. The Dying Earth genre is not one I spent much time with back in the heyday of my D&D/AD&D playing life in the 1980s, but one I came upon much later. 

Honestly, my first foray into this sub-genre of fantasy began with Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique tales. I later moved on to Vance and to other end-of-time works like the Dancers at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock, and even the ideas about it from the DC/Vertigo Comics Books of Magic. This also led me to Lin Carter's Gondwane tales and Gardner Fox's Kothar. Even the earliest story of all Dying Earth tales, H. G. Well's The Time Machine. 

What I find most fascinating about these works is that they are not just "post-apocalyptic." In fact, they are far more alien and mystical than that. We are not dealing with a world that is recovering from a disaster. We are dealing with a world that is simply old and run-down. Civilization has risen and fallen so many times that history itself is legend, and legend itself is rumor. Sorcerers are those who remember things that nobody else remembers, ruins are piled on top of even older ruins, and magic is something that nobody is quite sure how to stop.

These worlds are, in many ways, a mirror to many of the settings that we start with in our own works of fantasy. We love to start with a "fresh" setting. We love to start with a "fresh" kingdom. We love to start with a "fresh" magic. We love to start with a "fresh" hero. We don't start with a tired kingdom. We don't start with tired magic. We don't start with a tired hero.

Throughout my writing here, I've touched upon this genre a bit, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally, by circling around it. I've written about my time spent in Zothique, Vance's strange future Earth, and games like Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, which draw upon that sense of weird future-antiquity. Indeed, even my writing about fantasy worlds and future lands touches upon this idea in some way. But what if fantasy isn't set in a distant past, but in a future beyond all human imagination?

This idea gave rise to a game idea that has been rattling around in my head for a bit now.

Wasted Lands: The Dying Age

The Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age RPG already gives us a mythic prehistory. It is a world of early civilizations, rising gods, ancient magic, and heroes who will eventually become legend. It is a world before recorded history, a time in which the myths of humankind are still being written.

But what of the last in that series?

What does the last mythic age look like?

This question gave rise to Wasted Lands: The Dying Age.

While the Dreaming Age marks the beginning of history, the Dying Age marks its end. Not centuries, not thousands of years. millions of years. More time between the Dying Age and us than between the Dreaming Age and us. The Dying Age is set so far in the future that everything familiar to us in the present day has become legend. The continents have merged yet again, one last time, into one last supercontinent, perhaps Pangea Ultima or Novopangea. The seas have risen and fallen and risen and fallen and risen yet again. The mountains have been uplifted and worn down many, many times.

The sun is growing old. In the sky above, it shines larger and redder than it did before. The days are longer and hotter, the seasons are stranger, and in the night sky, there are wonders beyond what our ancestors could have seen. The Moon, a constant companion to humanity since the Dreaming Age, is gone. Its recession from Earth since the dawn of time has reached a critical point, and it has been thrown free of Earth's gravity. Out there in the dark, beyond all of our worlds, patient observers can see the first hint of light from the Andromeda galaxy growing brighter as it moves closer to our own Milky Way. The heavens themselves are changing now.

Yet still, human beings linger on in a barely perceptible way.

Perhaps there are only a few thousand of them left, scattered across the surface of the Last Continent. They live in scattered cities, in wandering tribes, in strange little cultures built around traditions nobody really understands anymore. They remember a few of the old things. They tell tales of empires that perhaps existed a million years ago. They dig in ruins older than their own language.

And here is magic in the world.

Perhaps there has always been magic in the world, waiting patiently in the ruins of forgotten cultures. Perhaps it is returning now that the world is growing thin with age. In the Dying Age, there are sorcerers. They are not scholars, but archaeologists of the magical arts. Every single spell they use is from some civilization that perhaps existed a million years ago, or a cult that nobody really understands anymore.

The world itself is changing, too. The great beasts that used to rule over Earth are gone now, victims of a million years of slow decline. In their place, other creatures have risen to assume their places, giant arthropods and stranger creatures.

A farmer might hitch a wagon to a massive stag beetle instead of a mule. Herds of enormous cockroaches are raised for their surprisingly nutritious milk. Armored millipedes crawl through the forests like living trains of chitin. Some cities even keep domesticated mantises as guardians or war beasts. Giant ants and giant termite war with each other across the vast internal desert of the Last Continent. I have not figured out a replacement for horses yet. I am thinking of something akin to a smaller animal grown large, like a hare or jackrabbit. I do have giant riding bats, though. 

There are humans, now millions of years after us, who have evolved into other shapes, and some are only slightly recognizable as human. These will be my orc, goblin, and troll standins. 

It is strange, unsettling, and yet somehow perfectly natural in a world that has lasted for billions of years.

The Dying Age is not a despairing age, though it might seem that way to an outsider. No, it is something closer to quiet endurance. Humanity has survived ice ages, extinctions, and the rise and fall of countless civilizations. It may yet survive the long twilight of the sun itself. There is melancholy here and a general sense of ennui, but there are still humans fighting against the dying of the light.

The stories told in this age are not about building kingdoms that will last forever. Nothing lasts forever anymore. No, they are about what still matters when the world itself is nearing its final chapters. And perhaps the stubborn refusal to disappear quietly.

In many ways, the Dying Age is a completion of a circle that begins in the Dreaming Age. One is present at the birth of myth. The other is present at its final echo. Between them lies all of human history, from the first fires lit in a dark age to the last red sun setting over the last continent.

And yet, in that distant future, under that ancient red sun, there are still adventures waiting to be told.

The Dying Age: Mechanics

Here is where I get to cheat. Wasted Lands: The Dying Age is mechanically no different from Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age. This is just a different campaign model. Though the idea of Divine/Heroic Touchstone should be addressed. In the Dreaming Age, these are gifts of power that bring the characters closer to their divine apotheosis. In Thirteen Parsecs, they are also used to help define heroic characters. 

In the Dying Age, heroes take on a different tone. At first, I wanted to avoid using them, but in truth, they are loved by the players and me. So if there is a pervasive, light feeling of melancholia here, then these are the rewards for the characters who say, "No. I am not dead yet."

Even though I stressed this setting is not Post-Apocalyptic, I can see using some ideas from Gamma World here in search of lost civilizations. 

There are no cosmic horrors here. There are old gods, but their worship is more akin to sacrifice and cults than organized religion. The world is far too decadent and too old for that. 

The reasonable question arises. Why use Wasted Lands when Hyperboria 3rd edition (or any edition) does exactly this? The answer is largely, I have grown to like Wasted Lands more. Plus, I love the rather perfect symmetry of using Wasted Lands for both the beginning and ending of the human saga.  

Larina: The Ash Witch

The Doctor: At the end of everything, we should expect the company of immortals, so I've been told.

- Doctor Who: Hell Bent

I could not help but notice a trend in the various "end of time" tales that have been featured in my re-exploration of Appendix N. We have Fox's Red Lori, Vance's Javanne, and Carter's Queen of Red magic. What do they all have in common? They are all powerful red-headed witches.

Yeah. I noticed.

One of the first things I did was create a version of Larina here at the end of time. Why her and not, say, a new witch? I liked the idea of a character who could remember bits of all her past lives, something of a Larina Ultima. If Larina of the Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age is something of an Ur-Larina, then this is her ultimate form. In this world, she is a seeress and a prophetess, though she will admit that her sight is limited because there just isn't that much future actually left. 

In the far future of Wasted Lands: The Dying Age, Larina still exists, but she is no longer the vibrant witch of West Haven or the wandering occult scholar of earlier ages.

She is known simply as The Ash Witch. 

Like many of my GMPCs, she serves as a witness to the age. She appears to the PCs at strange moments, offering warnings, riddles, or fragments of half-remembered lore. Sometimes she seems to know them already. Sometimes she speaks as though she remembers lives that have not yet happened.

Unlike many of her other incarnations, this Larina is not trying to change the world. There is nothing left to change. 

Here, she also makes the last stand with The One Who Remains. 

She does know a truth. That when the last ember of this universe fades, something new will ignite. And witches have always been good at tending embers. She is the witness of the end and the midwife of the new beginning. 

Currently, I have a group playing NIGHT SHIFT. I might convince them of a Wasted Lands: The Dying Age one-shot. But it is a world I am certainly going back to. 

The Witches of Appendix N: Lord Dunsany

 In my coverage of the Witches of Appendix N, I have shown you Robert E. Howard’s decadent sorceresses, Lin Carter's dangerous enchantresses and Fritz Leiber’s suburban witches. They think of ambition, forbidden knowledge, demon bargains, and spell-casting as spectacle.

But Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany, aka Lord Dunsany gives us something older.

Dunsany’s witches are not conquerors. They are not queens of abyssal realms. They do not hurl lightning from towers. They live in fields, beside willows, at the edges of villages. They speak quietly. And they are feared.

For this entry, I am looking at three works:

• The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924)
• The Witch of the Willows (in The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens) (1931)
• The Curse of the Wise Woman (1933)

You could almost describe these as “pre-Pulp.”

Ziroonderel - The Witch of Erl

In The King of Elfland’s Daughter, we meet Ziroonderel, a witch who lives on a thunder-haunted hill at the edge of Erl.

She is the most fully realized witch in Dunsany’s work.

Alveric seeks her out to make him a magic sword so that he may reach Elfland. She first reveals to him her “true, hideous form,” a withered shape. When he does not recoil, she grants him something rare: gratitude that “may not be bought, nor won by any charms that Christians know.”

That line matters.

Ziroonderel does not operate on commerce. She operates on dignity. Courtesy is repaid with loyalty. Magic here is personal, not transactional.

She occupies a liminal position:

• Outside the human community of Erl
• Outside Christian respectability
• Outside Elfland

She belongs fully to none of them.

Later, she becomes the infant Orion’s nursemaid. This is not incidental. Dunsany entrusts her with the child who bridges mortal and fairy worlds. The witch becomes caretaker of the future.

She is ancient, knowledgeable about both mortal and fairy realms, yet not omniscient. In one of the most fascinating moments of the novel, she speaks at length with Lirazel about matters beyond mortal knowledge, and it is the fairy princess who teaches her. For all her hundred years of wisdom, Ziroonderel can still learn.

She may even have feelings for Alveric. Yet she nonetheless aids him in his pursuit of Lirazel. Devotion does not curdle into spite.

When the Parliament of Erl later asks her for a “spell against magic,” she refuses flatly. She will not participate in a project of disenchantment.

Compared to the Christian friar who opposes her, Ziroonderel is morally richer and more generous. She is old, hideous in her true form, benevolent in her function, fiercely independent, and capable of loyalty.

For Appendix N, she is the hedge witch elevated to myth. Not a villain. Not a demon’s bride. A guardian of thresholds.

Mrs. Marlin, The Wise Woman of the Bog

In The Curse of the Wise Woman, Dunsany gives us Mrs. Marlin.

She is called a “wise woman,” but we eventually see the truth: she is a witch.

Unlike Ziroonderel, Mrs. Marlin exists in a recognizable, semi-autobiographical rural Ireland of the 1880s. She is not part of high fantasy. She is embedded in peasant life. Her nature is revealed gradually.

She is extraordinarily attuned to the workings of nature. She can foresee events. She is the self-appointed guardian of the bog.

And the bog matters.

When an English corporation arrives, intent on draining and industrializing the land, only one force stands in the way: the old witch whose curses the English workers do not believe in.

Their skepticism is central. Mrs. Marlin operates in a world that is trying to explain her away.

She communes with nature. When workmen tunnel for peat beneath the bog, she sets her arts to work. The climax pits ancient powers against industrial machinery.

Whether what happens is supernatural or natural is left deliberately ambiguous. Dunsany refuses to settle the matter cleanly.

Where Ziroonderel lives in a world where magic is acknowledged, Mrs. Marlin lives in a world that no longer wishes to acknowledge it. She is less a sorceress casting spells than a personification of the bog itself. Old Ireland embodied in a human form.

Magic here is not about power. It is about land. It is about memory. It is about resistance to modernity.

The Witch of the Willows

“The Witch of the Willows,” the 13th Chapter and final story in The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens, presents the most archetypal and yet the most devastating of Dunsany’s witches.

She is never named. But Dunsany makes sure we know exactly what she looks like.

An old woman in a black cloak and high black hat. A black stick in her hand. Grey ringlets. A black cat at her side. A broomstick leaning against the wall of her cottage. Jorkens himself notes the completeness of the iconography with a wry comparison: she dresses like a witch and acts like one, so he calls her one.

Dunsany is playing the archetype, the stereotype even, completely straight and clearly enjoying it.

She lives deep in Merlinswood, at the end of a path so faint it resembles a rabbit track. Her cottage has thick bottle-glass windows. Earthenware jars of cowslip and briar rose line the interior. It is an utterly traditional witch’s dwelling.

But she is far more than folklore. She is a prophetess of decline.

Over the fire she speaks of humanity losing its hold, of machinery, of people becoming more fit for machines and less fit for men. She reads the future in the coals and refuses to tell Jorkens what she sees because such knowledge “is the affair of the witches.” She is not a distributor of secrets. She is their keeper.

More than that, she is the guardian of the old magic itself.

The mystery of the marsh and wood moves with her. It radiates from her presence and recedes when she withdraws. When Jorkens refuses her proposal and walks away, the disenchantment of the forest is immediate and total. The magic does not merely leave her cottage. It leaves the world around her.

She does not wield magic as a tool. She is magic.

The turning point of the story is her proposal. “I suppose you wouldn’t marry an old, old woman,” she says. Every fairy tale warns us what this means. The loathly lady who becomes radiant. The enchantress in disguise. The swan maiden. The enchanted bride motif is firmly in place.

And Jorkens fails.

He knows full well what the tradition promises. Yet he chooses antimacassars and convention over enchantment. The witch is not cruel. She is not predatory. She offers entry into wonder, and he declines.

There is a flash of anger in her eyes, but she does not curse him.

She simply leaves.

And with her departure, the magic of the wood goes too.

Thirty years later, Jorkens knows it was the mistake of his life.

This witch is melancholy rather than malevolent. She sighs over the fire. She offers tea. She speaks with sorrow about humanity’s direction. She wants companionship, not conquest.

In her, Dunsany crystallizes a theme that runs through his entire body of work: magic is not destroyed by force. It is lost by refusal.

Dunsany’s Witches

Seen together, Dunsany’s witches form a progression.

• Ziroonderel stands at the boundary between mortal and fairy, dignified and principled, neither villain nor saint.
• Mrs. Marlin stands against industrial modernity, rooted in land and old Ireland, her powers entangled with ambiguity and resistance.
• The Witch of the Willows stands at the brink of disenchantment itself. She is not fighting priests or corporations. She is confronting indifference.

What the three witches share is significant: none is evil in any simple sense. All three are forces connected to something old, natural, or otherworldly that exists in tension with a more mundane or rational order. Dunsany consistently treats his witch figures with sympathy and complexity.

But they differ greatly in register. Ziroonderel belongs to high, lyrical fantasy and is fully visible as a witch from the start. Mrs. Marlin belongs to a grounded, realistic Irish novel where her nature is hinted at and debated. The witch of the willows seems, from what can be confirmed, to belong to the more melancholy and ambiguous register of the Jorkens tales, where wonder is usually tinged with loss.

There is also a progression in how magic is challenged.

• In The King of Elfland’s Daughter, magic is challenged by Christian piety.
• In The Curse of the Wise Woman, it is challenged by industrial capitalism.
• In “The Witch of the Willows,” it is undone by personal choice and cultural gravity.

In many ways, Dunsany’s witches feel closer to the folklore that later informed Margaret Murray’s witch-cult hypothesis than to pulp sorcery. They are remnants of something ancient, local, and very pagan.

So, yes, Howard gives us the witch-queens, and Carter and Leiber gave us the dangerous enchantress. 

D&D inherited witches from pulp spectacle and demonic sorcery. But it also inherited them from Dunsany’s countryside, from the woman in the black cloak at the end of a rabbit path, from the old guardian of the bog, from the witch who offered enchantment and was turned away.

And for Appendix N, that matters. For me, it matters.

This shows the witch as a liminal figure. A figure on the hedge. These are the witches that most folks will know. 

The Witches of Appendix N: John Bellairs

There is only one entry for John Bellairs in Gygax's Appendix N; 1969's The Face in the Frost. I decided to read this to see what other titles he had prior to the 1977-1979 publication of AD&D. But I learned a couple of things. First his biggest publication before the AD&D generation age was "The House with a Clock in Its Walls" series for children, which is by all accounts a good book. Secondly, while it is in the Appendix N, it didn't really influence AD&D.  According to The Dragon issue #22. 

As I have not read the book until recently, there is likewise no question of it influencing the game. Nonetheless, THE FACE IN THE FROST could have been a prime mover of the underlying spirit of D&D.

So. With this in hand, I still opted to read this one based on Gary's recommendation. 

This slim novel follows two wizards, Prospero (no relation to Shakespeare’s) and his friend Roger Bacon (the real Roger Bacon), as they stumble into a creeping darkness spreading across their half-real world, a place somewhere between fairy tale and nightmare, where mirrors whisper, shadows move, and even the geometry of time bends. Bellairs’ world feels like a dream the Brothers Grimm might’ve had after reading The Necronomicon.

Prospero and Bacon go all over their world, which is and is not England, in search of an ancient, hard-to-translate book (I kept thinking of the Voynich manuscript, and the wizard who is close to unraveling its secrets.

It's a travling magical adventure that takes place in dream-like, and nightmare-like

That is great, but does it hit my central thesis? In other words, are there witches?

Well. No. There are rumors of witches and a couple of really eccentric wizards. But no proper witches.

If you like the idea of a wizards-only adventure (and who doesn't!) then this is a good choice.

Updates

Ok, I have been doing this for a bit, time to check in on who I have read so far. Well, I have read most, I have talked about all of them yet.

Anderson, Poul. Three Hearts and Three Lions; The High Crusade; The Broken Sword
Bellairs, John. The Face in the Frost
Brackett, Leigh.
Brown, Fredric.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice, Pellucidar series; Mars series; Venus series
Carter, Lin. "World's End" series
de Camp, L. Sprague. Lest Darkness Fall; Fallible Fiend; et al.
de Camp & Pratt. "Harold Shea" series; Carnelian Cube
Derleth, August.
Dunsany, Lord.
Farmer, P. J. "The World of the Tiers" series; et al.
Fox, Gardner. "Kothar" series; "Kyrik" series; et al.
Howard, R. E. "Conan" series [Part 2] [Part 3]
Lanier, Sterling. Hiero’s Journey
Leiber, Fritz. "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series; et al.
Lovecraft, H. P. (The Dreams in the Witch House)
Merritt, A. Creep, Shadow, Creep; Moon Pool; Dwellers in the Mirage; et al. (Burn, Witch, Burn!)
Moorcock, Michael. Stormbringer; Stealer of Souls; "Hawkmoon" series (esp. the first three books)
Norton, Andre. (Witch World)
Offutt, Andrew J., editor. Swords Against Darkness III.
Pratt, Fletcher. Blue Star; et al.
St. Clair, Margaret. The Shadow People; Sign of the Labrys
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit; "Ring Trilogy"
Vance, Jack. The Eyes of the Overworld; The Dying Earth; et al.
Weinbaum, Stanley.
Wellman, Manly Wade. (The Desrick on Yandro)
Williamson, Jack.
Zelazny, Roger. Jack of Shadows; "Amber" series; et al.

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There's still a way to go! I have read many of these in the past. Some, like Lovecraft and Moorcock, I am ready to do now, I just want to reread some stories in particular. Others, like Vance and Zelazny, it has been so long I don't recall everything. 

I put some tales in parentheses because those are ones I want to pay particular attention to. I am sure I am missing some tales, so if you know of one, please let me know!