Something invisible, purely thoughts and without a body, is searching for a host. The sheep of The Chalk are too empty headed. It need someone with more power.

Miss Tick, the witchfinder, has a job for 11 year old Tiffany Aching, a girl with potential to become a witch. She tells Tiffany`s parents it is with an old lady in the mountains who needs a maid who is good in the dairy. In actual fact she will be getting witch training from Miss Level in High Orethang. Tiffany says goodbye to Jeannie and the Nac Mac Feegles, and her parents. She and Miss Tick travel by cart out of the Chalk, when Roland, son of the Baron, stops them and (embarrassingly for both) gives Tiffany a present to remember him by. It is a necklace styled on the White Horse cut in the hillside turf. The Nac Mac Feegles sense that a demon-like intelligence called a hiver is looking for Tiffany.

The Chalk one farthing stamp showing
the stylised White Horse carving on the hill

They reach Two Shirts, a village that boasts a bend in the road, an inn, a smithy and a small shop selling souvenirs. It also hosts the annual Cabbage Macerating Festival. Tiffany buys a little carving of two shirts on a washing line and two postcards. When the coach rolls in to stop off the inn, Miss Tick takes Tiffany through the woods to meet Miss Level. Tiffany gets her first broomstick ride just above tree level into the hills. Though Miss Level claims to live alone, there are two of her - literally. Not twins, but one person in two bodies. There is also a spirit called Oswald who is obsessively tidy - an Ondageist. Tiffany learns that her training is largely chores like milking the goats and tending to the sick, poor and elderly of the area.

The Cabbage Macerating Festival is marked by the
two pence brown of Twoshirts issued in the Year of the
Prawn, making it the earliest regional stamp.

A Twoshirts postcard

The hiver is ancient, having been around since the days of the creator. It has taken over many minds. Dr Sensibility Bustle built a trap for the hiver. He succeeded, but the inevitable happened and he was absorbed into the hiver. Jeannie sends Rob Anybody and other feegles to protect Tiffany, as she is their hag. They snatch clothes and stand on each others shoulders or hang from each other, and travel in Tiff`s footstep as a man.

Roland, the Baron`s son, who Tiffany rescued from Fairyland has a bit of a crush on Tiffany. He presents her with a silver necklace with the design of the horse cut into the turf on the chalk.

Tiffany has an invite to meet the other young witches being trained from Petulia. She meets the bossy and arrogant Annagramma who ridicules the invisible (but real to Tiffany) pointed hat that Granny Weatherwax had given her. Back at the cottage, very upset, she performs her See Me trick to see if the hat can be seen. This is when the hiver strikes. Tiffany now only seems to be Tiffany. Next morning she goes out, steals money from an old man, and gets Annagramma to take her to ZakZak Stronginthearm`s shop to buy all the glittery and ghastly witch props she can. She scares everybody with magic, but somewhere, deep inside, the real Tiffany is calling HELP ME.

The feegles recognise what is happening and explain all to Miss Level. They have to enter Tiffany`s mind and reawaken her with familiar smells from her childhood with Granny Aching - turpentine, sheep`s wool and Jolly Sailor tobacco. The hiver is expelled but one of the Miss Levels is killed and Oswald goes missing. Tiffany has acquired Dr Bustle`s knowledge of ancient languages. She decides that the hiver must be destroyed but does not know how. She and Granny Weatherwax go down to Lancre for the annual Witch Trials. Granny usually wins just by turning up!. Tiffany recognises the hiver just beyond the crowd and is told by Granny she must deal with it on her own. She merges with the hiver again to find what it really wants. It only wants to die, which Tiffany allows. She finds herself at the edge of the desert and sends the hiver on its way to death. Granny now steps in to pull Tiffany back into the land of the living.

A Jolly Sailor envelope sticker
used on Wincanton post

This year Petulia wins the trials by performing her pig trick - without a pig!