Lily Weatherwax

Lily Weatherwax
Name	Lily Weatherwax, also known as Lilith de Tempscire
Race	Human, Witch
Age	Don't ask, but older than Esmerelda.
Occupation	Fairy Godmother
Physical appearance	A strong resemblance to her sister Esme.
Residence	The Duc's Palace, Genua
Death
Parents	Violet Weatherwax (mother) Mr Weatherwax (father)
Relatives	Esmeralda Weatherwax (sister) Alison Weatherwax (grandmother) Galder Weatherwax (distant cousin)
Children
Marital Status	Self-made widow, several times over.
Appearances
Books	Witches Abroad
Cameos	Carpe Jugulum

Also known as Lilith de Tempscire. This is her name as the power behind the throne of Genua, and is made up of two French or indeed Genuan words (temps, meaning weather, and cire, meaning wax).

According to Witches Abroad, Lily Weatherwax was born the older of two daughters; the older sister of Esmerelda "Esme" (later "Granny") Weatherwax. As with all Weatherwaxes, she has powerful magic abilities, although, while the books do not indicate whether their mother was a witch or not, but Granny mentions that her father was a hunter (who taught Granny that "a bad hunter chases, a good hunter waits" (Lords and Ladies)). While Granny was practically still just a bairn, her teenaged, older sister, Lily, was getting into increasingly frequent rows (and canings) with her parents over Lily's behaviour. As Granny reveals to Nanny Ogg in Witches Abroad, Lily was wanton, using magic for it and not just ordinary magic; "she was wilful", as Granny describes it, able to remember her sister's and mother's rows even at that young age; Lily was vain and prideful ("always looking in mirrors... Prideful as a cat, she was. Prefer to look in a mirror than out of a window, she would"); and "young men's fathers used to come round to complain", culminating in Lily being kicked out of the household at the age of 13-years-old.

Lily would go-out on her own into the world, causing trouble where-ever she went (à la Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, etc.), "Feeding people to stories" (as Granny would later put it), all the while completely oblivious to the misery she left in her wake, under the delusion that she's made their lives 'better', giving them what only she thinks they should want. It's also mentioned that, over the years, she'd had at least 3 husbands (at least 2 of them she was sure were dead when she buried them).

According to family tradition (alluded to in Witches Abroad); as the older sibling, Lily is supposed to be the "Good One", and Esme the "Bad One"; and because of this, Lily takes this to mean that every thing she does is there fore 'Right'; where-as, due to Lily's delusional character, Esme had to become the "Good One" in order to restore the balance between them, and all the while she has begrudged Lily for 'having all the fun' (Granny stepped forward, her eyes two sapphires of bitterness. “I’m goin’ to give you the hidin’ our Mam never gave you, Lily Weatherwax. Not with magic, not with headology, not with a stick like our Dad had, aye, and he used a fair bit as I recall--but with skin. And not because you was the bad one. Not because you meddled with stories. Everyone has a path they got to tread. But because, and I wants you to understand this prop’ly, after you went; I had to be the Good One. You had all the fun. An’ there’s no way I can make you pay for that, Lily, but I’m surely goin’ to give it a try...”), while she (Granny Weatherwax) would have been better at being the "Bad One".

She is one of the Fairy Godmothers of Princess Ella. To increase her magical potential, she uses mirrors. Mirrors are also a big theme in the book Witches Abroad, with the good and the bad godmother (Lily versus Magrat), the old and new Genua, and the good versus the bad sister. Granny blames Lily for being the bad sister and having all the fun, while she had to be the good one.

In Genua she tries to use the power of stories to make Ella marry the Duc, thus fulfilling Lily's wish as a Fairy Godmother that Ella would marry a prince. This plot is interrupted when the Lancre witches show up and interfere with the story (as witches do, of course). Lily and Esme are not on good terms, although Esme does try to "save" Lily because she is family.

At the end of the book, Lily is not dead, but is in a state between life and death inside the mirror. Unlike Granny, she doesn't know which Lily is the real one and presumably will search forever for herself. This proves the danger of using mirrors combined with magic.