Borrowing

Special witch magic. During borrowing, a witch sends her mind into an animal and watches the world through its eyes. This has practical uses such as surveillance of the goings-on in the village (see Granny Weatherwax, in Lords and Ladies). A witch might also do borrowing when she's bored and wants to ride in a forest animal's mind for a little while. There is an inherent risk in borrowing: the witch's mind might forget to come back to her body and get stuck in the animal, and then, the mind will slowly lose its human characteristics, and become a few vague thoughts considered odd by the animal. After a mere few minutes of borrowing and then successfully returning to her body, even a very powerful witch may be influenced to act like the animal, for example, a witch who has just come back from borrowing a raven's mind might mistakenly decide to fly down the stairs instead of walking down the stairs (see Equal Rites). Many times witches talk about the diet the animal has. In A Hat Full of Sky Granny Weatherwax points out that you should never, ever eat voles.