Well, At Least That's How It Should Be

From an interview with Terry Pratchert about his latest book:

"Certainly witchcraft for Tiffany has very little to do with magic as people generally understand it. It has an awful lot to do with taking responsibility for yourself and taking responsibility also for the less able people and, up to a certain point, guarding your society. This is based on how witchcraft really was, I suspect. The witch was the village herbalist, the midwife, the person who knew things. She would sit up with the dying, lay out the corpses, deliver the newborn. Witches tended to be needed when human beings were meeting the dangerous edges of their lives, the places where there is no map. They don't mess around with tinkly spells; they get their hands dirty."

The whole post is absolutely excellent and you really, really should read the whole thing