The Grand High Witch of All the World, or simply the Grand High Witch, known as Eva Ernst and Lilith, is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1983 children's dark fantasy novel The Witches by Roald Dahl, as well as its graphic novel and film adaptations, in which she was played by Anjelica Huston (in 1990) and Anne Hathaway (in 2020). In the narrative, it is a title given to the all-powerful leader of all the witches on Earth. The Witches presents The Grand High Witch as a particularly powerful, evil and feared witch who hides her ancient age and hideous appearance behind an attractive disguise, in order to blend in with society, and plots to wipe out all the children in England after summoning the country's witches for the task. The boy protagonist and his grandmother (herself a retired witch-hunter who once searched the world for the Witch) happen to encounter her at a hotel in England, setting the novel's main plot in motion.
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