Trouble began, and not for the first time, with an apple.

There was a bag of them on Granny Weatherwax's bleached and spotless table. Red and round, shiny and fruity, if they'd known the future they should have ticked like bombs.

'Keep the lot, old Hopcroft said I could have as many as I wanted,' said Nanny Ogg. She gave her sister witch a sidelong glance.

'Tasty, a bit wrinkled, but a damn good keeper.'

'He named an apple after you?' said Granny. Each word was an acid drop on the air.

" Cos of my rosy cheeks,' said Nanny Ogg. 'An' I cured his leg for him after he fell off that ladder last year. An' I made him up some jollop for his bald head.'

'It didn't work, though,' said Granny. 'That wig he wears, that's a terrible thing to see on a man still alive.'

'But he was pleased I took an interest.'

Granny Weatherwax didn't take her eyes off the bag. Fruit and vegetables grew famously in the mountains' hot summers and cold winters.

Percy Hopcroft was the premier grower and definitely a keen man when it came to sexual antics among the horticulture with a camel-hair brush.

'He sells his apple trees all over the place,' Nanny Ogg went on. 'Funny, eh, to think that pretty soon thousands of people will be having a bite of Nanny Ogg.'

'Thousands more,' said Granny, tartly. Nanny's wild youth was an open book, although only available in plain covers.

'Thank you, Esme.' Nanny Ogg looked wistful for a moment, and then opened her mouth in mock concern. 'Oh, you ain't jealous, are you, Esme?

You ain't begrudging me my little moment in the sun?'

'Me? Jealous? Why should I be jealous? It's only an apple. It's not as if it's anything important.'

'That's what I thought. It's just a little frippery to humour an old lady,' said Nanny. 'So how are things with you, then?'