Grianne Ohmsford

Shannara character


name=Grianne Ohmsford
nickname=Ilse Witch
race=Human
gender=Female
hair=Black
eyes=Blue
loyalty=Morgawr
magic=Wishsong
appearance="Ilse Witch"
birth=Unknown
death=Sacrificed herself and became an Aeriad

Grianne Ohmsford is a fictional character in Terry Brooks' epic fantasy "Shannara" series.

Biography

Grianne Ohmsford was abducted from her burning home when she was a young child by a powerful and evil warlock called the Morgawr, who knew that the power of the Wishsong held by the Ohmsford family had the potential to destroy him. He brainwashed Grianne into believing that it was the Druids, particularly Walker Boh, who had destroyed her home and killed her family. Taking her as his pupil, he taught her the dark arts, which along with the power of the Wishsong made her a very powerful witch. Taking on the name of the Ilse Witch, she constantly sought to find and destroy Walker Boh for bringing such pain to her life. She also secretly plotted for the day she would destroy her master.

She followed Walker to Castledown in "The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy", but there she met her brother Bek, whom she had believed dead for all these years. Bek used the power of the Sword of Shannara to reveal the truth about her past to Grianne. Later, when Walker was mortally injured destroying the malicious artificial intelligence called Antrax, he named Grianne as his successor as last of the Druids before dying, and on her return to the Four Lands she established the Third Druid Council.

20 years later, Grianne would again find herself menaced, this time by treacherous Druids. She found herself trapped inside the Forbidding, at the mercy of the Demons trapped within. It would be up to her nephew, Pen Ohmsford, to save her.

After returning from the Forbidding and helping Pen send the Moric, a Demon, back into the Forbidding, she retires as Ard Rhys, knowing the Druid Order cannot survive with a person as divisive as her at its head. She travels with Pen to try to save Pen's girlfriend Cinnaminson, who was transformed into an Aeriad spirit of the Tanequil tree. She is able to, but only by taking the Rover girl's place as an Aeriad. As a spirit, she lives unfettered by both her guilt over her history as the Ilse Witch and her fear of evil awakening in her, and finds freedom.