Who is the White Witch?

The White Witch is Jadis, the principal villain of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. She rules Narnia through fear and uses magic to impose a winter that lasts for a hundred years.

Jadis first appears in the chronological prequel The Magician’s Nephew, where she is the last queen of the dying world of Charn. After being awakened from an enchanted sleep, she is accidentally brought to Earth and then transported to Narnia at the moment of its creation. She later eats an enchanted apple and establishes herself in the north.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Jadis calls herself Queen of Narnia. She turns opponents to stone, manipulates Edmund with promises of Turkish delight and power, and fears a prophecy involving four human rulers. Her conflict with Aslan drives the novel’s central plot.

Jadis is often confused with the Lady of the Green Kirtle from The Silver Chair. Although both are called Northern Witches, Lewis’s books do not establish that they are the same character. Jadis is also not Maleficent, Circe, or Morgan le Fay; those figures come from different fictional or mythological traditions.