Mildred Hubble

Mildred Hubble is a major character in The Worst Witch children's book series by Jill Murphy. She is the protagonist in all the books. She is friends with Maud Spellbody and Enid Nightshade and has a strong rivalry with Ethel Hallow and Drusilla Paddock.

Mildred Hubble in the books

In The Worst Witch Mildred is in the Winter Term of her first year. She is shown to be tall and thin with long, black hair which she wears in pigtails. On the day of the cat ceremony, Mildred is given a tabby cat instead of a normal black cat which fails to sit on her broomstick without even trying to hold on. This prompts the form sneak and goody-two-shoes teacher's pet Ethel Hallow to taunt her about it. After losing her temper, Mildred turns Ethel into a pig (though she did it under threats of a frog transformation) whereupon Miss Hardbroom materializes in the courtyard and tells Mildred to take Ethel to the school library and reverse the spell. From then on, Mildred and Ethel become deadly enemies. In revenge for the pig transformation, Ethel curses a broom she was lending to Mildred for the Halloween celebrations at an abandoned castle. This results in the broom turning bucking bronco-like and nearly throwing Mildred off. After furiously being set an interview with Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom, Mildred runs away where she comes across another witch that looks like Miss Cackle but is actually Miss Cackle's evil identical twin sister Agatha Cackle who is jealously trying to throw a mutiny against her sister and take over the academy. In the nick of time, Mildred turns Agatha and her malevolent coven into snails and takes them back to the school, whereupon her interview is cancelled and she is made a heroine.

In The Worst Witch Strikes Again she is assigned by Miss Cackle to show the new girl, Enid Nightshade, around the school, much to the chagrin and disappointment of both Maud and Miss Hardbroom. Throughout the novel, Enid gets Mildred into trouble without owning up. In A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch she is turned into a frog by Ethel Hallow after telling her younger sister a pretend story about Miss Hardbroom turning a pupil into a frog after being two seconds late for a lesson. This is how she discovers Algernon Rowan-Webb. In The Worst Witch All at Sea, after being given a normal black cat after Fenella Feverfew transferred to Miss Pentangle's Academy, Mildred disobeys orders and brings Tabby with her to Grim Cove. She also discovers a legendary treasure chest on Cat's Head Rock. In The Worst Witch Saves the Day she once again saves the academy from the evil plots of Agatha Cackle who had sneaked into the school disguised as "Miss Granite". In The Worst Witch to the Rescue her holiday project is stolen by the treacherous and sneaky Ethel Hallow, who also gets her banned from Miss Mould's art lessons after being falsely accused of turning her pot into five rattlesnakes. However, Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom soon learn that Ethel was wrong after Mildred rescues her tortoise from a pine tree after Drusilla Paddock hid him there under Ethel's orders.

Mildred Hubble in other media

In the 1986 TV movie, Mildred was played by Return to Oz star Fairuza Balk. It aired on both Central Independent Television and HBO.

In the 1998 ITV TV series, Mildred was played by Georgina Sherrington.^[1] She was also played by Sherrington in Weirdsister College. Mildred made a brief appearance at the beginning of the first episode of The New Worst Witch as a successful witch escorting her equally clumsy cousin Henrietta "Hettie" Hubble (played by Alice Connor), to Cackle's Academy.

In the 2017 BBC TV series, Mildred is portrayed by Bella Ramsey, who played Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones.^[2]

See also

• List of The Worst Witch characters

References

External links

• Works by or about Mildred Hubble in libraries (WorldCat catalog)