Long-lived women who can fly using branches of cloud-pine and who live in clan communities across the north of Lyra's world. Witches can live for hundreds of years and feel the cold far less than ordinary humans. Their daemons can travel great distances from them - a separation that would kill an ordinary person. Witches have their own prophecies and seers, and their queen Serafina Pekkala becomes an important ally of Lyra. They follow their own code and do not submit to the Magisterium's authority.