Helga (The Witches)

"THAT WOMAN OVER THERE! She is... the Grand High Witch! SHE did it to Bruno! I've seen her kill children before... THIS TIME... it's YOUR turn...!"

- Helga to the Grand High Witch just before the Grand High Witch becomes a mouse

"Nobody has ever seen the Devil... but we all know he exists, don't we?"

- Helga to Luke regarding the existence of witches

"She's foul. She's the most evil woman in all creation"

- Helga about the Grand High Witch

Helga is the secondary main protagonist of The Witches and its 1990 film adaptation. In the film, she's played by Mia Zetterling.

Origin
Helga is the name given to Luke's grandmother in the novel. In the novel, she's unnamed, like Luke, just called "Grandmamma." But in the film she's called Helga.

Helga is a witchopile, a human who has made it their duty to rid the world of evil witches. She has had encounters with witches before, one instance led to her losing her thumb due to a witch. She has also lost her friends to witches, one girl named Erica, (in the film) who was captured by the Grand High Witch and imprisoned in her family's painting.

In the book, Helga knows of three children who were killed by witches - one boy turned into a stone statue, one boy becomes a porpoise, and a young girl was abducted from her very garden by a witch. One girl was turned into a chicken, but she didn't die, she lived on until her natural death.

Training Luke
Helga swears to protect Luke, who has recently lost his parents, from the witches, who she reveals were responsible for the disappearances and abductions of her friends. Helga describes all the witches' trademarks to Luke, and tells him their general appearance: Wearing gloves because they have claws for fingers, first-class wigs because they are bald, limping because of their toeless feet which are squashed into pretty shoes, inhuman eye colour, and blue spit which one would only notice if they were in a close conversation with a witch. Helga says that the witches are actually demons in human form. This is why all witches are female, and why they have inhuman forms.

Due to his father's will, Luke and Helga have to move back to Kent in England, where they take up residence. Just before school term, Luke is on a treehouse mending it when a mysterious woman in black comes up to him on the lawn below. Luke sees the woman has gloves on, and this saves his life because he remembers what Helga told him. He knows the strange woman is a witch, and he gets scared. The sinister woman pulls out a serpent from her bag, saying its tame (it was implied to be deadly) and she tempts him with it. However, Luke wisely bolts up the tree and stays there til dark. Helga comes down anxious about Luke and he asks if the witch is gone. Shocked, Helga doesn't reply, but then she says the witch is gone. She is later shocked a witch is living in their neighbourhood when Luke tells her the story.

Illness
Helga suddenly gets very ill (she is eighty-six) and she faints prompting Luke to call a doctor. In the film, this happens on his birthday, which she apologizes for. However, Helga just has a mild case of pneumonia. She recovers however and the doctor warns her of her cigarette habits.

Helga is infuriated because she promised Luke she'd go to Norway for holiday but the doctor says Bournemouth instead.

At the hotel
Helga and Luke reluctantly go to Bournemouth however Helga gives Luke two white mice as a present. This causes a storm with the hotel manager Mr Stringer, an arrogant man who sees everyone as a nuisance. Helga compromises with him (in a humorous way) that if she doesn't have Luke keep his mice she'll complain about the hotel's health issues to the authorities. She even says the hotel's full of rats, infuriating Stringer. However, they compromise that the mice are caged, in Luke's room. Sneakily, Luke takes his mice down to the ballroom while Helga has a rest.

Unfortunately, Luke meets the entire coven of English witches who have their Annual Meeting in the hotel, and the evil Grand High Witch is there too. Luke sees the Grand High Witch kill a minion just for annoying her. Then she displays her new magic to the witches, Formula 86 Mouse-Maker, which will turn all children into mice if the liquid's put into chocolate which the Grand High Witch wants her witches to make and buy sweet shops to lure children in. Then they will eat the chocolate and formula, and go home and then at school turn into mice, being killed by the teachers. Luke hears all the meeting, and sees his rival Bruno Jenkins be turned into a mouse in a display, and at the end, he is smelled out by a witch, and the entire coven capture him, and turn him into a mouse with their formula.

Now a mouse, Luke finds Bruno, and explains the situation, then he races with Bruno to meet Helga.

Helga is reunited with her grandson. In the film, Helga awakes when the witches turn Luke into a mouse and seems to feel what's happening. Helga is despaired that the witches turned Luke into a mouse but she still protects him and Bruno. She tries to get Bruno back to his parents, but he doesn't talk because he's eating banana, and the furious Mr Jenkins thinks Helga's joking.

Humiliated, Helga doesn't give up, and devises a scheme to turn all the witches into mice with their formula which Luke will steal from the Grand High Witch's room. Luke successfully steals the bottle but meets the Grand High Witch and the old witches on the way. He meets Helga again though and gives her the bottle. Now excited, Helga debates about how to put the bottle in the witches' food, and Luke suggests do it in the kitchen. Helga is delighted but she says to watch out for what food the witches are having, to be on the safe side.

Helga gets more relaxed when she's in the dining room, knowing soon the problem will be over. The witches come in for dinner just when Luke goes to the kitchen in his mouse form. He gets the bottle in the cress soup successfully, having heard that the soup is for the witches (under their ironic guise of RSPCC party). Helga recovers Luke and is horrified to see his tail is bleeding. She bandages him and is joyful he put the formula in the soup. She tells Luke the witches are now eating the soup, and that there were just under a hundred witches in England, less than she thought.

Mr Jenkins suddenly comes over, furious, and shouts at Helga, who mischievously tricks him into getting into trouble with his son, who finally reveals his mouse form to Mr Jenkins, and with the Grand High Witch, as Helga says turned Bruno into a mouse, but the witches begin turning into mice right then. The Grand High Witch, furious, tries to curse Helga, but Bruno jumps on her and his dad takes him. Then the Grand High Witch turns into a mouse and screams in anger.

Helga gets Mr Stringer to slice up the Grand High Witch and the hotel is cleared of the mice-witches when the witches are also chopped up. Thus with England ridded of witches, Helga and Luke go home. In the book, they plan to rid the world of witches, saving humanity, and in the film the redeemed Miss Irvine, secretary of the Grand High Witch, comes up and turns Luke back to a human again.

Personality
Helga was a comedic, brave individual, who could be optimistic no matter how much suffering she had. She never sought to fight, always being cunning and involved in planning schemes which were more successful than a brute fight. Helga was loyal, and protected Luke no matter what condition he was in. In the film, the Grand High Witch calls Helga an "old adversary" which suggests they knew each other as youths.