Elves are capricious and amoral creatures that enter the minds of animals and sentient beings in a more destructive way than witches do, using "glamour" to alter human's perceptions of them.

When Nanny and Granny refuse to explain the situation to Magrat, she leaves the coven, disavows witchcraft, and moves into an apartment in Lancre Castle.

The two elderly witches try to convince them to stop, with Granny ultimately besting Diamanda in a public witchcraft contest and discrediting the new coven.

But a defiant Diamanda later runs through the Dancers into the land of the Elves, where she is knocked unconscious by a poisoned Elven arrow before being rescued by Granny.

As a result, when the play is performed at the Dancers, it causes sufficient belief—a powerful force on the Discworld—that the Elves are able to make the guests dismantle the stone circle.

Granny appears to be dead, but then Nanny and Magrat learn that she has actually borrowed her bees' hive mind, a feat thought impossible.

They break open a window in the castle, where Ridcully has reverently laid Granny's body, enabling the bees to get close enough for her to regain consciousness.

In 1995, Kirkus Reviews considered the novel "a so-so addition to a mostly hilarious series", but praised the "agreeably wry, self-deprecating quality" of the humour.