The trailer for The Witches Roald Dahl's 1983 children's fantasy novel The Witches begins with a simple declaration: "This is not a fairy tale." Witches, the unnamed boy narrator claims, are real. They live among us, demons indistinguishable from real women, hell-bent on murdering children. The boy is matter-of-fact about this frightening reality, but also urgent—he is relaying the immediate threat of a global network of bloodthirsty child predators.