The Witch's Cottage is where the Witch lives in Brave. It is located deep within the forest. The witch also uses her domicile to sell her bear carvings, as well as practice her magic there.
The Will O' the Wisps lead Princess Merida to her hut, where the woman there insists in presenting herself as a simple wood carver. But Merida rapidly realizes her real nature after seeing a broom moving by itself, a speaking crow, and other abnormal wonders. The witch tells her that she's not a witch due to too many unsatisfied customers and tries get rid of Merida with floating knives until Merida offers to buy all of her carvings. In exchange of buying her entire stock, Merida convinces the witch to give her a spell in the form of a cake, to change her mother. Just as Merida leaves with the cake, the witch realizes she forgot something very critical about the spell, but is too late to tell Merida.
When Merida comes back to the witch's hut, hoping to find a remedy to the spell, she instead finds that the witch is gone and left a potion-powered automated message that says she left for the Wicker Men Festival in Stornoway and won't be back until spring. She reveals that she forgot to mention to Merida that the spell will become permanent by the second sunrise. The witch also reveals a cryptic riddle to Merida: "Fate be changed, look inside, mend the bond torn by pride," which was the answer to reverting the spell. After the witch repeated the riddle, she disappeared. Merida, not yet understanding the riddle, pours the other message potions into the cauldron, but it only ends up blowing up the cottage. As it starts to rain, Merida uses the pieces of what's left of the cottage to make a shelter for her and her mother.
A tribute to the late Joe Ranft is present in Brave: An image of him is engraved on a small carved box.[2]
A likely reference to the canceled film Newt is made when the witch throws a newt in her cauldron, which makes the potion burst into blue smoke and snowflakes.
In the video game of the film when Merida returned to the cottage, the witch tells her about Mor'du's blight, that clearing it would turn her mother back and gives her a green jewel like charm to help her.
The cottage also acts like a 'upgrade shop', so players can buy upgrades, moves and skills for Merida's sword(s) and bow(s) and chances for the enemies to drop more coins and health.