It’s a total nightmare. You spent hours—maybe even days—building the perfect trading hall. You’ve got a Mending librarian, a couple of Toolsmiths, and that one Farmer who trades pumpkins for emeralds like it’s his life’s mission. Then, a storm rolls in. You hear a massive crack of thunder right outside your window, and when you go to check on your shopkeepers, they aren't hmmm-ing at you anymore. They’re cackling. They’ve got purple robes, big hats, and they’re throwing splash potions of weakness at your face. Honestly, it’s one of the most frustrating things that can happen in Minecraft.
So, why did my villagers turn into witches?
Basically, it comes down to a very specific game mechanic involving lightning strikes. If you didn't have a roof over their heads or a lightning rod nearby, the game decided to ruin your day with a bit of "elemental RNG."
The Science of the Strike
In Minecraft, lightning isn't just a visual effect. It’s an entity. When a bolt hits within a certain radius of a Villager, that Villager is instantly deleted and replaced with a Witch. It doesn't matter if they were a Master-level librarian or a nitwit. The game doesn't care about your trade discounts or the time you spent curing them from a zombie state. They’re gone.
The technical "danger zone" is a 4-block radius around the point of impact. If a bolt hits the ground, or even a fence post right next to your trading stall, any Villager within that 3.5 to 4-block horizontal distance gets transformed. This happens because the game triggers a "conversion" event. It’s the same logic that turns a Pig into a Zombified Piglin or a Red Mooshroom into a Brown Mooshroom.
Lightning is weirdly precise.
You might think your Villagers are safe because they are inside a building, but Minecraft’s collision detection for lightning can be a bit wonky. If the roof is made of bottom-half slabs or if the Villager is standing too close to a wall where lightning strikes the outside, the "splash" effect of the strike can still reach them.
Why Lightning Rods Are Your Best Friend
Before the 1.17 Caves & Cliffs update, we basically had to pray to the RNG gods or build massive, ugly glass ceilings over our entire villages. Now, we have lightning rods.
If you’re still asking why did my villagers turn into witches, and you haven't crafted a rod yet, that’s your first mistake. You need three copper ingots. That’s it. One rod protects a massive area—specifically a 128-block radius in Java Edition and a 64-block radius in Bedrock Edition.
But here’s the kicker: placement matters.
Don't put the lightning rod directly on top of the wooden roof of your trading hall. When lightning hits the rod, it still emits a redstone signal and, more importantly, can occasionally cause fire if the surrounding blocks are flammable and the rod is positioned poorly. More importantly, if you put the rod right above the Villager's head, the strike still "happens" at that coordinate. You want to place the rod at least 5 or 6 blocks away from your Villagers horizontally to ensure the conversion radius doesn't touch them.
Real Talk: Can You Change Them Back?
I’m going to be the bearer of bad news here. No.
Unlike Zombie Villagers, who can be cured with a Golden Apple and a Potion of Weakness, Witches are permanent. Once that transformation happens, the "Villager" data is wiped. The game treats the Witch as a completely new mob. It’s hostile, it doesn't have a trade menu, and it will try to kill you with Poison II.
If this happened to your only Mending villager, I’m truly sorry. You’re going to have to find a new one or start breeding again. It sucks.
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The "Wall" Problem
Sometimes, players get confused because their Villagers were "protected" by a wall. But Minecraft's physics don't always respect solid blocks when it comes to entity transformations.
If lightning hits the ground outside a 1-block thick wall, and the Villager is pressed up against that same wall on the inside, the game often registers them as being within the strike radius. To be safe, your trading cells should always be at least two blocks away from the exterior "shell" of your building, or you should have a lightning rod nearby to redirect the strike entirely.
Keeping Your Village Safe (The Checklist)
If you want to prevent this from ever happening again, you need to be proactive.
First, get your copper. Copper is everywhere these days, so there’s no excuse not to have a stack of ingots. Build a "Lightning Rod Tower" about 10 blocks away from your main trading hub.
Second, check your roof. If you aren't using lightning rods, your roof needs to be thick. We're talking solid blocks, not just slabs or stairs. Lightning can occasionally "phase" through thin layers if the coordinates align just right during a chunk update.
Third, consider the environment. Are you in a biome where it rains? If you’re in a Desert or a Savanna, it doesn't rain, but it still thunders. The lightning will still strike even if you don't see the rain particles. Don't let the dry weather fool you into a false sense of security.
Practical Next Steps
- Craft three Lightning Rods immediately using copper ingots.
- Place one rod on a stone pillar roughly 15 blocks away from your Villager breeder or trading hall.
- Clear away any flammable blocks (wool, wood, leaves) within a 2-block radius of the rod to prevent fire spread.
- Kill the Witches. They aren't going back to being Villagers, and they'll just take up the mob cap or kill your other remaining NPCs.
- Check your "Difficulty" settings. On Hard difficulty, lightning strikes can feel more frequent during long storms, though the mechanic remains the same across all levels.
Protecting your "employees" is part of the grind. It’s annoying to lose a level 5 Librarian to a literal act of God, but with a few copper rods, you can make your base effectively "Witch-proof." Just don't wait until the next thunderstorm to fix the problem.