[image: Nymphe de l’eau, Wilhelm Kotarbinsky, 1901]
Once upon a time, there was an ugly, smelly old witch who lived alone in a murky pond. She got up when she wanted, and went to bed when she felt like it; she had frogs and toads and bats and rats and snakes and a couple of goats for pets, and she fed them all sorts of strange and venomous mixtures. She larked about in the pond all day, and occasionally went for walks around the neighbouring woods and hedgerows, gathering curious and fragrant things. These she used to decorate her pond, or to mix her heady brews. By night, she watched the sky, and sang softly to herself.
One day, a little girl called Josephine came upon the murky pond, and saw the witch taking her ease on the bank. She asked the witch what she was doing, and the witch replied “Nothing! What does it look like?” Josephine was puzzled. She had always been told not to answer “nothing” to questions. She asked the witch why she was so old and ugly and smelly. “What’s the point in being sweet-smelling and pretty, like you, except to please others? I’m very happy with how I am. And as for being old, well, it’s far preferable to being young, if you ask me! I’ll have you know, I get up when I want, and go to bed whenever I please! I laze around my pond all day, and I feed all the verminous and creeping things. I gather all the strange weeds and flowers from the hedgerows, and I make them into special brews. I answer to no-one and nothing, and I only please myself!”
“Golly,” said Josephine. “It’s a witch’s life for me! How do I go about becoming a witch like you?”
“Well,” said the witch, “it’s a long and arduous process. If you wish to learn to be a witch, there are a few things you must do first : learn all you can about plants and herbs and flowers and trees, listen to them, care for them, gather them, and brew with them ; learn all you can about the sun, the moon, the stars, their turnings and their changes ; learn all you can about the seasons, learn to smell each one coming, and to see everything that each will bring, and that each will take away ; learn all the secrets that you can, and all the stories that you can, learn to tell, and not to tell, learn to lie, and how to find the truth ; learn all the magic that you can, learn how to enchant, and to be enchanted, learn how to become invisible, and how to see ; finally, you must learn all the mysteries of the human heart, learn love, learn pain, learn fear, learn joy and sorrow, learn hate and grief, and reverie and melancholy, learn peace. You must learn all these things by studying them closely, by living them fully; by sucking all the juices out of life, and going back for more.
“Then, when you have done all this, you come back to me, and I’ll teach you how to be a witch like me.”
Josephine went away thoughtfully, and from that day forward, she lived her life rather differently. She thought of all the things she must learn, and all the things she must see and do and experience, and it seemed a lot. But she was quite excited about the prospect, and especially about one day beginning finally to learn to be a witch like the one in the pond.
And so she lived, and learned, and changed, and grew. She loved, and lost, and gathered herbs by the light of the moon, and rose at dawn to learn the songs of all the birds that greet the sun. She married, twice, and had some children, who she loved. She made things, and grew things, and saw and heard things. She kept secrets, and told stories. And every time she thought of going back to the witch in the pond, to finally learn to be a witch, she hesitated; perhaps there was still more to learn, still more she had not done yet? Perhaps there was a little more juice to be sucked out of life, before it was time to learn to be a witch.
One day, when she was not so young anymore, and when there was a weight of things she carried with her that she would not have traded for the world, had it been offered, she finally went back to the witch’s pond. She called out for the witch, and said she had finally come to learn. There was no answer. The pond was still and silent, empty. Josephine looked up and down, and all around, but there was no sign of the witch.
And she understood.
She threw off her clothes, and unbound her hair, and slipped gratefully into the murky water of the pond, and the toads and rats and snakes began to gather round her.
First in a Series of Bedtime Stories from our Contributors.
From Auntie Emily’s Bedtime Tales for Witchlings
Emily Collins
Romantic Pantheist Ecocritic Faery Doctor Masochist
PhD Candidate at Université de Paris-Nouvelle Athènes
