The True Story of Mrs. Witch

I was never called a witch before until those greedy and wretched children came to my house.

I knew heaps concerning witches, of course, as I am positive that you simply do too. Children are much wiser and know about these things than their folks. A man called Roald Dahl composed a play about witches, quite a while back, and all of a sudden, the entire world was 'witch this' and 'witch that'. You couldn’t sell your house and relocate if you heard that your old next-door neighbour had put a curse on people who live in the area because they didn’t offer her a glass of milk, or that a lady had come wandering into the city and made all the animals ill because no one let her stay the night.

But all of this is far from truth, you know. Witches are not an invention of Roald Dahl. He hired them, like every author did in the olden times. Be that as it may, I am not a witch. I even have survived for a really, very, terribly very long time, however, I'm not a witch. I'm a touch bit magical. positively not a witch although. Are we clear?

You see, I am very well-travelled. Back in my early hundreds, I travelled around the globe when I was a lot younger.

You see, we folks have received hundreds of assorted titles from the various nations we lived in. Some societies call us elf, fairy, sprite, leprechaun or nymph. If people scrutinised adequately, they would understand that we are so similar; fairy-tale folks are really terribly uninteresting and dreary. I know everyone on this earth and you should know one thing, when you’ve known the same people for as long as I have, you would soon aspire that you were a witch, because it might make things more fascinating. Do not forget that I am not a witch, just a little mystical creature, down on her misfortune.

When I was done with my trouble-making tricks and tired of putting magic spells on people, I was ready to put down my roots. Now, you might think you know rest of my story. The fairy tales you have read say that my little house in the forest was made of gingerbread. Gingerbread? If you’re a practical person you know how foolish that idea sounds. Humans should know what happens to gingerbread when it rains? It is not a good construction material, and neither are chocolates as roof tiles, or icing as cement. If the rain did not melt everything away into a puddle of sludge, don’t you think that the hungry animals in the forest might have come along and eaten it before Hansel and Gretel reached there? People, especially grown-ups, have their heads so filled up with nonsense that the reality could do gymnastics in a silly hat and they still wouldn’t see it.

So, bear in mind, my house may look like made of gingerbread, but it definitely wasn’t. Those little monsters had no business to be creeping around, and certainly no right to be trying to break bits off my wall, I won’t lie that I didn’t tell them off, because that wouldn’t be true. I was furious and I screamed a bit, but then Gretel started to cry and I felt bad. I always quite loved children, even when they were badly behaved.

‘We apologize. We haven’t eaten in days and are so very hungry,’ Gretel muttered as tears trickled down her cheek.

I asked, ‘Why are you wandering around the forest by yourselves without any grown-ups? The animals could have attacked and eaten you for dinner.’

‘Our dad left us here,’ Hansel put his arm around his sister, ‘He said he would return but it’s been days and he hasn’t come to take us home! We are worried something happened to him.’

‘Oh dear,’ I sighed, patting Gretel on the head, ‘You’d better come in. I have some biscuits - real gingerbread, if you are hungry.’

They stayed for a little while, eating all my biscuits and drinking all my milk. I drew them a map of the forest paths, so they could find their way out, and off they went.

At eight o’clock the next morning, a man was pounding on my door and shouting, ‘Mrs. Witch? Mrs. Witch, are you home?’

Mrs. Witch? I ran down the stairs and opened the door.

‘I am NOT a witch. Who are you?’

‘Jack Stringfellow, Woodland News,’ he said, licking the tip of a pen and holding a notepad, ‘Mrs. Witch, what do you have to say about the statement made by Hansel and Gretel that you tried to lock them up and eat them?’

‘I am not a wit— Wait, what did you say?’

He smiled a slimy smile. ‘Hansel and Gretel. Apparently, you put them in a cage and wanted to eat them.’

I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t even speak.

‘They’re saying they absconded by pushing you into your oven. It’s not looking good for you, Mrs. Witch.’

I persisted, ‘I am not a witch.’ I observed that he was continuously writing something even though our conversation was anything but significant. I asked politely, ‘Would you mind sharing what you are writing?’

‘I merely write the truth, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Mrs. Witch, they were not fibbing about the gingerbread house, were they?’

‘You silly man, the house is not made of gingerbread and I am not a witch! Also, if they had pushed me into my oven, wouldn’t I be burnt and turned into a crisp?’

‘I don’t know, lady,’ Jack Stringfellow laughed and clicked a photograph of me, ‘It will be hot off the press that you are a witch. Who knows what kind of magic spells you can do? You can demonstrate some if you want. This will be published in the evening edition, if you’d like to buy and read it!’

And that’s what really happened. Those mischievous children made up horrid lies about me and then a spiteful man wrote them down and published it in the newspaper that I was a dangerous and crafty witch. Could you do one thing for me, now that you know the true story? Next time you hear someone telling lies about me, make sure that you tell them what actually happened. And, if you’re ever in the woods, please drop by for coffee and real gingerbread and I can tell you another funny story about the time a not so bright princess pricked her finger on a needle and had to sleep for a hundred years just to get over it. You won’t believe that one either.