Witch In Time

 

Men say I am dangerous, the embodied reality of mysterious rumours, given flesh.  They say you can sense my power lurking in the shadows, making your darkest fears curdle in the pit of your belly.  I am told you hold your breath and feel my arrival swirl around you, anticipating that my majestic claws will grab you at the slightest resistance.  However I have learned that what man fears he brings into existence.  In vain men say their prayers to ancient Gods or make invented promises of goodness in a pathetic attempt to discharge my attendance from their door. 

 

I’ve been blamed for many things.  We’ve all heard of the witches of old, chronicled in ancient legends.  The old hag with a methina nose and mantis skin hovering over her latest assorted cocktail.  You may have heard, of fairy tale princesses, poisoned by an apple or cursed with eternal sleep and their princes, blinded by thorns or turned into frogs.  Some say I am a myth, a product of my own demise; just a metaphor for unlocking a moral code.  This may be true but never the less my full story has never been told. 

 

You see once upon a time I married a prince of my own.  He was a spoiled brat of a man.  He looked the part, suited in luxurious linens.  In fact he delighted in a new robe for every occasion.  He was handsome, except for his hobbled limp, due to his right leg being shorter than the other.  I think that’s what turned him you know, that and the fact that he always got his own way.  Did he even stand a chance?  He had minions at his service since the day he was born.  His father was never around and his mother, well let me tell you, he could do no wrong. 

 

Palaces are peculiar things.  From a distance their authority towers over the surrounding landscape.  Their hallowed grey granite walls caution those who enter and threaten those who attempt to leave.  I had exquisite jewels, so many I could squish my fingers through, diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.  I would take handfuls and throw them up into the air and watch a kaleidoscope of dancing stars sprinkle to the floor.  I went to fancy balls and had glorious gowns but every morning I’d wake knowing I had to face him.  I was nothing more than a bauble for his rising vanity. 

 

‘Don’t eat that, you’ll get fat.  You know you don’t really like it anyway,’ he would say or, ‘don’t interrupt me, Darling.  How will you ever understand if you don’t listen?’ and best of all, ‘it doesn’t matter what you think, you just have to look pretty.’

I had to indulge his narcissistic face every time something was out of place, my hair, my dress or even the way I placed my cup.  I spent hours listening to supercilious lectures on how to know my place.  Those balls were nothing more than a parade, a dance of etiquette, where marriages were arranged on the flip of a fan, it didn’t matter what you thought of the man.  I tried to defend his accusations but after many years I had, had enough. 

 

Do you remember the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes?  Well that Emperor was my husband.  At weekly celebrations he would flaunt his latest robes through the city streets.  He always had an excuse; no one really knew or cared what they celebrated anymore.  We had all learned that as long as we glorified the Emperor and his new clothes everyone went home with their heads.  I confess I conspired with the weavers to fabricate the invisible clothes.  When I informed my husband that I was sick he didn’t flinch, satisfied that the stage would be his own he suggested I go back to bed.  After he left I made my way to the city streets and hid within the crowd.  He looked vile as he swaggered down the road like a fat bald turkey marinated in his subjects contrived affection.  Oh how I laughed when disguised as a boy I cried, ‘he hasn’t got anything on.’

 

That was the beginning.  That victory ignited within me passion and the power.  I was for the first time in my existence liberated.  I was no longer passive and subject to the masculine order of life.  I held the key to set other princesses free.  You see there has only ever been me, transcribing through one tale then on to another.  I guess I can’t blame you for not knowing the truth.  Once my story had been redrafted by men the truth became twisted.  They used me to hedge women back into their redundant caves.  I became a fabled disguiser of truth, the dealer of misfortune, the villain.  I was set up, fenced in by letters on a page to persuade my victims to relinquish their most prized possessions.  How many times has the princess been framed in the hush of sleep or adorned in silent beauty, waiting for their heroic saviour, to save them from me? 

 

Men over the years have given me many names or sometimes none at all.  Names – pulled out of a hat like raffles at a jumble sale, number 666, Wickedy Witch.  I think so far I like Dame Gothel the best.  

 

Rapunzel,

Rapunzel,

Throw down your locks.

 

They said I locked her in a tower and a handsome prince came to save her.  Stupid fool, he didn’t deserve her. The only tower he tried to climb was her virtue.  I had to make him blind so that he could see.

 

You see that was my goal.  You need to remember this was a time before the Suffragettes.  Female equality was still simmering in the womb, yet to be born and develop its voice.  The universe revolved around men and what a pretty bunch of pomposity they were.  Sit there, look beautiful or on your knees and do you chores.  Women with painted faces lived on opposite sides of the same, silent coin.  You don’t understand the sacrifices I had to make. 

 

Mirror, Mirror on the wall,

Oh what a bore. 

I wasn’t jealous, that’s for sure. 

Snow White the purest of them all,

sickened with the sin of an apple core.

It’s not like we haven’t heard that tale before. 

 

Who in their right mind would make this drivel up?  Therefore consensus designed that it had to be true.  Snow White wasn’t so pure.  She called out to me, who wouldn’t?  I mean you really think she enjoyed, cooking, cleaning and slaving away all day for several dirty miners?  I assisted her to run away and find her prince.  He happened to be a blacksmith in the next village.

 

It wasn’t just my sacrifice.  The ‘Great Witch Craze’ erupted when the silent stir of women’s dreams began to whisper in the ears of anxious men.  Their voice had to be purged and what better way, than to give them a hat and a big black cat, set them off on a broom into the lure of doom.  

‘ Silence!  Silence, confess you’re a witch.  It’s better that than being a bitch,’ they said.   Thousands died as a result of man’s attempt to put women back into Pandora’s Box.  Stereotyping can be an evil thing.  Martyrs, that’s what they were, attempting to create new values and dying for the cause.  They knew the truth, all women back then knew.  There has only ever been me.

 

Redundant, it is such an unpleasant clause.  It makes you sound so un-useful.  I prefer the term, retirement.  It has a sense of a job well done.  In time people forgot the truth.  After a few generations even the women believed the fabled lies.  I wasn’t needed anymore.  Women have their voice. 

 

 

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