The witch in the wishing well, a fairy tale for enlightenment

On the cottage porch is both sunshine and shade. Women gather here with silver spoons and marmalade. Cozy beneath quilts, the crone rocks in her chair and remembers a witch who found transformation deep in the earth. Would you like to hear the tale? Listen. Find what meaning you will.

 

 

A patch of dark forest encircled a witch’s cottage in the middle of a village. Also in this village were cruel children who tormented a small girl with a lisp and crossed eyes. Day after day they dropped her down a wishing well and left her to scream in terror.

In an effort to have one day’s peace, our little girl hid in the patch of dark forest. That’s when she got to watching the witch’s cottage and got an idea. For she knew that no one messed with a witch. Not even wolfish children.

“If I had the power of a witch they couldn’t hurt me again!” she declared and marched up to the cottage.

The witch opened the withered wooden door. “I always wanted a daughter,” she said.

Our little girl slipped inside. The door closed tight.

Twelve years passed with no villager seeing the little girl and thinking nothing of it (not even her parents). In the meantime she studied as apprentice to the witch. When she finally turned the last page of the witch’s ancient book of magic, she declared herself safe from the wolfish children ever hurting her again.

“It’s time for me to get out of this cottage for a while,” she said with relief, for twelve years is a long time to study. The witch stayed behind as she was now old and decrepit in her bed.

As it turned out, the wolfish children had grown up as well, but the new witch of the village recognized them at once. As she passed them by, with a tilt of her head to bring them into focus with her crossed eyes, she spoke with guttural verse the spells to get her revenge.

The grown children’s eyes widened and turned milky white to make them blind. Their tongues shriveled in their mouths to become ash. They spit and spat. The villagers shrieked in fright and huddled with bowed heads as the new witch walked through the village with her chin held high.

When she got good and ready, she returned to the cottage in the patch of dark forest. “You are the only one left who doesn’t fear me!” she declared with glee.

“Even I do, a little,” the old witch said from her bed. “You are a better, more heartless witch than ever I was.” And then she died with pride. Now the witch’s cottage belonged to the witch with a lisp and crossed eyes.

In an effort to appease the new witch in the village, a cake was baked and delivered to the cottage in the patch of dark forest. Brave villagers placed it upon the doorstep, knocked, and ran away quick as rabbits.

Our witch opened the door. Her jaw dropped in surprise. No one was there and so she lifted the cake and took it inside.

“They remembered my birthday,” she exclaimed and sliced into the cake with the excitement of a little girl. But her smile fell away when a frog’s leg stuck to the edge of the knife. When she placed a piece of the cake upon a plate, no less than six bulging frog eyes stared back at her.

Our witch grew very, very still. “This is what they think I eat,” she whispered to the empty cottage.

There are moments in life and this was hers. She received unsolicited (divinely delivered) proof that she was never going to get things arranged so she could be happy. For our witch, the proof was not in the pudding, but rather in the cake.

A froggy cake. 

Our witch with a lisp and crossed eyes sat before the hearth’s fire, wrapped in blankets, and wept for her existence.

By midnight she was curled up in the corner on the floor.

By dawn she’d left her cottage forever to go stand at the wishing well. “I wish I were dead,” she said. And, with no help from a wolfish pack of children, our witch placed a bare foot in the well’s bucket and held tight to the rope to lower herself down the narrow well and into the water far below.

You may be unaware, but when a witch sits unmoved with her demons, they will at some point give up tormenting her and go away. They will leave her in peace. It was no different with our witch.

After 40 or 49 days (depending on which version of this story you hear), the sun shone into the depths of the well. It did this with Silence and not with a spell.

Thereafter, our witch felt quite content to stay put.

Villagers (who had no idea the witch could hear) stood by the well and begged for their wishes to come true, tossing in copper coins as bribes to they-knew-not-quite-who…

“If only my feet were tiny…”

“If only I could spin straw into gold…”  

“If only I was kissed by a prince…”  

Our witch in the wishing well heard every word. She felt pity for those who believed they needed their wishes to come true, for she knew what it was to be frightened—and thus confused.

And so, she answered each wish with a wordless spell.

Not one spell she cast indulged a belief of what would set things right. There was no spell cast for beauty or riches or a whole different life. The spell for each well-wisher was the same. It was

One. Spell. Only.

(There was only one she’d ever needed to learn, only one to have on demand. Let this be a lesson to you who believe thick ancient books will give what only a stint in stillness can!)

She’s still there in that well, our witch with a lisp and crossed eyes. If you find her, ask for what you will, but know this: Your wish won’t matter to her one little whit. Like everyone else, you’ll get the same gift:

An overflowing bucket of not needing to wish.

Ahh…you’re waiting for the revelation of the spell. I’m sorry to tell you that I cannot tell it, for a wordless spell cannot be put into words. Do not feel anxious, for this will not stop you from receiving it.

Neither can I tell you the end to this story, for how could the experience of immortality ever end? It is an everlasting

“And she lived happily right now.”

 

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