W is for Wicked Witches

         (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my brand-sparkly-new collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore.  All through the month I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, as well as some reflections on the power of the traditional stories that inspired me.)

        I wasn’t quite sure whether or not to include today’s short story in Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns.  The reason is that it isn’t based on any specific fairy tale, but instead is inspired by various elements of modern folklore about wicked witches in general.  You can check out a prior blog post with a variety of block prints depicting Wicked Witches from 1720-1985, but my story is set in a version of wicked-witch-ness that doesn’t reflect older beliefs about witches and witchcraft.  Instead it will be very familiar to anyone who’s consumed movies, TV shows, etc. from the past 50 to 80 years or so.  I’ll give you a longer excerpt today, to set the scene…

        Two witches stood in the doorway below the sparkly purple banner that read “Welcome to the Grand Coven Annual Revels.”

        “Well, if it isn’t Cherry,” said the green-haired one with the large emerald amulet.

        “Oh my Dark Lord,” cackled the other, who was dripping with skull-shaped talismans, “She’s back.”

        Cherry’s smile was poisonously sweet.  “Laverne.  Agrippina.  It’s been too long.”  She paused a moment in the doorway to look around.  Too long to wait for vengeance, she thought.  As she headed into the rental hall her loose silk jacket swirled behind her, brushing against the two witches.  She could hear them whispering cattily, black cats at their feet, but her smile didn’t fade.  She felt the swing of the soft fabric around her shoulders.  Its bright flowered pattern gave her confidence.

        She found Millicent by the punch bowl.  Of course.  Cherry reached in to get herself a cup, not at all surprised when Millicent joggled her elbow on purpose and then said, “Oops” as if it were an accident.

        “Millicent, how have you been?”

        “Not bad,” the tall witch replied, making sure her insignia of power showed clearly.  “I’m High Mistress of my coven.  What about you?”

        “I’ve been studying abroad,” Cherry answered.

        “Did you ever even get a familiar?” Millicent asked, casually stroking the oversized ferret draped over her shoulder.  Millicent was the one who had murdered Cherry’s first familiar in some horrific ritual all those years ago.

        “I’ve got a bakehoari now.”

        Millicent raised pencil-thin eyebrows.  “A what?  What is that, some kind of… beetle, or something?  Couldn’t even get a rat, eh?  Some things never change.”  She grinned, her teeth as sharp as the weasel’s.  “Excuse me, I’ve got important people to see.”  Cherry’s jacket clung to Millicent’s black dress as she shoved past and headed toward a knot of witches in the center of the room.

        Cherry smoothed the fabric back down, thinking, Some things never change indeed.  All those spells to keep themselves eternally young, and all it does is keep them eternally immature.

        In addition to western witch folklore, this story also includes just a touch of Japanese folklore.  The bakehoari is an invention of my own inspired by Japanese legends of tsukumogami.  I don’t want to give away too much about my story, but I do invite you to read my prior post about these strange entities here.

        So, as I said, I dithered over whether this story really counted for my theme of “inspired by traditional fairy tales,” but in the end I figured “The more the merrier” and included it (along with a couple of other pieces in this “general folklore vibes” category, including my trickster tale at T).

        There are a few other wicked witches in the book, as well.  There’s the owl-witch mentioned at O,  and there are also the wicked witches from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, whom I mention in a light-hearted limerick about Dorothy Gale.  That’s the poem illustrated by the rubber block print at the top of today’s post.  I would have painted the magic shoes silver to honor L. Frank Baum’s book, but the MGM movie is right that ruby pops better against black and white.  As for Baum, he too was reimagining traditional fairy tales, spinning a modern American fairy tale from well-known traditional elements.  We’re all part of that long human chain of storytelling!

        The moral of wicked witches is that wickedness will be conquered in the end.

        Also, it’s important to examine your own means as well as your motives, lest you turn wicked yourself before you notice what you’ve become.

        The most famous re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz and its witches is, of course, the book cum musical cum movie dualogy “Wicked.”  Have you read or seen it?  Do you have opinions?

[Pictures: Someone Dropped a House, rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam, 2025 (Image from NydamPrints.com);

Cherry Blossoms, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]