The Making
of a Witch
“ All
witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.”
~Malleus
Malificarum
A green-gowned
maid sat by the stream
combing out
her floating hair,
when dancing
on the firefly air
there came to her
a man of dream.
He loved
her out of her fine array,
praised russet
hair with silver tongue;
in the melt
of the winter's dead white sun
she quickened his child as he rode away.
She hadn't learned to reckon cost;
what's quick
to grow was quicker to die.
A fast coiled steam of fire and sky,
her love bled
out with the babe she lost.
The
witchlight flickered in the dark,
the fat
white mare was foundered lame.
On the
thirteenth night, the black dog came
to suck at
her breast and leave his mark.
She scryed
her crystal in cold midnight
for sign of
him who'd cracked the bell,
drew
nightshade visions from the wishing well
to give her in nightmare a second sight.
Of wolfsbane,
poppy, black hellebore
she mixed
the paste that gave her flight
from
mem'ry, to melancholy, feeling, fright;
She screamed
till she could dream no more.
They burned
her where the high roads cross.
Priests plied the censor while cowards dug
to cover her
bones bound tight and snug
washed clean of
her fever, at what a cost.
~October 2012
Sunday
Mini-Challenge: The Envelope Quatrain
Kerry
gives us a profound narrative challenge: to follow in Tennyson's footsteps in In Memorium. I wouldn't pretend to go that far, but I've tried to preserve a period feel.
For a full
description of form and subject, see above link.
Header Image:
The Love Potion, 1903, by Evelyn De Morgan
Footer Image: Inspire (c) Ellen Wilson
Used with permission. Thanks, Ella!
