Azure

The Virtuous Sorceress

Can you imagine that a cup of tea can save hundreds of lives?
Once, there was a witch named Mary. Some would call her 'Spawn of the Devil' or 'Witch child', they'd hiss in the street, although she knew neither father nor mother. She knew only her grandmother, Eliza Nuttal; Mother Nuttal to her neighbours. She brought her up from a baby. If she knew who her parents were, she had not told her.
'Daughter of the Charles king and the Anne Queen, that's who she was.'

They lived in a small cottage on the very edge of the forest. Grandmother, herself, a cat and a rabbit lived. Until they lived there no more.
One day, some men came and dragged her grandmother away. Men in black coats and hats as tall as steeples. They skewered the cat on a pike and smashed the rabbit's skull by throwing him against the wall. They threatened her grandmother till she didn't confess her 'sins'.
They took her away to the keep, where she was locked for more than a week. There, they 'walked' her-marching her up and down between them, for a day and a night until she could no longer hobble, her feet all bloody and swollen. Still she would not confess. So they set upon other measures to prove that she was a witch. They called a woman, a Witch Pricker, who stapled her all over with long pins probing for the spot that was numb, where no blood came out.

What powers did they thought she and her grandmother had? Mary didn't know anything about her parents. Only her grandmother could've told her what the matter was. After days of traveling, Mary came upon the keep where her grandmother was kept and called a witch. grandmother now was called a witch who was under the devils who themselves were witch.

Witches were believed to be evil in general, descended from the Devil himself. It was also believed that they had a peculiar potion which, when drunk, could convert a simple human into a witch. Witches were considered highly dangerous as they could hurt entire villages at a time.

However, unknown to them, Mary could save them all. Her parents had been good witches, unwilling to harm people. But the villagers had misunderstood them and killed them. Mary's family has made an antidote to the witches' potion, this rendering the drinker human.

Mary didn't know how to make the antidote, only that that her grandmother could help her. So, with great difficulty, she met her grandmother and got the recipe of the potion and also the story of her parents. She found out that she too had the power of the witches.
So, she learnt everything that she could but not fast enough. The devils had decided to attack and were upon them soon.

Mary, not being too knowledgeable, couldn't stop them and was captured along with her grandmother. However, seeing that she was very young, they left her alone after a while. The pressure was now on the grandmother.

Now that she had the recipe, she found out that the ingredients to make the potion were difficult to obtain and also she didn't know how to actually make the antidote. But with her powers, she was soon able to learn that too. Finally, she was ready to save lives.

She gathered the things needed to make potion: Nether wart, glow stone dust, glistering melon, fermented spider eyes, magma cream, sugar, blaze powder, etc. and set upon her task. It took her many days to make the antidote as she had to say many mantras. However, she managed to make the potion.

But by the time she reached the village, many people had already been converted by the devils. She offered the antidote to those witches, but many of them didn't trust her and sent her away. The few who did drink it, were not effected at all. Helpless, Mary left the village and set upon thinking up another plan.

She was wandering aimlessly, when, with a jolt, she recollected something told to her by her grandmother:
"If you are in any problem take the help of the tea."
The grandmothers had known that only Mary could save all of them from these devils.
So Mary purchased tea and mixed potion into the tea. As for the villagers not trusting her, she dressed herself up as a tea seller and went into the village. The villager, tea lovers that they were, happily drank the tea. All of them who had been converted were now back to being humans.

As for her grandmother, Mary saved her and also killed all the bad witches. The villagers were very grateful and sad at the same time. The portion that Mary had made could not be made again and so she had to remain a witch thereon. Unable to bear it, she killed herself. The villagers, stunned and sad at her death and for having treated her badly in the past, gave her the title of: 'The Virtuous Sorceress'.

Even now, if you go to that tiny village, you can hear the legend of 'The Virtuous Sorceress', who once saved an entire village by tea.

Rtr.Radhika Somani