A Story of Witches

By Emma Bowen

25 March 1994

Lizzie and Thomas went out for a walk one day. The birds were singing in the trees. They saw a funny sign which made a spooky sound:

They did not know what the sign meant so they walked on. The sign meant that there were witches ahead.

Then they saw a lot of women. Two of them said ``We've got some presents for you at home'' so they all went home together. When they got home there was a big cauldron in the middle of the room. The witches said ``The presents are in the big pot'' so they looked in. Then two of the witches tipped them in and began to stir the cauldron. Then they put in

four lizard's legs,
six gruntle's eggs,
twenty smokey bacon rashers,
four bat's wings,
two whole bats,
one skull,
two coconuts,
four pots of honey with lizards in,
the stomach of an owl,
two round green oranges,
two plants,
thirty fish,
six shrunken heads (real ones, not the sort sold to tourists!),
a beak of a bird,
the stump of a tree,
a brain of a tortoise

and they stirred it up. And the two children turned into rats.

Part 2