Bedtime stories: A tale of Hansel and Gretel: The curse of the witch print

Come close my Loves and sit by the fire. I will tell you, tell you a story about my grandmother and how she came to be the story you tell your children at night to lure their eyes to slumber.

Once upon a time a young girl was cursed by the witch of the forest. This witch upon her dying breath, grabbed the woman by her leg and said the curse that passed on her terrible power, and then the witch died, turned to dust and blew into the wind.

Her wretched life was now in a new body, a younger body. Possessed, my Grandmother walked back to the village in need of help. The hand print seared into her skin, the smell of sick burnt skin that was cooked flooded the senses of the people. They knew she had been cursed and the villagers pledged to help my Grandmother. But she was fooled. The people instead had brought her to the church and laid her to a board and belted her down, they gave her nothing but a piece of leather from an old mans shoe and the Priest came in "we must remove the skin before the curse spreads." He instructed the men in the room, all burley and bearded with their bellies full of beer to hold the cursed witch down. The priest took his silver knife and sliced into her leg sawing through the bone. The sickening sound of the thick Tibia bone only letting go a little at a time, the woman thrashing as hard as her binds and men would allow, she would not fall unconscious. Finally the priest, to tired to keep at the bone cut the muscles around the bone, her leg only held by the tibia. Called for the local blacksmith came with his largest hammer. Her eyes wide and wet she screamed as she saw the man come into view. He raised his large hammer in his powerful arms and dealt one final blow to the leg. Finally the bone let go.

The woman was given a iron cast on the stump of the leg that cauterized the wound and hopefully the curse. But only time could tell.

The woman with her hair braided into a crown around her head the priest blessed her with holy water while she stayed in the church healing from the inflicted wound. The woman never spoke again, but her name was known throughout the village as Gisela. She was not a beauty but comely, a baker for the town and always kept more to herself after moving to the village after her husbands death from illness. No one spoke against her, but no one spoke well about her, simply she was not known.

Gisela fevered and in pain was given milk of the poppy for pain and prayed for a release from the pain. Her leg never seeming to get better she asked the doctor that travelled at the priest consent to visit her, asked if he could look at the wound.

The day the iron cast came off the doctor and priest stood utterly astounded. The leg burnt as if the leg reacted to the iron, and the leg looked longer from where it was taken. Confused, the men kept the cast off and focused on healing the skin. As the months past the leg grew back. Gisela was in constant pain from the regrow and the people heard of this happening, and was unsure if it was a blessing by god or the curse from the witch. Eventually the question was answered and the handprint from the witch had re appeared and Gisela was confined to the church. The people were to terrified to let her out from blessed ground, should the witch's curse overcome Gisela and turn on the people.

Gisela had been in the church for 2 years, her leg fully gown, and the handprint getting darker. She kept the leg covered, as not to alarm anyone.

One night on her nightly walk of the church ground after baking for the people so they can have bread, Gisela had come across a man in the graveyard bent over a tomb with baby's breath in his hands. He was in tears, and she had never seen him before. She knew the graves by heart and knew that was a young woman that had died in child birth with her baby still inside her. They had looked at each other and for the night he talked openly to her. It was exquisite to not have the stigma of the cursed leg when she talked to someone.

They talked about their wife and husband they lost. The child she never had. The war he fought in. Old childhood stories and her life her at the church as a baker for the village. She cooked for him and they stayed up all night baking bread for the village. "why else are you here?" Gisela asked and his answer was he was looking for a place the re shoe his house and mend some tools before going back East. He was handsome, long dark hair, tall and a few scars on his arms and face from fights over the years of being a solider. She liked he was easy too talk to and that she could be at peace with him. He also seemed to like her, finding an excuse to stay a few more days doing odd jobs for people. On the last day he was around they lay together, the night was cool and their skin was damp and hot as they moved together under the church roof. He filled he like no other and when he kissed her she felt it scar upon her skin like the foot print, but this time in a good way. Something invisible the people could not see and could not cut away. He left and she was alone again.

Gisela eventually became ill and thought it was the curse, however the midwives found she was with child. Unknowing where the man she only knew for a few days went. Not knowing his name as they agreed it would be harder to part, she was now 2. As her belly grew bigger and the men who took her legs years ago built her what she needed in hopes they would feel exonerated by Gisela. Gisela was still alone and still bound to the walls of the church.

More months past and Gisela had felt pain. A pain she knew was not good for the baby. As she ran over the church grounds to find anyone she realized she was alone. No one heard her yells for help in the darkest depths of the night. With no choice Gisela stepped off the grounds, in search for anyone.

In the morning when the priest found Gisela was no where he spread the word and the search for Gisela went village wide.

She was found in a barn, holding her baby. But when the people saw her, the saw she had blood covering every inch of her and she looked to be hunched over crying. The priest laid a hand on Gisela and took a look at the baby. All he saw was a tangled mess on bones and skin, and the lump flaccid in her arms. Gisela had looked up and skin hung out of the mouth and she chew it back and swallowed. The priest in his disgust screamed and ran not knowing what to even do, but felt he must get back to blessed ground and pray.

Gisela ran into the forest and let the curse lead her to the old witches house. It was made of gingerbread and candy, something no one could afford in the village.

The village looked further into Gisela and realized that in the stew and soups she made she had used the dead body appendages. Finding the stack of arm and leg bones in one of the basement rooms. Licked clean, no blood so no smell. The people disgusted that they had been eating their loved ones. They called Gisela a cannibal witch, a cursed witch and that if you went to close to her she would eat you.

Little did the people know, that she could lure them by the smell of her cooking and the taste of her house. So it became when the village could not support someone they sent them at night into the forest by the witch's house and sent sacrifice to her. An she lived there until 2 children went into the forest and killed the witch by baking her in her own oven. Or so everyone thought. The boy Hazel had died, the witch had gotten away and traveled to a new land where no one knew of the curse. With her she brought a girl Gretel, who had had some of the power passed onto her. The cannibal two had eaten Hansel the brother when the Gisela passed part of her power upon touching Gretel. Once the blood touched her lips Gretel was never the same. She was never the same after Gisela died, but my mother Gretel had me now. The newest witch of the forest.

I went back to the village my Grandmother was from and became the new baker. My grandmother had told me her special ingredient to her stews and soups being arm and leg meat. Her flour ground up bones, to ensure no one ever found the bones again, and blood to thicken anything. Her knowledge she passed to her adopted daughter Gretel, to me their memory passes and I will pass to the next witch of the forest.