SairyGamp

The Villageless Witch

As Submitted to Witch Hunter's Weekly
by Proffessor A. Van Uproot


My friends, it is common knowledge that every village must have a witch. Just as no castle can be ghostless or a graveyard without a vampire, it goes without saying that a village simply cannot be a village without a witch. In short, a witchless village couldn't be termed a village at all. Of course, some villages have more witches than others. For instance, I encountered one village down in the Appalachia where it was said that a witch could be found on every corner. Just as in Romania I found a community composed solely of witches. But these are rather unsual occurences. It is far more normal for a village to have one or two or at most----- a family of witches. It is the bane of witch hunters that witches rarely form large communities and preffer to be solitary creatures. Because they have a taking for small and religous communities witches are all the more difficult to find. Luckily, it is a well known fact that witches love to inhabit particulary religous places. For a village with a witch is made all the more interesting with a preist. Laugh though you may but a witch without a preist to pursue it, is about as rare as a village without a witch.
Though a witchless village is a fancy which has never been found, a villageless witch does sometimes occur. These witches though generally believed to be harmless are in my opinion the most corrupt and elusive of the lot. As only a person who has devoted their whole life to the elimination of witches can tell you, a witch is one of the foulest beings on this earth. These singular devils devote their lives to the torment of god fearing men. Their nefarious deeds from spoiling milk to snatching children, show a perversity so profound that the welfare of all those in contact with the witch is threatened. But it can easily be said that villageless witches are much much worse than these ordinary witches. For unlike most, villageless witches wander from place to place leave a path of destruction behind them. These beings temporarily settle in some obscure place but move on before the witch hunters can find them.
When a village and a villageless witch meet, a singular and extremely dangerous situation is formed. For when this happens, the local villagers suffer from more than a normal witches plagueings. For though you may never have met a witch, EVERY VILLAGE HAS ONE. Thus, when you put a villageless witch in a village, the worst possiable situation occurs. A Villageless witch meets a witch with a village. And as witches are very terratorial and highly select beings, you can only imagine the chaos with ensues. For as well as being despicable, witches are very particular. Every witch belongs to a coven and if two witches of seperate covens should cross eachothers path, woe betide those there to witness it. And this is exactly why you don't want to be around if a villageless witch should meet a witch with a village.
I once had the very good fortune to have a colleage who was called into one of these rare and extremely dangerous cases. It was this close proximation with these creatures and his queer findings which inspired me to write this article. I can only hope that in making my knowledge of witch known to the world, I will be aiding others in the cause of ridding the world of these foul beings.

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''She's the sort of woman who almost makes you want to bury her free, and neatly too.''

Talia_Brie

I like what you're trying to do. I once wrote a similar story titled "What to do if your friend has become a vampire." In that I interspliced the article with the live action.

A note first on formatting. Such a large block of text is really hard to read online, and as the forum doesn't pick up indents at the beginning of paragraphs, the accepted convention is to leave a blank line between them. It just makes the peice easier to read, and you'll get more responses.

Ok, so I like what you're attempting, but I'm not sure if you're quite getting there. I'd like to see more age and formality in the voice. It feels to me like that's what you're trying for, but I just think it's not quite there.

Also, there is some repetition of ideas late in the extract. I like the villageless witch/village witch thing you had going there. It was turning my head around and that was good, but you do state about three times that I don't want to be around when these two entities cross paths. You only need to say that once.

Also, as this is an article, there isn't likely to be a lot of dialogue. That's going to give it a very imposing look, with heavy blocks of text dominating the page. You want to be careful of that because it doesn't leave the story as a very attractive thing to read.

But apart from that I like the idea.

Good luck

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SairyGamp

Thanks......I'l remember what you said about it being hard to read and the repetition of ideas.

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''She's the sort of woman who almost makes you want to bury her free, and neatly too.''