Alien and unknown, enchanting in beauty and strangeness of mystique, they acquired legend in the countryside through periods of long absence and brevities when they appeared.
Too tall for pixies or fair forest nymphs, too real of flesh for ghosts and as man must name and define all things—especially those whose understanding escapes them—it was whispered they were witches.
Arriving unnoticed in dark and secret of night, they were stumbled upon or sighted in following morn. That they arrived as equally often in mid-days under the full and bright of sun, as it was not affirming of belief, was either ignored or willfully forgotten.
Encountered in woods—forest spirits with little regard for customs and others’ expected norms—they were heard and boys, young men, and old alike sight of them through the trees.
In a countryside and people accustomed to privacy and secrets—neither of which were ever held or saved—the women of the woods were heard to laugh, giggle, and speak with no hiding of mirth or pleasures.
For this, what on surface and to plain sight appears innocent and good, whispers changed and shaded to surreptitions and suspicions, a darkness ever as shadowed as bar corners where words and whispers were exchanged.
In truth, their secretiveness had simple answer. They respected bounds and never wandered beyond limit of the farm into lands that belonged to others. They respected privacy and gave it, even when such was not reciprocated back.
One particular autumn dawn, they were sighted causing quite a local row. Two women—regarded still as girls in myth and local minds—sauntered alone in the naked open of November woods—on the first morning of deer season.
“They could be shot! They could be killed!”
Sighting men desired to be heroes.
From afar, their mother was implored to contain and control her daughters. But as heir daughter’s free-spirits came halfly from her, and as she too—for all the locals knew—might be practitioner of magic and dark arts had no more intent or concern than her daughters in obeisance to gentry and men of arms.
In the minds of the men who sought and implored, they were saviors and guardians from a threat. But the daughters did not need saving and the only threat, if any at all, was of the errant fires of the very men who sought to save.
The daughters continued in the meander, laughing, giggling, mirthful in the morning and irreverent to the warning, and the only hurt or harm that came was to amorous hearts of men that listened and sought to better see; who blamed the women for morning’s hunt never noticing, fixation of sight toward source of sounds, all the deer—driven by the women’s disregard from wooded hide—that passed right by.
In night, they built fires in the open lawn beneath trees and too in showed house of old plank wood that, in absence of the two, took temperament of abandon and gloom but, in their return, restored to life—smoke column from chimney peak.
It was rumored, by the fire, they cast spells. Maybe it was true, for they remained in minds and weighed on spirits long after they were gone—always night departures (except when they weren’t; but these, like daylight arrivals, were equally forgotten for convenience of story-tells) and long absences in after.
Magic is a mystery, so too are the souls that practice. No one really knew. Pretending to, people whispered.
It was rumored at their bonfires in the trees that sometimes shone and lit for miles, that they danced naked around the pyre. Such was rooted more in winsome hopes and ageless concupiscence than any ever witnessed truth and, as rumored whisper spread, believing in the tale, there were many a boy who tried.
From the fire, voice and laughter carried far through the autumn cool and hollowed air; voices and laughter intoned—not with malice or maledicitions—but with a warmth, endearment, and communion of simple joy.
“But aren’t so too the siren songs that drew and wrecked men upon their shores?” locals, especially women, whispered.
In spite of every overt truth, a bored and simple land formed and held their superstition.
Spirited souls who meant no harm and lived openly joys that rose from wellspring of their hearts, who meant goodwill and lived indifferently in times of presence without imposition or engagement with those around, in absence and time away were cast as ominous danger and threat. Such assertions were made most adamant by modest country wives whose who spoke with intent at fostering fear and aversion but most often did the opposite in adding to allure.
In truth, their only magic practiced was in resurrection of an innocence and childhood memories through stories told in tie and returning to a place. Such was their only witchcraft—peace of soul, restored and returned in presence of a place and tie of family roots.