The Shepherdess Witch

In times past, people knew to keep clear of the forest. It was a home to all sorts of dangerous creatures. Trickster spirits drifted through the dales, giants roamed the great mountains, and witches stalked the woods. Those who heedlessly trespassed against these creatures suffered cruel fates for their foolishness. Listen and learn, lest you meet a terrible fate yourself.

Everyone knew the shepherd’s girl was no good, even from her earliest days. Little Esmeralda brought misfortune on her family from the moment she entered this world, taking her mother’s life with her birth. Of course, one should never blame an infant for such a death, but it was only the first of many that haunted her family in the years that followed. Her grandfather died soon after, kicked to death by a mule. Her grieving grandmother fell ill with the wasting disease and was consumed by it. Shortly after that double loss, her eldest brother was knifed to death on the road by highwaymen.

By then, rumors spread throughout the village about the cursed shepherd’s girl. It did not help her reputation that she had a quiet way about her and was often seen silently roaming the woods on the edge of her family’s grazing lands like a dryad out of old tales. Mothers warned their children to keep away from Esmeralda, and the children ridiculed the girl for her odd ways and shunned her.

Death returned to her home again and again, taking one brother away with a terrible cough and a sister with a sudden stroke. All the while, her grief stricken father lost his flock little by little to wolves and poachers and his own heartbroken indolence. When the shepherd had buried all of his family but Esmeralda, he gave up on living and cut his wrists with his sharpened shears.

The girl was nearly a woman by then, and as she had no other living relatives and no one was willing to take her in, they granted her ownership of her family home and grazing fields as well as what few sheep remained of her father’s flock. Living alone, she mostly kept to herself, tending to her flock and wandering the woods. The only time she was seen in the village was to buy provisions and sell paltry scraps of fleece and wool and yarn. Everyone hoped that the death of her father would be the end of the misfortune she brought, but they were sorely mistaken.

One spring day, a handsome young man, newly arrived to the village with his father who had married a local widow, was out hunting with his father and became separated from him. William was his name, and he possessed a great talent with a bow and arrow. He tracked a young buck deep into the woods to a clearing and was about to fire a bow into its heart when he discovered that the deer was not alone. It faced a young woman wearing a simple woolen dress and holding a shepherd's crook. Her pleasant countenance was fully at ease before the buck, and it, in turn, showed no fear of her. It even submitted to let her place her hand to pet its head between the antlers as if it were her own tame beast. William lowered his bow and watched in wonder as the young woman stepped closer and embraced the deer like a loved one, hugging her arms around its neck and whispering some secret words in its ear. Then, she released the beast letting it wander off into the wild woods.

William was dumbstruck and became immediately enamored by the weird woman who welcomed deer like lovers into her arms. He sighed.

“Who’s there?” she asked, turning her ear in his direction. “Come out. I hear you hiding in the bushes.”

He stepped out into the clearing and introduced himself.

Esmeralda told him her name and asked, “Why are you creeping around my woods?”

“Hunting deer,” he explained, showing her his bow.

“Do not hunt in these woods,” she warned him. “There are forces here that will not forgive the taking of wild lives.”

William was unsure of what forces she meant, but he agreed to leave the woods unspoiled.

Then, she approached him, and he realized that she was barefoot but walking carelessly over the twigs and rocks. When she stood just an arms length from him, he got the measure of her as she sized him up. She was short, barely as high as his shoulders, but she had a shapely body with good child birthing hips. Her hair was curly and dark and hung long and unkempt. Her eyes were a piercing green, greener even than the leaves around her. She sniffed the air near him, like a dog. Then, she smiled and said, “I would much like to meet with you again, William the bowman.”

“Likewise,” he said and suggested they see each other in the market that weekend.

She agreed and, with a final smirk, turned and wandered off into the trees and disappeared.

When William returned home and spoke of his encounter in the woods with the wild woman, his new stepmother was furious, scolding him for talking with the cursed girl. She forbade him from speaking with her again. Although he promised not to, he intended to break his promise.

As the week went by, William asked around about the wild woman of the woods and learned the whole story of her misfortune and heard rumors about secret rituals she conducted in the wilderness, summoning up dark spirits and consorting with them. He recalled her familiar behavior with the deer and worried that what they said may be true. He considered not meeting with her that weekend but decided it would be best to not anger her.

William entered the market square at the same time as Esmeralda, carrying a dark fleece in her arms. She smiled at him, and he politely smiled back. Again, he noticed she was barefoot.

They greeted each other, and he walked with her to where she sold her wool.

“Have they told you about me?” she asked him, hiding her emotions by a serene countenance.

“Rumors,” he admitted. “They said you have known misfortune.”

“Misfortune is an old family friend now,” she confessed. “As is death.”

William drifted a little further from her as they walked.

“I mean you no harm,” she said, feeling him drawing away. “I am no monster. I can be good to you. Give me a chance.”

They stopped and gazed into each other’s eyes. William saw a hunger in her eyes, like he had seen in the eyes of wolves on the hunt. He feared that he would be devoured by her and turned his gaze away.

They stood there in silence a long while before she said, “So that is how it is?”

William excused himself and walked away, feeling as though he had just escaped mortal peril. He left the market square without looking back.

Although William hoped that would be the end of it, he began to notice Esmerald following him around, peeking around corners in the village to observe him, creeping silently through bushes and trees to sneak a glance at him where he went. He tried to ignore her, but he could not escape her hungry eyes.

After weeks of this stalking, Esmeralda appeared at William’s window one night, tapping on the shutters with her long crook. He awoke from dreams of deer bounding through a dark wood and opened the shutters, finding her standing there in the moonlight, her eyes sparkling like emeralds.

“Let me in,” she said, as more of a command than a request.

William thought her very beautiful in that light, but his fear overcame her allure, and he replied, “No. I will not. Please, go away and do not return.”

“You want me,” she said, taking a step closer. “You want me like I want you.”

The words seemed true to him, but he only shook his head and backed away.

“I can give you happiness,” she promised, “and so much more. Come.” She held out her hand to him.

Where she would take him and what would happen there, he did not know, but he sensed he was in great danger. “Away with you, witch!” William cried, feeling like a frightened child. “Leave me alone!” Tears filled his eyes and he turned away from her. When he wiped his face dry and turned back, there was no one outside his window anymore. Esmeralda had vanished.

William’s father and stepmother entered his room to discover the cause of his yelling, and he told them of his dark visitor. They made sure to bar the doors and keep their shutters tightly closed until morning.

The following day, William’s parents went about the village relating the tale of his encounter with the shepherdess witch, how the woman had tried to tempt him from his bed to his doom. In the clear light of the morning, though, William was less certain of what danger he had faced last night. She had wanted him to join her, but there had been no actual threat in her words or actions. He had perceived one, nonetheless. Still, had she attempted any actual harm to him? He could not be sure.

William kept these doubts silent as he watched the village conclude that Esmeralda must be dealt with in a way that would ensure that she never returned to disturb their peace again. They gathered up sharp and pointy tools and what weapons they had and marched as a group to her sheep farm. As they approached her door a wispy fog drifted in and clouds covered the sunlight.

“Witch!” William’s stepmother screamed. “You will vex us no longer! Leave this village and never return! My son is not yours to take! Go now peacefully, or else.”

The other villagers grunted and cheered in agreement.

The door to the witch’s farmhouse opened a crack, just enough to see her green eye peering out from within. “No,” was all she said. Then, the door shut again.

“Burn it!” someone cried. “Burn it all!” other voices agreed.

Suddenly, torches were brought forth, but the men holding them hesitated to set her thatch roof alight. Instead, they turned and marched to her barn, where they tossed their torches inside, setting fire to the hay within.

The frightened sound of bleating sheep could be heard within as the building was consumed by flames. Then, the sheep went silent and there was only the crackling of the blaze.

Feeling more confident now that one building had begun burning, the men returned to her house and prepared to burn it down as well.

They stopped when they heard a low wail from within the house. The sound grew louder and became a furious moan. Then, the thatch roof of the house shook, and a deafening scream erupted from inside. The men with their torches backed away.

All the astounded villagers watched in amazement as the roof of the house rose into the air. Their amazement shifted to terror when they saw the giant pair of arms that were lifting the roof up. The arms were followed by a giant woman’s head, Esmeralda’s head, rising up from the house, her features twisted into a countenance unbounded fury.

The villagers were too horrified by what they were seeing to react. They could barely fathom the sight of a giant woman emerging from the house as if she were standing up from hiding inside of an enormous basket, lifting a wicker lid above her. Esmeralda stood there a moment, towering over them nearly ten times the size of an ordinary man, her arms raised high above her startlingly nude body. Staring down at them all with a look of absolute disgust and hatred, she tossed her roof to the side. It came crashing down moments later, terrifyingly loud and dangerously close to the villagers. That sent the whole crowd scrambling away screaming to escape from the giantess, like a bunch of frightened rabbits, scurrying back to their warren holes.

William ran with the rest, his mind reeling from the impossible things he had just witnessed. He glanced back over his shoulder to see the giantess lift her bare foot out of her home and set it down where they had just been standing, followed by the other foot. William figured that she was big enough now that she could stomp a grown man flat beneath the sole of one of those colossal feet. She began walking in their direction, taking long leisurely strides and setting her feet down with an earthquaking heaviness. It was a chase, but she showed no urgency to catch them. While they ran, she simply strolled along behind them, confident that they would not get away.

Reaching a huge hand down, the giantess wrapped her log-like fingers around William’s stepmother’s body and lifted her into the air, the smaller woman shrieking as she rose.

“You owe me sheep,” Esmeralda declared as she held the relatively doll-sized woman up before her face. “Make me more.”

William watched as thick gray hair sprouted all over his stepmother’s body as her fingers and toes became dark split hooves. Her shrieks became frantic bleating as her face stretched into a muzzle and her body reshaped into that of a sheep.

Esmeralda smiled at having transformed William’s stepmother and set the panicked sheep back down on the ground at her feet. She watched with malevolent glee as it ran off into the woods.

William’s father called for his wife, but she did not return. Instead, Esme tapped his head with one of her fingers, and he too transformed, shrinking and reshaping into a sheep, before running off after his mate.

The giant witch continued her chase, reaching for the fleeing villagers and brushing against their heads with her enormous fingers. As soon as she touched them, the people began to transform into sheep, one-by-one becoming bleating livestock covered in a wooly fleece the color their hair had been. Some tried to hide in their houses, barring the doors against her, but the giantess’s huge hands pushed their doors down with ease and extracted the people from within, setting them down outside of their houses in the bodies of helpless sheep.

It was not long before frantic bleating had overtaken the sounds of screaming people. No one was spared. Women and men alike were made into sheep. Elderly folks and young children lost their humanity as well.

William and a few other villagers that still retained their humanity raced to escape the village on a road leading out of town. However, just as they reached the furthest edge of the local farm fields, creeping branches of thorny briars sprouted up from the road itself and began to spread out in a line to both sides. The briars grew thick and tall in moments, becoming an impenetrable wall of thorny vines that soon encircled all the farms and village within, trapping everyone inside with the giantess.

Esmeralda, having finished transforming all but the people who were now blocked from escaping on the road, strode toward this final group. One man got on his knees and begged for mercy. She nudged him with her toe, and he ran away on all fours, bleating. Another one offered her gold and jewels, anything she wanted. All his treasures fell from his fingers as they became fumbling hooves. She soon finished her witchy work with whoever remained, saving William for last.

He cowered beneath her, fearing the moment he would be transformed into a sheep like all the rest. She stepped up close to him, positioning her titanic feet on either side of him, forcing him to look up past her colossal crotch and her bountiful breasts in order to see her face high above him, beautiful and terrifying. While she had been smiling before as she transformed the rest of the villagers, she only frowned down at him and sighed.

“I only wanted you to love me,” Esmeralda said. “I meant you no harm, none of you.”

“I am sorry!” William replied, his pleading hands clasped together. “So very sorry. Please! Forgive me. Forgive us all. I beg you.”

She crouched down and wrapped her fingers around him, each one thicker than one of his legs. He expected to transform at once into a sheep as had happened to the others, but he remained human as she lifted him up into the air to hold him before her face, indicating that she had other plans for him. His eyes were drawn immediately to her mouth, figuring that she would be able to bite his whole head off now if she chose to. He was at her mercy, and he knew it. If she simply opened her hand and let him fall, that would be enough to kill him from this height. All he could hope for was for it to be over quickly.

“I was alone,” Esmeralda told him. “Now, you can be alone as well. You will know my pain.”

She lowered him down and set him down gently on the road outside of the briar wall.

“Run!” she told him. “Run away, little man, and keep going. Stay in one place too long, and I will find you, and I will do worse to you than you can even imagine.”

William began to speak, but with her booming voice, she screamed at him, “RUN!”

He ran. He ran until he was out of breath and his legs were sore and still kept running. At sundown, having run all day, he collapsed in the next village over. There he told his tale to the disbelieving people who had revived him in the public house. They laughed at him and declared him a liar or a madman. It was only a day later after one of them had tried to enter the other village that they heard confirmation about the briar wall encircling the cursed village. A heavy fog was all that could be seen beyond the briars. The only sounds to be heard coming from the fog were the chirping of birds and the distant bleating of many sheep.

Despite earning their trust, William walked on from the village where he collapsed once he had recovered enough to travel and was never seen in that county again.

Some intrepid people tried to cut through the briars, but the branches regrew immediately, just as thick and thorny as before. Then, they heard the sound of earthshaking footsteps approaching and saw the shadowy figure of a giantess moving toward them in the fog holding what appeared to be a giant shepherd's crook. The people ran away for dear life and never returned to the wall again.

From that time on, the nearby villages warned travelers away from the cursed village. Most people heeded the warning. Some did not. Occasionally, a man with more bravery than sense would announce he intended to breach the briar wall. Either he would make an attempt and run back with a story to tell about the hand of a giantess reaching for him, or he would never return at all. Everyone would assume then that the cursed village had gained another sheep.

The local boys eventually discovered that the briars grew roses with black petals. It became a dare amongst them to snatch a black rose from the cursed briar wall and bring it home, a test of bravery and speed. Some succeeded. Many ran away in fear before even trying, having heard the sheep bleating or seen the shape of a shadowy giantess in the fog. One boy, who was known to be particularly proud and foolhardy, boasted that he would return with a whole bouquet of black roses to distribute to all the girls in his village. He never did return, though.

Winter came and went followed by more winters, until the boys who had stolen black roses were men. Then, one day, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the briar wall vanished, crumbling into twigs and then into dust. The men hesitated to enter the fog surrounding the cursed village, thinking that this might be just a trap dreamed up by a scheming giantess witch. Still, they remembered their boyhood curiosity. They needed to see what was beyond the briars and the fog, whatever dangers might be waiting for them.

A few of the bravest followed the road through the fog into the cursed village finding only sheep roaming about, their wool the various colors of human hair. Then, a breeze picked up, blowing through the fog and thinning it out, until the sun shone brightly again on the village for the first time in years.

To everyone’s amazement, the sheep began to transform, losing their wool fleeces and regaining human skin. Hooves becoming human fingers and toes. Bleating sheep heads becoming human faces with human voices again.

Everyone of them returned to the bodies they had had on the day they had been transformed. Amongst the original villagers were some of the foolish folk who had gone missing near the briar wall, back again in their human bodies. One boy was the older brother of one of the men who had entered the village just now, only now he appeared to be the younger brother, having not aged since his disappearance. The former sheep stood shamelessly naked and shocked to be back to their old selves. After some time, the men managed to coax some words out of the cursed people who had nearly forgotten how to speak after years of bleating. They told the tale of being trapped in the giant shepherdess’ flock.

Esmeralda treated them as well as a shepherdess could treat a flock. She made sure they were fed and took care to trim their fleeces when they grew too thick. She used the wool they grew to begin weaving herself a new dress to fit her giantess body. How she managed to spin the wool into thread, they did not know. Nor did they ever see any giant loom on which she wove fabric. Through some mysterious magic, she slowly crafted clothes for herself. Although she had many sheep to shear, it took years to collect enough wool to make a garment that would fit her. In the meantime, she slept naked in the fields with them. Occasionally, a new sheep would join the flock, looking panicked and wild. In time that sheep would learn to calm down into a sheep’s life. Eventually that life would include Esmeralda breeding them with her other livestock.

At this point, many faces blushed red, thinking about how they had not known the identity of whom they had been bred with.

New lambs were born, who had never been human. They suckled on the sheep teets of former human women, though. When the lambs were old enough to graze on their own, Esmeralda moved this new generation of sheep to a private pasture away from the rest of the cursed villagers.

Once Esmeralda had enough wool for her giant dress and had collected a sizable flock of new sheep, she bid them all farewell, saying that they had recompensed her fully for what they had taken. Then, she led her new flock away into the woods and toward the mountains beyond. After she had left, the briars had crumbled away, the fog had cleared, and they had become human again.

It took time for the cursed village to go back to normal, but life did return to something resembling normalcy after a while. Still, Esmeralda left behind many fears. No one ventured into the woods where she had gone. Anyone who got close to the treeline thought they heard bleating in the distance or saw black roses growing on briars and moved far away from the trees. Sometimes textile merchants in the county would discover that they had unexpected wool in their stocks and money missing from their coffers. At the same time, food merchants would find that they had been robbed of grain or other provisions. However, there would be extra money in their coffers that would cover the cost of the lost provisions, as if someone had traded with them in secret. Even though they all suspected that the witch might be involved in all this mysterious commerce, no one ever witnessed her swapping goods and money with them.

Even to this day, wise people avoid those woods, the shepherdess witch’s woods. And, although you may think I have shared some marvelous faery story with you, I have not. This tale is true. I heard it from my grandmother, and she heard it from her grandmother, as did her grandmother before her. Behave and never seek to pick a black rose or else the giantess might come and add you to her flock.