magic | Violet's Vegan Comics

When There Were Witches continues from yesterday:

In the subsequent weeks a few more people broke the law, and each time, Brynja cast the spell to punish them. Before long the whole world knew that Brynja was as powerful as her mother and they took care not to break the law.

After six months of no one breaking the law, Brynja missed the euphoria that came with casting a spell.

“Maybe I should cast a different spell,” she wondered aloud.

“Why?” asked Bertha.

“Maybe something needs fixing. Or improving.”

Bertha shook her head. “You know what Mother used to say – you can’t improve on nature.”

“Well,” Brynja felt mischievous, “maybe I can.”

Bertha raised her eyebrows. “Mother couldn’t but you can?”

Brynja grinned. “I’ve found Mother’s spell book.”

“You have?” asked Bertha eagerly. “No, I don’t think you should use it. I don’t think she wanted us to … I mean, she never showed it to us when she was here.”

“You can’t draw any conclusions from that. Maybe she just didn’t get around to it.”

She should have known Bertha wouldn’t be onboard. Bertha liked to play it safe. Bertha had no sense of adventure. What did Bertha know? She wasn’t even a real witch. You couldn’t call yourself a witch if you were too scared to cast a spell. Brynja wasn’t scared. Brynja was powerful. Brynja could definitely improve on nature!

When Bertha went outside to pick the apples, Brynja fetched the spell book, went into her bedroom and locked the door. She sat on the floor behind her bed and began leafing through the book. It was divided into sections. Colour Spells, Garden Spells, Healing Spells, Mood Spells and Discipline Spells. She decided to start at the beginning and successfully turned her fingernails green and her Spider Plant blue. They were only little spells so they didn’t give her quite the exhilaration she was looking for, but it was a nice little buzz. Next she decided to try something more challenging – changing the colour of her eyes.

She collected the necessary ingredients: a pinch of salt, a handful of earth, a single mint leaf and, since she wanted her eyes to be gold like her mother’s, two dandelion blooms. She put them all in the granite mortar and pounded them with the pestle. Then she scooped up the mixture with wet hands and smeared it around her neck.

Brynja laughed. “Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck yuck!” She took care not to drip any of the muddy sludge on the book as she read the spell.

“I pick this colour from this bloom
To be my eyes’ new bright costume.
From birth was green behind my sight
Now make gold while day becomes night.”

She closed her eyes and waited for the buzz, but none came. She went to the mirror and met the same green eyes she always met. In a rage of disappointment she picked up the pestle and threw it across the room, smashing the pink rose vase and spilling its contents onto the floor. Brynja let out a furious squeal and stomped into the bathroom to wash her neck.

That evening at supper, she was less than talkative.

“D’you want some more pie?” asked Bertha.

Brynja shook her head.

“All the more for me!” Bertha grinned as she cut another slice. “The apples are so good this year!”

“Mm.”

“Brynja?”

“What?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Something’s put you in a bad mood.”

“Fine. I’m in a bad mood.” Brynja continued to push her half-eaten pie around the plate.

Bertha finished her pie and proceeded to clear the table. “Are you going to eat that?”

Brynja sighed and leaned back in her chair. “No, you can take it.” She looked grumpily at Bertha and pushed the plate towards her.

“Thank you.” Bertha paused to look at her sister.

“What?”

“Your eyes. They’re not green anymore.”

“They’re not?” Brynja was excited. “What colour are they?”

Bertha peered a little closer. “They’re pinkish … with gold around the edges. No, hang on, the gold is spreading.” Brynja tried not to blink. “The gold is nearly covering …. now they’re completely gold! Wow! Your eyes are just like Mother’s! I wonder if mine will change too!” She hurried to the bathroom to look in the mirror.

Brynja grinned. A new tingling sensation in her toes rose through her body. Through the window she noticed the red and orange sky. The sun had just set. Day was slipping into night and it reminded her of the words of the spell – while day becomes night. That’s why the colour didn’t change right away. It needed the sunset to finish the spell. The spell had worked!

Bertha came back into the room a little disappointed. “My eyes are still blue.”

Brynja smiled. “I can make them gold if you like. Or yellow or purple or any colour you want.”

“You did it? With a spell?”

“Yes,” Brynja was glowing. “Don’t look so shocked. I am a witch after all. You should try it.”

“You’re not supposed to use magic for frivolous things.”

“Then why is there a section in the book for colour spells?” Brynja was determined not to let her sister spoil it.

“I don’t know. Maybe for things that need to be changed like … erm,”

“Changing the colour of your fingernails?” She held up her hands to show her green nails. “Or maybe changing the colour of a plant?”

“You changed a plant?”

“Yeah. My Spider Plant’s blue now. It was easy.”

“How many spells have you done?”

“D’you want to see my Spider Plant?”

Bertha smiled nervously. “Erm, okay.”

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Read the rest of the story here 😀

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Eye illustration by Daniel Hannah of Pixabay

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vegan fairy tale

A long long time ago, long before you or I, or our great grandparents, were born, the world was ruled by a powerful witch called Ermendrud.

Ermendrud was respected and feared because she saw everything and punished those who disobeyed her law. There was only one. For a whole millennium only one was needed. No one broke it. Well, one or two did, at the beginning, but when people saw what happened to them, they were careful, very very careful, not to make the same mistake.
So life in those days was very harmonious. There were no wars. There was no murder. There was no stealing. There was only co-operation, and kindness, and health and happiness.

After a thousand years of being quite content to live alone, Ermendrud decided she wanted baby. So she went out into the poppy field to look for the tallest poppy. She found two that were very tall, more than a head taller than the rest. A red one and a yellow one. She watched them for several minutes but it was impossible to be sure which was the tallest, swaying in the wind as they were. Finally she settled on the red one, for red was her favourite colour. She placed a lock of her hair inside it, folded the petals on top and sealed it with a kiss.

The following morning, as soon as the sun rose, Ermendrud hurried back to the poppy field where she found not one, but two babies. They were both girls. One had bright red hair, the other’s was golden yellow. Ermendrud realised that some of her hair must have blown onto the yellow poppy after she left, and she was very happy it had.

She bent down to kiss the red haired baby. “Welcome to the world baby Bertha,” she said. Then she kissed the yellow haired baby. “Welcome to the world baby Brynja.”

The little witch twins grew up happy and strong until, on their sixteenth birthday, their mother called them to her.
“This world is yours now, my loves,” she told them, “watch it carefully and remember the spell. My time is done.”
Tears pricked their eyes but they didn’t argue. They knew that if their mother said something was true, then it was. Ermendrud faded away in her sleep that night, leaving nothing behind but a handful of poppy seeds.

Autumn came and went. Winter settled in and seemed to last forever. The young witches, mired in grief, were not keeping an eye on the world. One day they were both hit with a short sharp pain between the eyes.

“Aaaagh!” Bertha rubbed her finger over the skin above her nose, “What was that?”

“The sharp pain!” yelled Brynja, jumping to her feet, “someone’s broken the law!”

“Oh no! What do we do?”

“The spell! Mother said we have to do the spell!”

“But we’ve never done it before! I thought we’d be able to watch Mother do it …”

“Well no one broke the law while Mother was here, but now she’s gone they think they can get away with it. We’ve got to show them they can’t!”

“I don’t know …”

“Yes you do! She taught us a hundred times! We have to do it! If we don’t do it in the next four minutes it’ll be too late.”

Brynja rushed to her mother’s room for the ingredients. Bertha waited. Brynja went to the stream behind the house. Bertha followed. Brynja sprinkled lavender into the water, held a seed of Black-eyed Susan in each hand, and recited the spell.

“There is one who did not heed
The law of good and of good deed.
They broke the law, did something bad,
Selfish, cruel or making sad.
So find the one who did offend
And make their ill deed twist and bend
Back on them so they will feel it,
What they gave they now receive it.”

Brynja dropped the seeds into the water and looked at Bertha. “Did it work? D’you think it worked?”

Bertha scanned the sky. “I can’t see a rainbow.” She turned back to Brynja and shook her head.

Three and a half minutes had passed since the pain.

“Your hair!” Bertha pointed frantically, “you forgot your hair!” She grabbed the scissors from her apron pocket and passed them to Brynja.

Brynja cut a curl from her beautiful yellow hair and dropped it into the stream. A rainbow formed over the water for a few seconds, and then dissolved.

“You did it!” cried Bertha.

Brynja’s face flushed and she closed her eyes. She felt vibrant. Full of energy. Wide awake.

She smiled at her sister. “Yes I did.”