But gossip didn’t need facts to inspire it, I’d long ago witnessed. Gossip was scandalous fiction spun for the sole purpose of catching the fascination of others who would gather around the speaker to listen to anything, even the preposterous like broom flying women. That was why the mayor’s accusations about me being a witch caught fire and spread so eagerly. It was sensationalism in its finest, namely that a person not well-liked and the village burden would, of course, be guilty of secret dealings with wickedness.
Old Mother had told me that throughout history witches were often the scapegoats of natural events. When floods arrived, the old widow who lived in the town’s shabbiest cottage, was the one to be blamed. When a dreaded disease swept through a town, the crooked-backed hag who lived in the run down shack down the road was obviously its cause. Misfortune was always soothed by finger pointing.
Yet, in my village that day, there had been no calamity, no disease running amok, no strange infestation of rats, raccoons or rattlesnakes — only the excitement of naming me guilty of everything that had ever befallen them. In such a manner, all of their past hurts were avenged by the simple act of picking up a stone and preparing to throw it.
I’d known the village hatred of me was a bonfire ready to combust, especially after the traveling judge attempted to blame them for their treatment of me. Frey was a big part of their restless anger and jealousy. No one else owned such a beautiful horse, the stallion of everyone’s desire, and I’d refused to part with him. So although the village knew the mayor was a lecher who preyed on the innocent maidens of the village, the words he’d uttered were all it took.
Witch, he’d named me. Evil doer. That instantly explained my wondrous stallion, the hut I’d hammered and formed into a dwelling, and the way I’d gone from household servant to independent woman. Witch, the ultimate sin of a female.
No one had bothered to learn that a Green Witch’s essence was Goodness. We would no sooner desire to hurt someone than to burn down a forest or bring injury to one of Gaia’s creatures, (which, of course, included people.) But the villagers had not been dealing with logic at that point. They’d sought atonement against life’s pains and anguish, their bitterness over what my industry had brought me, and the guilt the judge had made them feel.