Once upon a time, there was a peasant witch who lived in the forest. She was good at being a witch, but didn't spend too much time developing her other skills in life. As a result, she stayed poor and often had to depend upon her family or upon the kindness of others to make ends meet.
One day she decided that she wanted someone to take care of her, because she was getting older and taking care of herself was getting more difficult. So she gathered together all of her magick tools and prepared a powerful spell. She cast the spell dancing around a large fire, and afterwards, was very tired and went right to bed.
A few months passed and she nearly forgot about her spell. She went to a party with an old flame of hers, a palace guard, who had treated her very badly. Once there, she realized that she had met the object of her spell -- a man of good means, a merchant of some repute in the area, was also at the party with his sister.
As the magick wove its effect, the merchant was quite taken with her, and pursued her intently. They began to date and things progressed quickly. The merchant realized he was very in love with the peasant witch, and was very happy. She told him that what she wanted most in life was to be a wife and mother. This made the merchant even happier, because that was exactly what he wanted too. For a brief time, they seemed very happy together.
But things soon began to turn bad. The peasant witch had the habit of spending time with the guard that had taken her to the party, and as she had told the merchant that this ex had been terrible to her, the merchant became confused and upset. "Why", he thought, "would she want to spend time with someone who treated her this way?" He puzzled and puzzled and could only come up with the disturbing theory that the peasant witch might still be in love with the guard. And this would mean that she wasn't in love with the merchant.
The merchant and the peasant witch began to fight over the guard. The peasant witch promised to get rid of him, but the promise was an empty one. To the peasant witch, truth had no real value and falsehood was a tool to be used whenever she wished. When the merchant found out that he had been deceived several times over, he wept until his eyes were red and ran to his wise sister to ask for her help in deciding what to do.
His sister explained that love was a strange and powerful force, and that sometimes the people we love do things we don't like. But we must search our hearts and try to accept these things. The merchant wandered the countryside and pondered on this advice, and decided that he would try to accept the peasant witch as a liar, because he loved her. He did this with great success, even though there was an occasional argument over a lie the peasant witch told.
Things started to get better again. But all too soon, more problems arose for the couple. The peasant witch didn't seem to be making much of an effort to please the merchant, even though he thought of little else than how to please her. When they would talk about this, the peasant witch would simply say, "I'm selfish", as if she had no control over her own behavior. This would make the merchant angry, because he knew better. But he remembered the words of his sister, and since he still loved the peasant witch, he tried harder to accept the bad treatment he received from her. But he grew less happy.
The merchant thought long and hard on how to make things better. He thought that maybe the peasant witch was upset because she didn't have much money, and in fact was in enough debt to lose her home. He asked her to move in with him, thinking she'd be excited and happy, but she wasn't. She seemed upset with the idea, so he let her keep her home by paying her bills and her rent for her. But this didn't seem to make her happy.
One Winter day, the merchant was pondering on whether he could ever he happy with the peasant witch. She treated him so badly that he wondered whether she really cared for him. Before he could make a decision, the forces of fate intervened, and it was discovered that a child was on the way. The merchant was happy, and put all of his doubts aside. He rode to the peasant witch's home as fast as he could and asked her to marry him. She seemed surprised, and not altogether happy about the idea, but accepted his proposal. So for a time, the merchant was happy again.
His happiness didn't last long. The peasant witch realized that she didn't love the merchant, and grew afraid of the commitment of bringing a child into the world. She began to lie to the merchant that she was afraid of moving into his home because her cats could not come with her. The merchant took this with disbelief; it didn't make sense that someone would throw away a happy life for cats, and he also knew that the peasant witch had a habit of avoiding the truth. One day, it was close to the time that they had agreed that the peasant witch would close her home and move in with the merchant, and she told him she couldn't do it, because of her cats. The merchant grew very angry and they fought. The next day the peasant witch sneaked off and sought the assistance of a dark doctor in the forest who tore the child from her womb so that it could not be born. She told the merchant that she had miscarried the baby so that he would not be angry with her. The merchant felt sorry for her at first but quickly became suspicious. He poked and prodded and finally he came to the conclusion that she had not miscarried, but instead had killed the child. He could not weep, but instead a part of his heart turned to stone.
The merchant tried to forgive the peasant witch, for in his heart he still loved her. But she didn't love him. They went on, and since he was not going to pay her rent or bills any more, the peasant witch decided to move in with him. The merchant deluded himself into thinking that this meant that the peasant witch loved him after all, and things were happy again. But as with all the other happy times, it was all too brief.
The peasant witch began to behave in suspicious ways. She would say she was going to visit her parents in the forest and then would not come home until very late. Sometimes, she would be away from home and the merchant would ask her where she had been. She would grow angry and provide explanations that the merchant felt strongly were lies. He tried to ignore all of these things and paid more and more money to take proper care of the peasant witch, feeling that if he treated her well enough, she might be happy.
One day the peasant witch found work in a mill near her new home. The merchant was happy at first because it seemed as if she liked the new job, and some extra money would be a welcome relief. But her behavior became more and more suspicious. The merchant knew she kept a diary, and every day his temptation to read it grew like a cancer in him. Finally, one day he could not resist his longing to know more of the truth, and he opened and read the peasant witch's diary.
The diary contained a love letter to the guard that had only recently been written. The letter was full of compliments and regret for missing the good times. The merchant was devastated. He felt that she loved the guard more than she loved him. There was also a short tale of the miller that seemed intensely emotional. Once again, he ran to his wise sister for help.
His sister sighed and seemed troubled when she heard all that the merchant had to tell. She explained that sometimes people write things in their diaries that are not meant to be read. She felt that this letter was just a way of telling the guard goodbye and didn't feel it was a fatally bad sign. Still, she told the merchant to keep his eyes wide open and to watch the peasant witch carefully. The merchant thought on this and decided to try to go on and marry the peasant witch, because he still loved her, even though this love was sometimes an inner torment.
The peasant witch continued to behave suspiciously, and was downright rude and mean to the merchant sometimes, such that he would wander off by himself and weep. He would look up at the sky and say to the gods, "I don't understand. Why is she behaving this way? Have I not treated her with the utmost kindness? What more could I give her, than what I have given?" The gods said nothing back, perhaps because it should have been obvious to the merchant that the reason for her behavior was that the peasant witch did not love him. And as luck would have it, the peasant witch was once again with child.
Finally one day the peasant witch told the merchant that he was too severe and disaproving, and was never merry. He grew angry because he knew that this simply wasn't true. The next morning, full of suspicion at her behavior, he read her diary again.
This time, it was like a lightning bolt hit him and broke his heart in two. She wrote that she thought of lying naked with the miller and that he had given her a look that went straight to her heart. She wrote that she was drawn to his lonely soul and that she was a fool, but that the attraction was too strong, and even a fool knew when it was too late.
The merchant was crushed. He was struck ill and could barely eat. Not knowing what to do, he once again ran to his wise sister. This time, ber brow furrowed and a look of anger formed on her face. "This woman is definitely in love with someone else", the wise sister explained. "The damning part of these writings is the 'it's already too late.' I am not sure they have been together yet, but it is only a matter of time."
The merchant's broken heart froze. He felt dead. He didn't know what to do, especially with a child on the way. But fate intervened again, and the child was lost. He spoke to his closest friends and they all agreed: the peasant witch was a terrible person: selfish, uncaring, and unloving, at least to the merchant. Even then, the merchant loved her, but felt that he had no choice to end his torment and stop being a fool. After all, the woman he loved was in love with someone else and would only cause him pain.
The relationship dragged on as Winter turned to Spring, and things only got worse. The more the merchant tried to understand, and the more he tried to lower the standards of what he would accept, the worse the peasant witch would treat him. Finally, one day he realized that even if she wasn't in love with someone else, her treatment of him was just too much to bear. He looked to the gods and cried out, "What am I to do?" The answer came to him immediately, as the gods sent the words "BE A MAN" to echo through his head and his mind. He contemplated this for days until the real meaning of it came through.
He had been a fool, supporting and catering to someone who didn't love him and certainly didn't deserve what she had been given. Although it would hurt to ask the peasant witch to go, in the end it would be for the best. So the merchant asked her to leave his home. She gave little argument, and went back to the home of her parents. His wise sister and all of his friends comforted him and told him that he'd done the right thing, and it was as if clouds had lifted and the sun shone upon his life again. He realized that he had not lost love, but rather gained again the chance to have love.
He looked around his home with bright eyes, no longer clouded and troubled. With confidence and self love, he went forward to boldly restore the worldly status charmed away from him. And to love himself, he began to also treat his body and spirit with great care. Although he still longed for a mate to share his life, he knew that love would come to him because he deserved it.
And he lived happily ever after.