The Witch of Willowby Wood - Bennett

The Witch of Willowby Wood

circa 1964
By Rowena Bennett (1896-1981)

There once was a witch of Willowby Wood,
and a weird wild witch was she, with hair that was snarled
and hands that were gnarled, and a kickety, rickety knee.
She could jump, they say, to the moon and back,
but this I never did see.
Now Willowby Wood was near Sassafras Swamp,
where there's never a road or a rut.
And there by the singing witch-hazel bush
the old woman builded her hut.
She builded with neither a hammer or shovel.
She kneaded, she rolled out, she baked her brown hovel.
For all witches' houses, I've oft heard it said,
are made of stick candy and fresh gingerbread.
But the shingles that shingled this old witch's roof
were lollipop shingles and hurricane-proof,
too hard to be pelted and melted by rain.
(Why this is important, I soon will explain.)
One day there came running to Sassafras Swamp
a dark little shadowy mouse.
He was noted for being a scoundrel and scamp.
And he gnawed at the old woman's house
where the doorpost was weak and the doorpost was worn.
And when the witch scolded, he laughed to her scorn.
And when the witch chased him, he felt quite delighted.
She never could catch him for she was nearsighted.
And so, though she quibbled,
he gnawed and he nibbled.
The witch said, "I won't have my house take a tumble.
I'll search in my magical book for a spell.
I can weave and a charm I can mumble
to get you away from this nook.
It will be a good warning to other bad mice,
who won't earn their bread but go stealing a slice."
"Your charms cannot hurt," said the mouse, looking pert.
Well, she looked in her book and she waved her right arm,
and she said the most magical things.
Till the mouse, feeling strange, looked about in alarm,
and he found he was growing some wings.
He flapped and he fluttered the longer she muttered.
"And now, my fine fellow, you'd best be aloof,"
said the witch as he floundered around.
"You can't stay on earth and you can't gnaw my roof.
It's lollipop hard and it's hurricane-proof.
So you'd better take off from the ground.
If you are wise, stay in the skies."
Then in went the woman of Willowby Wood,
in to her hearthstone and cat.
There she put her old volume up high on the shelf,
and framed her hot face with her hat.
Then she said, "That is that!
I have just made a bat!"

© Rowena Bennett