Conventional wisdom suggests the sight of a squadron of over 200 airborne witches roaring out of the fog on bright-red, burning vroffa-brooms might make for a most ‘twizzly’ sight. But as this is Hopeless Maine, here we must remember that all convention mostly slithers slowly back into the murky seas of logic that surround the island like an ominous tentacle disappearing under the slooping waters…
The reality, were you ever to be perched on a jetty by the shoreline, your ears pricked by the throbbing hum of the approaching horde – would of course, be arguably different from your expectations. And here, I’m assuming that you’re rather like the witches in question – a visitor to this most peculiar place, keen to encounter its many irregularities whilst trying your best not to be drowned, eaten – or worse….
So, with these pretexts aside, let us look up into the swirling mists and search the fluffing-white for the witches themselves…
There!
You’ve missed them!
Whole coven just flew right passed you!
….for these black-hatted sisters are far from ‘ordinary’ too. These are the ‘peffa-oidy’ witches from The League of Lid-Curving Witchery’ in Winchett Dale – and like you, they’ve come for a holiday to this most curious of places.
A holiday? Witches?
Listen, it’s not easy being a ‘peffa-oidy’ witch. First, there’s the whole ‘peffa-oidy’ thing – ie: being ‘very small’. Most are little larger than a mouse, some occasionally might rival a small kitten – but only in stature. They’d stroff the kitten, obviously – but probably only after teasing it for a ‘very long time’ in order to get their own back on felines, generally.
Their brooms are often little more than twigs, their hats the size of thimbles – so really to have 200 fly past in the fog and miss them completely is quite the most normal thing to expect…even in a place as tangled and tentacled as Hopeless Maine.
Oh, and if you do see them (most likely settled in a flock upon the boughs of an obliging tree in night’s early hours) back away slowly…peffa-peffa-slowly – for they never sleep, they only pretend…
(If you need more Peffa Oidy Witches in your life – and we think you do – then have a look at Phil and Jacqui Lovesey’s work over at http://www.matlockthehare.com/)
And due to a tragic miscalculation of scale, the entire squadron of peffa-oidy witches was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.
Reblogged this on Niff Soup and commented:
Sometimes, our witches get ‘lost’ – sometimes they can’t be bothered to get up – and sometimes, they even go on holiday – here visiting the strange and ‘tentacled’ world of Hopeless Maine by Tom and Nimue Brown (who, whilst are also pleasingly strange, don’t have tentacles!)