She raked through the hearth fire ashes,
And scattered the chicken bones,
Then turned a page in a silent rage
And added some pebble stones,
She searched for a spell to end in hell
For the man who had told her ‘No,’
A spell of hate from her hearth fire grate
To follow wherever he’d go.

While he stood out on the roadway
Considering where he’d been,
He’d fled out there from the witches lair
Where she’d lured him, sight unseen.
At first she seemed to be beautiful
When first he entered her lair,
But then his eyes grew wide in surprise,
Got used to the dark in there.

She’d sat on a velvet cushion
And raised her skirt to the knee,
He thought he saw what she wanted him for
As she smiled unpleasantly,
He turned in a mild confusion,
His women were never so bold,
He sat and stared, got out of his chair,
Said ‘Sorry, you’re just too old.’

He looked at the streets about him,
And noticed the cobblestones,
They crissed and crossed, he was more than lost
In a muddle of chicken bones.
He couldn’t figure which way to go,
As they’d twist and turn out there,
And every time he would cross the road
He’d end back at the witches lair.

His mouth was a pile of ashes,
His mind full of pebble stones,
He found himself at the same front door
Spitting out chicken bones.
He burst back into the witches lair
And he saw her crouched by the hearth,
She stared at him with an awful grin,
Let out a terrible laugh.

‘Have you come again to reject me,
To tell me I’m just too old?
You’ll never recover your other lover,’
She said, and his heart turned cold.
He snatched at her faded Grimoire,
And turned to another page,
Then read a spell from a demon of hell
That was said, would make her age.

He muttered the words of the ritual
And her face grew taut with fear,
Her hair turned grey at the words he’d say
At the spell she’d not want to hear.
Her skin grew slack, and fell from her bones
As it said in that ancient tome,
Then his head had cleared as she disappeared,
And he went wandering home.

David Lewis Paget