The Ugly Witch

Once upon a time in a place nearer than you think  there lived a really wicked witch. In fact she was the wickedest witch that ever lived in any time or any place. She was really really mean and cruel and heartless and just plain evil. If there had been a magic mirror for her to ask who was the wickedest of them all she would have always gotten the answer “ You my dear witch. There is none more wicked than you.” But she didn’t have a mirror though she often considered creating  one.

She lived  deep in one of the few remaining dark forests , one that the aggressive lumber industry had not turned into houses or paper. She delighted in human misery. She caused Presidents and Kings to start wars  by clouding their thinking, though to be fair to her some didn’t need much clouding. War brought great misery and made her very happy.  In between wars she spent her time turning people into things. She turned men into frogs and lizards with   occasional alligators and geckos  thrown in. Women she turned into snakes an  cute cats with an occasional mountain lion. Some of these got jobs on American television, particularly the ones with British accents. But most of them just hung around in the wilderness hoping somebody would come and kiss them. But for the most past nobody ever did. Frog kissing might be good for fairy tales but in real life it just doesn’t happen.

Despite all her power and despite the fact that she had a really miserable war going on the witch was not happy. You see she was ugly. Not your garden variety ugly but really ugly. If it weren’t for the Queen of Outer Bohemia she would have been the ugliest woman in the world. But she wanted to be beautiful. O how she wanted to be beautiful. You see this was the limit to her magic. She could do any evil act but she good not produce good. Making someone beautiful required good magic. She could of course create the illusion of beauty so people would think she was beautiful but that simply wasn’t the same. She wanted her very DNA to be beautiful.

So she contacted the Elf Council. As I’m sure you know the Elf Kingdom is ruled by a council called The Royal Order of Elves. Why it was named that nobody seemed to know it just was. In any case she told the