Episode 1: The Witch and the Turning Sickness, and other tales
Description
Music: Creepy – Bensound.com.
| Andrew: | These are some stories which we made up brought to you by the magic of the internet.
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| Once upon a time Jesus H. Christ set out from his home to the marketplace. He stood among the market traders on an old box preaching to the crowds. "Blessed are the cheese makers," he'd acclaimed and a passing cheese maker so delighted in hearing his words that he gave him a shiny silver coin.
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| "Uh huh," thought Jesus to himself. "I bet I can take this coin, multiply it into many more using one simple trick." "Blessed are the rich," said Jesus.
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| The end.
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| This is the story of the witch and the turning sickness.
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| Once upon a time, in a relatively far away place, there was a deep dark forest.
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| James: | Almost no one ever went into the forest. For the first mile or so round the edge, you can sometimes snare rabbits or maybe go logging, but further in if men ventured they did not return.
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| Andrew: | There were no ponds in the heart of this forest. Only huge, nulled tree trunks growing up the bushy leaves of the canopy obscuring the sky in all but the very depths of winter. But still in this heart, there dwelled one person.
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| James: | An old and wise woman. She had lived there, some say for centuries.
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| Andrew: | There were many things ... it was said ... that she understood. How to control the seasons and the weather ...
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| James: | How to talk to animals and smaller creatures.
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| Andrew: | How to raise the dead from their graves.
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| James: | How to blend and choose the herbs and spices of the forest to counteract illness and drive away evil spirits.
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| Andrew: | But whatever favor she did for you, if you made your way into the heart of the forest and found her cottage and begged for her help, she would ask for a price.
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| James: | The price would always be high. Perhaps the highest you could possibly pay but it would also always be appropriate to you, to the illness she was curing or the misdeeds she was covering over.
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| Andrew: | Those who failed to pay would suffer a terrible punishment as all of the power that she had used to help was unleashed on creating suffering.
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| James: | In another part of the country, far far away from the black forest there sat a village of great renown.
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| Andrew: | The people of this village were famed for miles around ... all of the other towns and villages of the plain knew that these people were good and chaste and virtuous and pure of heart.
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| James: | It was winter. The end of Christmas tide and the villagers were bringing in their livestock to the great communal barn to shelter them there through the bitterous nights of darkness ...
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| Andrew: | ... and after their mid-winter festival which they always held when the great herding of animals had been completed, they all returned to their homes. The next day they woke and to their horror, they found that the barn had been raided over night and six chickens had been taken away.
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| James: | The village elders questioned everyone but nobody had heard or seen anything and nobody confessed to the crime. No remnants of the chickens were found and the village was forced to go to sleep once more aware now that there might be a thief amongst them.
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| Andrew: | In deed the very next day dawn bright and early and they found that this time two pigs had been taken and again nobody had seen anything, nobody had heard anything, the village elders questioned everybody. There was no evidence.
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| James: | One more night, the villagers slept worried now about what would be stolen overnight and sure enough, as the weak raise of the winter sun touched the steeple of the village church, they woke to discover the great cow had been stolen.
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| Andrew: | The village elders met in councils to discuss the situation. "How can it be that we, people known to be pure of heart, people known to be good and true should have to suffer this terrible plague of theft upon our houses."
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| James: | "It cannot be one of us," they agreed. "We are too good. We are too pure. It must be the work of the devil."
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| Andrew: | "Yes. The devil who brings with him the turning sickness," said one of the elders from the back of the room. They turned to look at him. "Yes. I recall a tale from my childhood of an entire village wiped out. A village who had been pure of heart but were corrupted by the taint of sin in the cool clear air."
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| James: | <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuche  Comments In Channel  Download from Google Play  Download from App Store  United States00:00 00:00 x   Episode 1: The Witch and the Turning Sickness, and other tales |
