Thursday, November 08, 2007

Events that transpired during the execution of one Agnes Nutter, witch.

"A howling mob, reduced to utter fury by her habit of going around being intelligent and curing people, arrived at her house one April evening to find her sitting with her coat on, waiting for them.

'Ye're tardie,' she said to them. 'I shoulde have been aflame ten minutes since.'

Then she got up and hobbled slowly out of the cottage, and on to the bonfire that had been hastily thrown together on the village green.

'Gather ye ryte close, goode people. Come close untyl the fire near scorch ye, for I charge ye that alle must see how the last true wytch in England dies. Gather ye ryte close, I saye.

Thirty seconds later an explosion took out the village green, scythed the valley clean of every living thing, and was seen as far away as Halifax."

There was much subsequent debate as to whether this had been sent by God or Satan, but it may have been helped by the contents of Agnes's petticoats, wherein she had with some foresight concealed eighty pounds of gunpowder and forty pounds of roofing nails.

-Good Omens

*I can't help but smile very time I picture this.