GRISELDA* AIMS HIGH

My favourite witch takes a stab at a senior politician

It was a lovely day. The sun was shining down on a world that seemed to be at rest. The path they were on wove its way across a field that looked like a gently rolling sea of waving corn, they being a refreshingly young Griselda Entwhistle and and her favourite nerighbour David. She had used a special youth spell on her own ancient body whilst ensuring that he was the sort of young man she could get to like.

“Lovely,” whispered Griselda, “don’t you love it, darling David? Days like this? Fields as lovely as this one? And hardly a breeze to whip my hair into a frazzle?” Even as a desirable young thing Grisleda’s hair was famous for being frazzled and sporting an untold number of knots that she had to order to disentangle or she’d cut them off. Griselda was a witch and could o things like that.

David put one arm round her and cuddled her. “Of course I do!” he replied, “what do you think we should do when we get back to your little cottage?”

Griselda grinned at him, the gap where she’d lost a front tooth recently really appealing to him. “A spell,” she said, “I think we should cast a spell!”

“Oh, I love it when you talk dirty like this! What sort of spell, my love? What do you want to change in the world?”

“He won’t suspect it,” almost cackled Griselda, “There’s no way he’ll have any idea what we’re up to! But we’ll do it and see how it turns out! We’ll start by sitting in my pentagon…”

“You mean, your shining pentagon?” he asked, shivering with a sudden burst of excitement.

“My shiny silver pentagon!” she laughed, “I know how much you love it, and then we’ll summon a devil or two. They’ll come if we ask nicely. And we’ll sort things out once and for all.”

“How exciting,” warbled David.

“Let me see. There’s a particular succubus that I know. Powerful stuff, is that woman! She can draw aso much passion from a man that he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going!”

“How exciting!” David was shivering with excitement and with so much enthusiasm that his shorts almost slid down his legs.

“If anyone sees you like that,” grinned Griselda, “they’ll have you up before the beak on an indecency charge! Pull them up, for goodness’ sake!”

“It’s the excitement,” he told her, “I can barely control myself! Tell me about this pet succubus of yours!”

“I call her Mildred,” replied Griselda, “and she doesn’t really care what I call her. But she arrives on the midnight hour when she’s summoned and starts working straight away.”

“How does she know which person to, er, excite?”asked David. He had never been able to understand the depth of Griselda’s knowledge when it came to the dark arts. It seemed she could conjure a spell from just about anything.

“I’ve chosen a politician,” decided Griselda, “you know, the boss in the Government, the bloke who tells all those lies, him with scruffy hair and bags under his eyes? It’s that scruffy hair that I got a load of only yesterday, using a hair-lifting spell. It made him scrub his fingers through his own hair and a whole lot of strands fell out, and a magical wind blew them all the way to my cottage where I’m saving them till I need them, and that might be today!”

“How thrilling!” almost exploded David.

“Well, the man won’t mind. He’s fond of tall stories. And this is going to be the tallest of the lot!”

“You said it was a succubus. What exactly is one of those? I’ve heard you mention them before but I’m not quite sure what they are…”

“Ah, Mildred is one of the better ones. I’ll describe her as she appears. She’s really tiny and willowy and with so much hair she can easily sit on it without pulling any out. And she’s got a healthy complexion, the sort that most men, and our politician is certainly one of those, can’t help but love. She wears shimmering robes, and she lies down with our victim … I think victim is the right word … and enters his dreams.”

“A beauty like that in a man’s dreams is enough to send him bonkers!” exclaimed David.

“When she’s inside his head she appears to him in dream form. She caresses him, she seduces him, she does so many things to him that it’s been known for a victim to sleep through twenty four hours without waking up! And when he does wake up he’s as weak as a chicken because she’s exhausted him! He’s all aches and pains and his eyesight is suddenly defective! Too many visits by this particular succubus and he’s blind!”

“Let’s cast the spell then!” he almost shouted.

“Shush, or the rabbits will hear!” laughed Griselda, “look, there’s my cottage among the trees. We’ll be there in a trice.”

“It’s a mile away or more!” protested David.

“Good thing I’ve got my brookstick then,” she winked, tapping her nose and waving an emtpy hand in the air and somehow making a sturdy broomstick appear in it.

“Complete with sat nav,” she said as she held it firmly, “Come along and hop on!”

“I’m not as expert as you,” grumbled David as he made a pig’s ear of climbing onto the shaft of the broomstick while Grisleda easily slid onto it in front of him.

“You’ll never make a decent wizard if you don’t ride broomsticks,” she said critically.

“It’s just that I’m not used to this form of transport,” he explained, “I’ve got a car, you know, and that doesn’t need climbing on.”

“Ah, but this is better,” smiled Griselda when he was almost settled and comfortable. “Hold on tight! We’re off!”

And they were. It took maybe a minute and the broomstick had hurtled along the mile or so to her cottage and found its way through an open window and up to her front room sofa where it obligingly discharged David while Griselda sedately dismounted and grinned at him.

“Come,” she cooed, “come to my spell room! There we’ll sit in the silver pentagon and I’ll let you kiss me.”

“David was almost shocked and certainly bewildered.

“Kiss you?” he asked.

“Just for fun,” she smiled, “and to show that you care! Now come on, and no tongues!”

David was no slouch when it comes to romance, but he’d never kissed anyone as exciting as Griselda before.

“Wow,” he said when they separated for air, “you’re something else!”

“Wait until you meet Mildred,” she replied, “now sit still and let me call her.”

“Go ahead,” he murmured, wtill wiping his mouth.

She smiled at him, and chanted,

“By the noxious waters swollen,

By the kisses that were stolen,

Come and aid me, Mildred darling,

On the wings of some old starling

There’s a politican needs a spell,

The sort you cast so very well!”

No sooner had she finsihed than there was a fluttering at the window and a really old starling with tattered wings wobbled in. On its back was a tiny figure of a charming woman, smaller than a Barbie doll, pretty as a thousand pictures and smiling radiantly.

“Well met, Grislelda,” she said as she climbed off her avian steed, “I’ve been looking forwards to sucking the lust out of this tousle-headed tubby ever since he went to University and seduced a friend of mine!”

“Then you’ll do your best?” asked Griselda.

“He’ll not know what hits him when he dreams tonight,” giggled to succubus,” he’ll spend the next fornight walking along with crossed legs and chuntering about cartoon pigs!”

“Just as I hoped,” smiled Griselda, “it’s about time he learned that his loins aren’t play things!”

And she was gone. Tiny as a child’s doll yet desirable as a beauty queen, she delicately flew away on the back of the tatty starling.

“What now?” asked David.

“Well, dear boy, it’s bed time for me, and you can join me if you’ve got the strength! And then, tomorrow morning we’d best catch the news on the BBC!”

Bed time was a completely peaceful affair. Much to David’s surprise Grisleda fell fast asleep as if she’d waved cast a spell on herself.

Next morning it was well worth watching the morning news programme.

The Prime Minister was giving a scheduled news conference and succeeding in baffling one and all with references to a Barbie doll and a liaison with Peppa Pig, all of which was, he said, a message of hope in a bleak world. But besides the unexpected silliness of his speech was his crumpled, tousled appearance, from his mass of hair down to his bad;ly creased trousers. And his language was punctuated with a variety of ums and ahs together with a phrase in sound-alike Latin.

Meanwhile Griselda cackled long and hard and made some steaming porridge as a pick-me-up for David.

“This’ll put hairs on your chest!” she cackled, “and it’s my opinion you need some! Tonight we’ll have a go at someone else, though I doubt it’ll be anyone as major as a prime minister!”

© Peter Rogerson 03.05.22

*Griselda Entwhistle is a favourite character of mine, and has appeared in on-line fiction like this several times as well as starring in a novel entitled “Spellbound” published by Lulu, the Print on Demand people, a couple of decades ago. Incidentally, in that novel she actually became Prime Minister herself for a while!

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