Chapter Text
Dear Reader,
This story was related to me by Mistress Tinnerelda MacTackle, a fish witch. That is, a witch who focused herself on fishes, as it were. Of course, everyone needs a pig witch and maybe even a toad witch—if it were needed—but no one wanted to need a fish witch, as Mistress MacTackle would say. It wasn't that they weren't needed, it's just that people didn't like needing a fish witch. They wanted to think they could care for the fish themselves. Worse, they thought fish didn't need much care: they spawned their eggs into that spermy soup and out come tiny little fishes. What more is there to it? Well, there's a lot more to it, according to Mistress MacTackle. Much, much more. More than anyone would like to admit—and don't let her hear you say otherwise. Though really that's neither here nor there besides to establish that Mistress MacTackle did that which needed doing, not that which wanted doing. That is, neither wanted by her, the people, the fish, nor the river spirits (at least on a bad day.) And this supplies a great deal about who she is.
Now, the story here is one that was related to me by her, as I've already said, but it's important to point that out because every piece of this story I have heard contradicted. Yes, even the name of Him. The witches of Lancre talk about Him in an interested sort of way. Or, better, a gossipy sort of way. He really was quite interesting, especially when He might never have existed at all, and really it's possible He was created as some sort of necessary balancing act. A Counter Story, as it were. But only some think that, and Mistress MacTackle wasn't one of them. She thought that was a load of, as it were, milt (and not in the good, creamy, salty way.)
Mistress MacTackle said that people only think that because you "can't be having a witch that is a wizard without a wizard that is a witch". But she says people say that in such a way where they act like a witch-that-is-a-wizard upsets the balance of gender relations. That is, with the men on top. "We can't allow Women to go both ways when Men are still stuck going just one way," they say. But Mistress MacTackle says they say that because they think equalization is actually oppression. And besides, men can go both ways. It's probably even better like that. But you won't let them go both ways because, deep down, you feel threatened. And you feel scared! Really, I'm a bit fuzzy on the theoretical details, but I would trust the sort of witch like Mistress MacTackle to know these sorts of things.
Wizards talk about Him under hushed whispers as if they were to speak above a whisper He would find out and come dress them in a black dress, assign them a steading, and place a worn old broom somewhere where it ought not be. Wizards aren't very good at whispering. That's how I know. They're the biggest proponents of the Counter Story theory, but if he really was just a story, why bother whispering? Even so, he doesn't wear dresses anyway. That's something the wizards didn't understand. Witches needn't really be women, that's just the way it often was. Just because something is usually a certain way, needn't mean it must always be that way.
That is all to say, take all I say with a great helping of salt and a great gulp of water to offset it. If I make a contradiction, please do not write to me! I do not have an address —at least not one that stays floating for more than some small amount of days, anyway.
As follows is the story as Mistress MacTackle told it to me, with some blemishes unblemished, and some context contextualized.