Witch's valley

There is beyond that green hill thick with forests a valley through which the river runs; but no one lives there, no one is allowed. Although the land is lush, the soil rich, and the river there teaming with fish; still no one dares disobey the edict that no human being is allowed to live there. Three hills of forests, that valley, and the river that runs through it all belong to the ethereal hidden people and the beasts that creep from shadows. If one stands high up on this one rocky hill top far away yet overlooking much of the hills and valleys here, one may see an unnatural mist form on spring and summer days isolated in that valley. From this distant vantage point so too they may make strange lights that dance within that fog and the faint sound of music. One may be tempted to investigate, but know that here is a place of horrors and nightmares that hide behind masks of beauties for the great and terrible things of the rivers and bogs across this green land culminate here on certain days to celebrate and spare no man to see them, and some who go may be taken away to never be seen in the world again in a human skin.

   On colder autumn days when the leaves are thin one may see into the valley and spy the remnants of a long forgotten village. So much time has now passed that only sparse stone monument and foundations yet remain; for once a village was there. In winter this high and rocky hill is its self trecherous to ascend, and in that valley it is said in winter even more dreadful things roam; for winter is not only the time when the most foul of dark spirits roam, it was in winter when the curse was cast upon the valley.

    The story is very old now, and embelleshed several times, so much so that in one town up the road from the valley one version is told speaking of a fairy child, another to the south speaks not of a child but a maiden fleeing an arranged marriage or else an abusive boyfriend and seeking the solice of the forests and witchcraft to hide herself there. Among other even more outlandish versions; however all speak of a young maiden sighted in those woods, dancing in singing in the moonlight, seemingly speaking to nothing and vanishing like a ghost when noticing hunters had spotted her. Each tale speaks of a cabin that moves with the mist, and even of stories of a beautiful young maiden attracting wealthy men with a fantasy for taming a wild woman; only to be met either by her vanishing in the mists like a fairy maiden, being guarded by twisted demonic things, or of her fleeing to the cabin only for her pursuer to open the door after her to find only an old wreck of a shack with no signs of the maiden or any signs of anyone living there for many years.

   In time as each story goes the pursuers stopped, years gone by they say, and the stories of a young maiden, turned to stories of a woman, of a witch living in the woods using magic to keep her home and herself hidden. How else but by magic could a lone girl, now woman survive in the woods each year through the winter without ever coming into town. Years go by, and the stories change to her as an old woman, a frail thing, but a witch as the stories go. An old hag living somewhere in the woods, stalking just beyond the tree lines in the shadows, harvesting fruit from trees that do not bare fruit, fishing water from a well that upon inspecting is meter deep dry hole with a ring of wood around it carved with unknown symbols. This part is the most known and consistent through each telling, as it is here the fearful towns people of the valley called to the church for aid; they had heard stories but had thought it another case of ghost or elf, but to find this was a mortal woman, grown old as any man who told the stories of pursuing her in his youth would be now. What else but a witch could she be, how else but by demons and black magic could she survive, conceal herself, and the stories of twisted monsters attacking those that entered the woods were well known. The church had heard however that in her old age she did not venture far from the cabin, which the hunters say did not move as much as it once did, and in the dead of winter smoke could be seen bellowing from its chimney.

   The church sent men into the woods in the dead of winter in the middle of the day,  by unknown means they were able to capture the witch and take her into the town in the valley. The woman was old, had unkempt hair down to her ankles, and looked to be half asleep even while held captive, preached to by the priest. It was not until the fire was lit beneath her that she awoke, her scream it is said by the few who survived, the ones who fled, was not a human sound. The few who turned to watch as they fled the town say they saw something like a giant bird made of light with the face and breasts of a woman emerge from the town square in place of smoke and engulfed the town, there was screaming they said, as well as the laughter of madness. The creature of light spoke in unknown words and terrible things arose with mist, unnatural things that to this day stalk the valley in the mist, especially in the dead of winter come the most bloodthirsty. Something had come to live in those woods, and seemed to nearly live an entire human life there, except in its final days was stolen away and given a most gruesome end; so whatever this fairy thing was, cast its curse upon the valley. The survivors tell the story, although not all of them sane, the priest and his men were found dismembered in the river downstream. Since then, no one lives in that valley, it has been claimed by the spirits, it is no place for mortal men.