The Mandrake and the Witch

The Mandrake and the Witch is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.

Once upon a time, deep in an area near something called the Wyrdeep Forest, in the world where the sun rises and sets, where the sky is not an amalgamation of everyone's favorite memories of it, there lived a young maiden. She had married the man of her dreams, and they had built a home deep in the woods -- a cozy cottage just outside a small village, hidden from sight by the thick flora. They lived in wedded bliss for months, and true love's blessing was upon them.

Our young couple had an affinity with and respect for the forest, and it reciprocated in kind. Our bride traveled far and wide collecting fallen branches and creating whimsical stick figures with them, and our groom collected what woods the forest provided to supplement his woodworking needs. Soon, the blush of impending motherhood rose upon the bride's cheeks, and her wandering was no longer prudent, as her condition, while early, was delicate. Still, she would find branches of various woods drifting down the stream in their backyard, gifts from a benevolent forest. Her besotted husband left her often by necessity, traveling to other settlements to ply his carpentry craft when their small village had no immediate needs.

It was during one of these absences that tragedy struck, for this, dear listeners, is not some bright and happy fairy tale. Brace yourselves, then, for the darkness that follows.

The woman's beloved was far and away in a small, prosperous town on the edges of the forest, and he accompanied his current patron, the self-important town leader, into the woods, where, much to his dismay, the arrogant leader violated the forest, wresting from it several young merrywood trees in their prime, all to make a porch for his waspish wife out of a wood no one else had but all would covet. It is said that the forest retaliated immediately in protest. Tales from that town claim everything from unnatural fey creatures hunting down the town leader and his carpenter, to wyrwood trees pulling up roots and chasing them down, strangling them both with branch and vine, and any other number of permutations.

Regardless of how, the end result remains -- the innocent and appalled carpenter died alongside the brutish town leader deep in the Wyrdeep. His body was returned to his waiting bride, but none had thought to prepare her for the news. When she heard the sound of horses, she ran out to meet her husband and found instead a wagon carrying his body, attended by solemn strangers. The shock of this unexpected news irrevocably changed our maid, and her delicate condition proved too delicate to persevere through the pain, rending her heart yet again in twain as the last remnants of her love were torn from her very being.

Life, however, must go on, and it was unseemly, especially for a woman of such a marriageable age, to maintain a solitary life, and when the choice came to either leave the home her true love had built for her or to remarry for support, the widow allowed the latter to be foisted upon her by her misguided neighbors.

Sadly, the bolt of true love failed to strike again, and her new husband was a brutish sort. The next few years were not happy ones. Despite providing adequately, the new husband spent his evenings drunk and demanding, taking the day's frustrations out upon his wife. When it all grew too much to bear, she would flee to the back gardens and rail against the forest, begging to know why it had taken her true love from her, a true love as loyal to the forest as she had been.

(With their lengthy, vegetative lives, trees mayhap do not quite appreciate the passages of time in the same way a human might, and a few years to her was but a few moments to them. It is said this Wyrdeep Forest, once it realized its mistake in killing a friend to it, tried to make it right.)

It started as a normal evening. Her husband had been drunk, again, and she had fled to the stream in her back yard to flee his fists, again. This time, however, he followed her belligerently even as she ran across the high-arching bridge her first love had built. As she watched (or so we have heard, dear ones), the wood on the bridge seemed to come to life, a length of rope becoming a twisting vine that snaked about the brute, choking him and throwing him to the stream below.

When a kindly neighbor came by the next day to check on her, she was found sitting by the stream bank, her husband's body face down in its depths. A drunken drowning, and none to soon, was the general consensus (the bruises about his neck and the blood on the bank near his landing were prudently ignored), and the twice-widowed woman inherited just enough from her second spouse as to keep her from needing a third.

Settling into a solitary life, the woman tended her gardens and returned to making her unusual wooden figures. One day, a circle of migrating mandrakes appeared on the banks of her stream by the bridge, and she began to tend to them as if they were her own children. These plants flourished under her care, and she used their roots, freely given, in making more unusual poppets and creatures with the bits of wood the forest still brought her. Rumors grew from this, and she gained a reputation as a bit of a magical herbalist, a somewhat frightening witch in the woods -- someone you may visit in great need but otherwise may wish to stay well away from.

Tied in with these rumors, however, were undercurrents passed only between women, and young women from all around would visit her to buy herbs from her gardens for purposes that perhaps a normal herbalist may not wish to accommodate. It was said too that when she found women in unfortunate circumstances similar to her own, she helped them, and whenever she did, another mandrake would grow along the stream. Many say the wood still felt it owed her and blessed her with a touch of magic to help ease young women's burdens. Indeed, her reputation was such that just hinting that a wife may visit the old crone in the forest was enough to get an errant husband to turn from loutish to loving if legend is to be believed.

The seasons turned and turned, and the aged widow grew too old to do much but admire the many "children" she had surrounded herself with -- her plants and wood-mandrake figures filled her gardens and house, adding to the aura of mystery that now surrounded her. Widows and brides who owed her their happiness surreptitiously left gifts of food and drink and new clothing, and our widow wanted for naught but her first true love.

Content as she could be with her "children" and her calling, the widow at last made the ultimate transition. It was, fortunately, a soothing and peaceful one. She fell asleep one night in her bed only to awake in the same bed but with a sky now different and unchanging. She found she was still an old crone, but the ache of her bones was gone, and the heavy burden of living lifted.

Bemused with her new circumstances, the widow went to her back garden to take solace near the stream, and there she found the first significant change of her new unliving -- her mandrake-and-wood "children" were toddling about, fairly mangling her carefully cultivated roses in what she would soon learn was insatiable curiosity.

Today, you can still find the crone, if you look hard enough and she wills it, but only in Naidem, where she is accompanied by her three special mandrakes, one of widowwood, one of rowan, and one of merrywood. The others are now part of her posthumous calling for her new community; she creates these mandrake pets for any who seek love and can pay the price.

Meanwhile, we have heard, my listeners, that in this forest that is not of Naidem that legends of the Old Crone by the Bridge are still spoken of in whispers. Terrified whispers by some, but the women she protected (and their descendants) share the truth to any who may need to hear it. It is also said that one of these women took over for the widow, carrying her services onward until such a time as they are no longer needed.

OOC Information/Notes

• Created by GM Xynwen, September 2024
• Many thanks to GM Thandiwe for the prompt that the lore is based off of and the amazingly awesome and adorable mandrake pets