The priest stopped his sermon and immediately a deathly hush descended on his congregation. The priest scanned the crowd before staring directly at the man who had dared to speak in the middle of his message of divine wisdom. The poor villager, no match for this hardened zealot, hung his head in humiliation and refused to speak when the monk enquired as to what he had had to say. An embarrassed silence permeated the cowering crowd and it seemed that even the beasts of the neighbouring forest held their breath in trepidation.

Eventually one of the women, half convinced by the monk’s rantings and jealous of her husband’s surreptitious summer glances at the witch, broke the silence and told the monk, in a rapid, gabbling manner, of the wicked witch Hazel. The witch took lovers from the village and murdered them in their helpless sleep, she said. She worshipped all the things the priest had said were evil; and she killed babies and drank their blood. The priest was aghast and he slumped to his knees, crossing himself many times and babbling in a strange tongue that nobody could understand. The villagers thought that he must have gone mad, and were wondering what to do when the priest stood up and demanded directions to the glade of the evil succubus.

All of a sudden the village was in uproar. Sensing that some major confrontation was close at hand, the villagers argued with one another passionately. Men defended Hazel whilst women cursed her. Soon the mobbish spirit became infectious, and cries of ‘Burn her! Burn her!’ were ringing noisily in the air. A torchlit procession, led by the fearless monk, snaked its way through the forest to where the witch Hazel resided, in silent contemplation of the change in atmosphere that she sensed. As the mob closed on the glade the eagerness waned and the villagers remained in the shadows of the trees as the monk boldly strode into the centre of the clearing, shouting at the top of his voice.

“Evil Sibyl! Wife of Satan! Get thee away from this place!”

Hazel emerged slowly from her stone dwelling, laughing at the figure who confronted her, watched by his flock at the edges of the Abyss of Damnation.

“Lost your way, missionary?” Hazel enquired, mockingly.