The Festival of the Sand Witch Interview

“Hi Stanley, sorry for keeping you waiting; I got a bit held up in traffic.”

“Well you’re here now, Charlotte. That’s the important thing.”

“The festival seems a success. There are more people here than I expected.”

“Yes, it always attracts a big turnout.”

“I appreciate you taking the time for this interview.”

“I appreciate you for choosing me for your interviewee.”

“So, tell me a little history about the Festival?”

“Started with a Wicked old Witch, that lived in a shack on the beach.”

“Why did she choose to live there?”

“A Wiccan-Hierarchy had confined her to the beach for a heinous transgression. In order to gain absolution from them she needed an offering of one hundred mortals.”

“An Offering?”

“She would capture late-night trespasses on her beach and tie them up with seaweed. She would then fly them high into the sky, then toss them off the broomstick, letting them drop into the sea; to feed an evil serpent.”

“And did the serpent get its quota?”

“Not as far as I know, it was probably in its best interests to miscount.”

“You’re not wrong.”

"Locals used the legend to scare their kids from wandering down to the beach alone. Mine did also. One night, when I was about eight, my siblings and I snuck down to the beach and threw rocks at her shack. The door opened and a haggard old lady stepped out. We ran back home vowing never to go near the shack again.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

“Guilt got the better of me. I returned to the shack the next night and knocked on the door. I apologised and handed her some sandwiches as a peace offering.”

“You took a big risk.”

“I made the mistake of confiding this to my sister. She told her friend, who told another friend and soon I became a sort of legend among the local children.”

“You must have been pleased.”

“Not really. The local kids frequented the beach at night bribing the witch with sandwiches. Their pestering ruined the witch’s solitude. Then one morning someone found her dead on the beach. She had suffered a massive heart attack.”

“How sad.”

“The witch’s death shook the neighbourhood to its core. Parents feared without the witch threat their kids would go to the beach en masse, but the kids stayed away out of either respect or probably more likely guilt.”

“So what part of the saga does the festival commemorate?”

“Many years have passed and its purpose has been lost in translation and embellishment. That is why I wanted to do this interview, so the true origin can be put into black and white before Alzheimer’s gets the better of me.”

“I will see you get the recognition you deserve.”

“Thanks…please feel free to help yourself to enjoy the comestibles. Plenty of sandwiches and glasses of bubble-bubble toil and trouble lemonade."

"Will do."