On whose shoulders we stand

A Modern Fairy Tale

Fairy Tale 

What image comes to mind when you hear the word ‘fairy‘? Be honest. I always think of a tiny, fragile, winged creature sitting on a toadstool, legs crossed, head on one side like, butter wouldn’t melt and I have never believed in them. Didn’t when was a child and still don’t.

Fairy tales in my childhood never had any of these wishy-washy, mamby-pamby creatures in them. No, they were full of characters like giants and ogres who wanted to eat children or poison them. Fairy tales as I remember were action packed with trials and tribulations filling one with fear and excitement. There was a winning hero or heroine albeit that success for a girl was getting her prince.

I am a witch and I live in a castle. No it’s true. Well a chateau actually because it is Normandy. I don’t broadcast the fact of course. My great, great grandmother was burnt at the stake and I know that sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore but you can’t be too careful and besides I haven’t practiced for some years.

Unfortunately as I recall witches mostly had a bad press. I know we were fed the line that there are good witches and bad witches but being one myself I knew that not to be true. Of course I’ve met those who didn’t know a frog from a toad which led to catastrophic results but none who were wicked.

I stopped practising when so-called superheroes were given all the credit for battling against evil. I mean what were they thinking when they created Spiderman? And Batman (not forgetting Robin). P-l-e-a-s-e. All, macho superheroes getting changed in phone boxes and the like while the females simpered around with waspy waists, big breasts and long blond hair. They were no more use than the fairies at the bottom of the garden. So I gave up. It seemed to be pointless. Besides I was getting on a bit and life does get harder as one gets older especially in a society which overlooks the old and worships youth. There was a further reason too. I had always kept myself healthy by collecting wild herbs and using them to cure any ailments that occurred and to keep my immune system up to the mark. Then I read in the local paper that the chemicals that farmers were using on their crops were affecting wild plants.

One day I was in the library and I happened to notice a young woman using a computer. She seemed to be typing and not playing one of those shoot and kill games all the boys play. I walked behind her very slowly trying to see what she was writing and as she moved the cursor (I learned that word later) she clicked on something called a spell check. SPELL CHECK. You can imagine what went through my mind. I asked the librarian if I could use one of the machines and would she show me how to do it. In no time at all I was clicking and searching with the rest and then the librarian said, ‘Sorry time’s up, you are only allowed an hour.’

I rushed home to search the yellow pages and next thing I was in Computer World. Amazing place. Did you know that you can have a computer on your kitchen table without wires and contact people all over the world? Now that to me is magical. It took a while to realise that the message ‘wireless not connected’ didn’t mean the radio wasn‘t working. Well it’s an easy mistake you can receive radio and TV for that matter via computers. Anyway it wasn’t long before I was sitting at my dining room table having a lesson from a nice young man.

When he left the first thing I did was to click on spell check and by golly it worked. Now I had to ask myself did I really want to go back to trying to change a war torn world which was reputed to be on the way to self destruction? What I need to do, I told myself, is to see if I can find other like minded women i.e. other witches. The first thing I tried was blogging which proved unfruitful. Then I set up a couple of websites. Oh I know what you’re thinking, how come an old woman learned to use the latest technology so quickly. That’s because of the deep rooted ageism in our society. I’m growing older not less intelligent. I may learn more slowly than you young things but don’t confuse lack of speed with lack of intelligence. So I set up a couple of protected sites www.worldofwitches.com or wow as I liked to call it and www.wisewomenareus.co.uk . I was totally amazed at the results. It went from single numbers of hits (I quickly learned the jargon) the first week, to tens of thousands by the end of the first month and now after a year the figures are in the millions.

I soon realized that practicing my art this way was much easier and a hundred times more efficacious than before. I don’t need my old broomstick for a start. I was never a good driver anyway. I had no sense of balance you see and kept falling off. It was rather embarrassing. But now I can contact women all over the world instantly without leaving my kitchen.

The first aim of the website was to initiate women apropos spell check. Obviously most people take it literally but after a visit to my website it immediately becomes a very useful tool. Of course not everyone can access these sites and even if they do and have the wrong motives then I’m afraid that spell check will remain just that. You see one can only use spells for good, i.e. for the good of the population or for the good of the environment. By the way no self respecting witch ever turned a frog into a prince. Although I’ve watched a few men change into frogs without any help from a spell.

The second aim was to combine on a mutual project. The old adage ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ still holds good. So I asked the two questions on both websites.

1)What do you think is the biggest problem in the world today?

2)In your opinion what do you think we can do about it?

I never cease to be amazed at the creativity of women in a group. What I can’t understand is, why I remain amazed after all these years. The results were mind blowing. First of all there were the obvious ones like war, the ozone layer and global warming. Then these were made more specific and put into categories like ‘the war in Iraq’ ; the trouble in the Congo; the use of fossil fuels; over use of oil products etc,. But what we were searching for was a connection between all these subjects so that we could tackle the root cause. And guess what? We found it. What connects all these problems?

Answer: ‘Men’

Simply that. Sorry guys. You may say that women have played a part but who has been in control of the world for centuries? Men. So it must be their fault. We realised that women had be part of the problem too since we hadn’t stopped them. They do say solving any problem is a---

No, no the answer is not to eliminate men. We are unanimous on that. We love men. The problem is that they never grow up and they think that the solution to all conflict and problems is violence. After centuries of violence the results are obvious, are they not ? Violence makes things worse. Big sticks just lead to bigger sticks. Marilyn French said, ‘Power gained through violence always has to retained by violence.’

So we have, ahead of us, one of the most difficult battles known to women. We have to change attitudes. Women of the World unite. Together we can do it with the help of ‘spell check’. Log on to one of our sites and discover how we can pull together to bring about world peace and save the planet surreptitiously, gently and most of all non-violently.

Remember log on to www.worldofwitches.com or www.wisewomenareus.co.uk and be amazed.