The Old Witch

The Old Witch is an English fairy tale published by Joseph Jacobs in his 1894 book, More English Fairy Tales.^[1] It is also included within A Book of Witches by Ruth Manning-Sanders and A Book of British Fairy Tales by Alan Garner. Neil Watkins has researched the story of ‘The Old Witch’. In "The Watkins Book of English Folktales" PP.55-60 Watkins records that the story was told by a nine year old girl called Nora to Ellen Chase in Deptford (now in Greater London) in 1892. Ellen Chase gave her copy of the story to Mrs Gomme, who then sent it to Joseph Jacobs. Watkins notes that “It is at once clear that the Gomme/Jacobs text is a radical revision of the original, rather than a slight brushing-up for publication.” Chase’s original notes were published in FLS News (10 1990) as ‘The Witch and her Servant’ and is re-produced in Watkins pp.58-59.

It is Aarne-Thompson tale 480, the kind and the unkind girls. Others of this type include Frau Holle, Shita-kiri Suzume, Diamonds and Toads, Mother Hulda, Father Frost, The Three Little Men in the Wood, The Enchanted Wreath, The Three Heads in the Well, and The Two Caskets.^[2] Literary variants include The Three Fairies and Aurore and Aimée.^[3]