Last night I took an axe and chopped off the head of my stepdaughter while she was sleeping. I thought, ‘Ha, now there will be no more fuss about who gets all the pretty things. My daughter will get them all!’

This morning, I called upstairs for my girl. She was late coming down for breakfast. “Where are you?” I yelled.

She answered, “Here on the stairs. I’m sweeping.”

I went to look. There was nothing on the stairs but a drop of blood.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the kitchen.”

There was no one there. Only a drop of blood on the floor.

“Where are you?”

“Here in the bed. I am sleeping.”

I went into the bedroom, and I found my own daughter beheaded. I had killed the wrong one, and my daughter’s blood was shouting, “Here I am! Here I am!”

The Witch Who Beheads Her Own Daughter in Sweetheart Roland, Grimms. Painting “Time and the Old Woman,” by Goya.