You might wonder why I let the girl come and live with me in the first place.

She’d been raiding my garden for the parsley. Ate so much of it, her mother called her “Parsley”. I told her mother to let her come and live with me and she could have as much parsley as she wanted. 

I expected her to be grateful. I expected her to be some use to me.

Instead she became so attractive that young men would fight one another under her window.

I couldn’t stand the racket. I marched into her room, closed the shutters with a slam, and cursed the girl. I said: “I wish you were an ugly toad, sitting under a bridge at the other end of the world.”

She vanished. And so did my parsley. Curses! Even I can’t get what I want!

Witch Who Utters a Curse, Puddocky, Green Fairy Book. Illustration by H.J. Ford.