9.II

And then the terrible bog witch laughed at Gretta.

“If you can pick from these frogs the one that is your brother, then you can both return home. But if you choose wrong I will keep your brother with me in my cold awful waters forever!”

But Gretta was not bowed, for from her trials she had learned much and she looked onto the pond full of croaking frogs before she spotted the one.

The light of her brother’s eyes and the warmth of his love.

She reached out to him and he jumped into her hands and she called out to the bog witch.

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“This one! This one is Hansa!”

And then the cruel, twisted witch, with hair black as mud and skin pale as a bone snarled and gnashed her teeth like bark. And that was when Gretta knew she had won.

“You're sure that’s your brother that you would take with you?”

But Gretta was not afraid, for she knew that the witch and her had made a pact by magic and it could not be overturned.

“This is my brother! This is Hansa!”

And so the witch howled and there was a storm and a tumult.

But when the sky cleared and the waters receded she was holding Hansa.

And they went home to their father and found their wicked mother had died in their absence and both Hansa and Gretta would grow up and marry and have many children after.

-A tale of the woods bordering the Uloghai.