Far away in the swamps of Totalia, an old woman cackled. The old woman was at least 100 years of age,* but her green eyes showed the fervor of a child. She was bent and stooped with old age. A frog jumped out of a large cast-iron pot, and was promptly plopped back into the pot by the old crone. She liked to tell people she had lost her sanity years ago, and she had fun keeping up the appearance. The frog made one last desperate attempt to get out and escape to it's wife and kids. It lept so far that it would have won a contest for frog jumping had there been one, but the old crone caught it in mid air. The frog gave up, lied down, and went to sleep.
"Haha!" the crone squealed "submission at last!" The crone had made it into a kind of contest with a frog. A battle of wills. It had lasted a couple of hours. The frog, of course had not known this. The crone took the frog and placed it on a mossy-green rock outside. "Now, sleep tight Dearie. Tell one of your friends to come visit me tomorrow... a nice plump green one would be nice..." and she trotted back inside of her hovel.
This crone, Latilda, was a witch. Not the evil cackling kind... well actually she did cackle... not the evil kind that ate children. She had nine warts and counting, and she was proud of them. She would show them off to passerbys. She would shout at the frogs about how happy she was to have them. Latilda, in fact, was an aging witch, and her sanity had left years ago. She just didn't know it.
*At least, that's what people thought. Nobody knew how she looked so lively, but nobody even suspected that she was 806.
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