Miss Witch, please don't leave your fragrance everywhere

"What's next?"

"There is no sequel, no redemption, and the whole story ends in a tragic way. Witch, my research tells me that Little Red Riding Hood was originally told to women who wanted to turn from sparrows into phoenixes, telling them how dangerous men are. Later, it gradually evolved and was adapted into a fairy tale, giving a perfect ending where the bad guys were punished and the good guys survived and reunited."

After that, Jacob and William started arguing again because of their disagreement.

Angelica showed a playful smile on her face, she understood the purpose of the two: the surviving witch must have witnessed the true changes in Hans' fairy tale collection.

128 Cinderella

"There is also a fairy tale like this, which tells of a beautiful girl who was envied by her wicked stepmother and two sisters. They constantly oppressed her and made her do heavier work than a servant. The girl was always unkempt, so people called her Cinderella."

"The story of Cinderella... Not only do children love to watch it, but ladies also have a special liking for this stage play. Do you want to slander Cinderella too?"

"I repeat, this is not slander, I am analyzing the original appearance of the fairy tale."

William argued that he thought he was right.

"In the story, the prince held a ball and invited all the beautiful girls in the city. The stepmother wanted to use this opportunity to turn her two biological daughters into beautiful women, so she disguised them and sent them to the ball together. Poor Cinderella, who also wanted to attend the ball, was left at home by her wicked stepmother to do housework... But the tears of the sad Cinderella moved the Lady of the Lake."

The so-called Lady of the Lake refers to a beautiful woman who lives in an underwater castle in legend. They often possess magical powers that can make people's dreams come true.

"The Lady of the Lake gave Cinderella magic, turning mice into horses, pumpkins into carriages, and beautiful dresses and crystal shoes. These magics could only last for one night. When Cinderella arrived at the ball, she stunned everyone, including the prince. The prince fell in love with her at first sight and took the initiative to invite Cinderella to be his dance partner. However, as dawn approached, Cinderella's magic was about to expire, so she had to leave. The prince wanted to keep her, but Cinderella was afraid that she would be hated if she lost her gorgeous clothes, so she ran away desperately and left one of her crystal shoes behind."

As for why the crystal shoe did not disappear, there is no explanation in the fairy tale. Some people think that the magic of the Lady of the Lake was cast on Cinderella, and being separated from Cinderella caused a bug, so it did not disappear.

What William wanted to discuss was indeed the crystal slippers, but not why they did not disappear.

"The disagreement occurs here. The prince tries to find Cinderella through the crystal shoes. In the normal version, the wicked stepmother obstructs him a lot, but the prince still finds Cinderella by comparing the shape of her feet, and the lovers finally get married. But Jacob, do you know what the original version is like? In order to pass off Cinderella as the real one, one of her sisters cut off her toes and the other cut off her heels! The prince found that the crystal shoes were full of blood, and then he concluded that Cinderella's two sisters had changed their foot shapes. At the end of the story, a crow pecked out the eyes of the wicked stepmother, and all the bad guys were cruelly punished."

"None of these! William, you keep saying that you are studying the original version, but I think you just want to satisfy your curiosity! The correct ending of the story should be that the stepmother and the two sisters are left with nothing, or they turn over a new leaf. The children don't want to see the bloody content, and the actors can't perform it. Is this the result you want?"

"No, Jacob, I just think that the original form of the story must not be buried. It can be changed in line with the trend of the times, but no one can erase the original form of the story. It should be preserved."

"I really cannot accept your so-called original version...it's full of weird content."

"That's why we found the witch!"

Jacob and William's argument finally came to an end, and Angelica roughly understood their points of view.

Jacob firmly believes that fairy tales are a beautiful world, while William advocates that the original version should not be destroyed. However, the original version William investigated is far from the content of current fairy tales. Jacob cannot accept it, and the audiences of other fairy tales also find it difficult to agree with it.

The two cast expectant glances at the witch, and the witch's response was...

“Puchi…hahahahaha…”

Angelica burst into laughter, leaving Jacob and William at a loss. The witch seemed to have heard something really interesting, and she laughed so hard that tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

It had been a long time since she had cried out of sadness, but this world always gave Angelica some new and interesting perspectives.

"Mister Witch? You are…"

"S-Sorry! I was wondering how Hans would feel if he knew what had happened to me."

"Hans? You mean Hans, the author of the collection of fairy tales?"

"Yes, you probably know very little about Hans, right?"

Angelica's question stumped Jacob and William. In fact, not only they, but everyone knew nothing about Hans. Who was he? What was his identity? For what purpose did he compile a collection of fairy tales?

Nobody knows.

William is a historian after all, and although his research focuses on the prototypes of fairy tales, he has done some superficial research on Hans.

"As far as I know... the stories in this collection of fairy tales may not be written by Hans alone. He may have played the role of a collector. I tried to find Hans, but Hans is a very common male name in the Cimbri area. He is not a nobleman, so it is difficult for me to find any trace of Hans, and in the end I could only let it go."

Cimbri is a peninsula on the northern coast of the human world. In the past, orcs often plundered the coast and conflicts often broke out with humans. Cimbri was closer to the orcs' territory and was the place most severely looted by the orcs. For a period of time, it was even occupied by the orcs.

"Yes, Hans is from the Cimbri. Due to its geographical location, the Cimbri are often impacted by foreign cultures. The orcs not only plundered human land, but also elves, fairies and other races. The Lady of the Lake appears in the Cinderella story, but the Lady of the Lake is a local legend of Fairy Island. The reason why it appears in the Cinderella story is that the orcs learned about the Lady of the Lake after plundering fairies and brought it to Cimbri where they settled."

"So that's it."

William suddenly realized that he had heard some sailors mention that there was also a legend of the Lady of the Lake on the distant Fairy Island. It turned out that the Lady of the Lake on the Fairy Island was the prototype. With the orcs' coastal raids in history, the story of the Fairy Island was eventually brought to the human world, especially to the Cimbri Peninsula, where it took root.

"In the past, the Cimbri were ruled by orcs. Hans lived in the most oppressive era. He could not see any hope and did not know what the future would be like. Only stories passed down by word of mouth were passed down. Mr. Jacob believed that fairy tales were beautiful dreams for children, while Mr. William believed that they were full of blood in the beginning. Both were right and wrong. Let's work backwards from the three stories told by Mr. William and talk about Cinderella first."

129 Let the world hear our story

"Cities along the coast all have faith in the ocean. The Cimbri people's faith is in Tlaloc, the god of the sea. Their legends contain a ceremony in which Tlaloc marries a human bride, and the content of the ceremony is shoe-trying. Whoever can wear the crystal shoes given by Tlaloc will become the bride of Tlaloc. Later, the orcs occupied the Cimbri Peninsula, and the faith in Tlaloc gradually decreased and was once banned from spreading. The Cimbri people then adapted their faith and traditions to form the story of Cinderella."

Angelica paused for a moment.

"Then there is Little Red Riding Hood. The prototype of this story is that there is an area on the Cimbri Peninsula ruled by a werewolf. The werewolf is extremely bloodthirsty and likes to devour beautiful human girls. Two Cimbri people stood up. One girl took poison on her own initiative and volunteered to be the werewolf's sacrifice. While the poison was taking effect, the other Cimbri assassinated the werewolf and successfully liberated the area ruled by the werewolf. However, this liberation was just a meteor across the night sky, which was fleeting. The orcs ruled the area again. The same prohibition of dissemination and the adaptation of the confrontation formed the story of Little Red Riding Hood."

William gasped.

"Wait, the original version I researched... said that a half-digested Little Red Riding Hood was found in Grandma Wolf's stomach. Could it be..."

"It's about the girl who volunteered to sacrifice herself. Mr. Jacob, you are right. The fairy tales circulated in the Cimbri are for children, but they are also wrong. The Cimbri people hope that their children can remember that they prayed to God and tried to resist themselves. Mr. William, you are right. The first edition of the fairy tale was bloody, but it is also wrong. During that period, the Cimbri people suffered a lot and lived a cruel life. There was no need for them to be shy about such content."

From the belief that the sea god chooses his bride through the crystal shoes, to the desperate sacrifice and resistance of two Cimbri against the rule of werewolves, these are the prototypes of fairy tales. The forbidden beliefs and rebellious spirit formed the original dark fairy tales through adaptation and were passed down from mouth to mouth.

William, with mixed feelings, took a long time to recover. He knew that the Cimbri had a history of being ruled by orcs, but he did not expect that the fairy tale was created in such a background.

"So the girl stepping on the bread also..."

"Ah, that's nothing."

"what?"

"The prototype of that story is simply that there was a big swamp near where the Cimbri lived, and they made it up to tell children not to play near the swamp because it was dangerous."

But no matter what, the truth narrated by the witch gave William a great shock. It was the first time he saw history being passed down in this way.

So William couldn't help but ask the witch.

"How do you know all this? Have you... seen Hans in person?"

"I've seen it before."

Angelica said as she took a book from the bookshelf and flipped through it boredly. The book was Hans's collection of fairy tales.

Witches have the habit of traveling around, and the fairy tales collected by Hans actually came into the human world through Angelica.

Hans entrusted the collection of fairy tales to Angelica. Wherever he went, Angelica would distribute the collection of fairy tales that she had copied using magic until she no longer needed to spread it.

“I want to know…what kind of mood did Hans have when he collected these stories?”

“…He wanted the world to know.”

Angelica closed the book and calmly recounted the past.

"In the era when Hans lived, the Cimbri were on the verge of extinction. Hans also believed that the Cimbri might really perish under the rule of the orcs, so he began to collect stories about the Cimbri. This is what Hans told me -"

Angelica imitated the tone of Hans, whom she could no longer remember.

"If one day, the Cimbri disappear, it will be our legacy to the world."

Let people know how we worship the gods we believe in.

Let people know that we have also risen up against oppression.

Let people know that we live next to a not-so-beautiful landscape.

"This will be proof of our existence, this will be the mark we leave in the world."

The story originally told to the Cimbri entered the human world with the witch's footsteps.

However, the development of history is always unexpected.

The collection of fairy tales was edited beyond all recognition, retaining only the narrative thread, and the Cimbri did not die out as Hans and the desperate people of his time predicted.

Shortly after Hans' death, the Cimbri people, led by several heroes, once again rebelled and eventually succeeded in defeating the orcs and liberating the oppressed people.

Ironically, the Cimbri did not develop a feud with the Orcs. It is said that the Orcs always admired warriors, and they admired the Cimbri who drove them away. Later, when the Cimbri and other human kingdoms clashed, the Orcs came all the way to help the Cimbri. Finally, to this day, the Cimbri Peninsula has maintained a good relationship with the Orcs, and it can even be regarded as an area where humans and Orcs live in harmony.

From this perspective, Hans’s sad wish at the time... well, no one can predict which direction the wheel of history will go, right?

Angelica helped Jacob and William to resolve their concerns, especially William who studied history. He was very emotional. He said he planned to visit the Cimbri Peninsula and study the history of the Cimbri people, who he was very interested in. Jacob was the mayor and could not go with them, but he was willing to use the profits from the theater to support William.

Their argument was no longer meaningful, as the two old friends finally gave each other a heartfelt hug after many years.

By the way, William now focuses his research on the Cimbri. He may not know that what he is doing has already involved folklore, a concept that is not popular in the current era.

When Angelica left Mayor Jacob's office, she once again opened the collection of Hans' fairy tales that she had taken away.

There is a very brief introduction on the preface page.

The book contains fairy tales written by Hans for children...

Let’s not discuss the authenticity of this line of words or the content of the book.

This short line of words represents Hans' forty years of life.

【Witch TIPS】

Not every place Angelica visited had something worth describing. In some cases, she passed through several towns between two chapters.

No one has complained about Angelica getting into trouble wherever she goes. I thought someone would have complained about this tip before...

130 [The Witch and the Swordsman]

"what……"

Angelica was flying slowly on her broom. Suddenly a gust of wind blew and the witch's wizard hat was blown to the side of the road.

"Greed, Sequence 7: Telekinesis."

Angelica summoned the wizard hat back into her hand and brushed the dust off it.

Suddenly, a speeding carriage stopped on the road in front of the witch.

Angelica tilted her head, but she was not surprised by this situation. Her hat being blown away meant that Angelica had no way to hide her face, and someone would definitely stop to look.

A nervous-looking man in the carriage opened the curtain, but Angelica's beautiful girl radar still keenly captured that there was definitely a young girl hidden in the carriage, who might be the man's daughter.

The man didn't know what had happened to him, and dry cracks were visible on his lips.

"Stranger...are you going to the capital of Brielle?"

The capital of Brielle, Angelica's destination, was also the capital of the Kingdom of Brielle. Angelica heard some rumors that someone had seen someone she was interested in in the Kingdom of Brielle.

The descendant of the brave - the brave of the sword.

Different from the "healing" hero and the "art" hero whose inheritance is through blood, the inheritance of the "sword" hero is focused on the "sword" itself.

Excalibur, also known as the Sword in the Lake, is a sword that can cut through anything as sharp as mud. However, Excalibur is a sword that can cut through anything as sharp as a blade. It can cut through anything, whether it is steel or human body, as if it has no defense. In addition, it does not need maintenance and will not rust. It is a recognized rare weapon.

The inheritance of the "Sword" hero revolves around the Broken Steel Sword. Whoever possesses the Broken Steel Sword symbolizes the contemporary "Sword" hero.

"Yes. If you'd like to give me a ride..."

In fact, the direction the carriage was heading was exactly the capital of Brielle, but there were many people who were willing to deliberately inconvenience themselves in order to win Angelica's favor.

Obviously, not this time.

"Run!"

After receiving Angelica's affirmative answer, the man left this sentence and immediately urged the driver to leave, disappearing from Angelica's sight.

Angelica was confused. Did something happen to King Brielle? Brielle was a peaceful country. There was no sign of war either at home or abroad. The only problem that troubled Brielle recently was that a dragon appeared on the border of the kingdom, causing great panic in the kingdom.

Could it be that the evil dragon has already invaded the capital...? No, the carriage was intact, and no other refugees were seen.

Forget it, why bother thinking so much. The dragon is no match for me anyway.

Angelica ignored the man's warning and continued to head towards the capital.

Not long after, Angelica arrived at the royal capital, and she was examined as usual.

"Ms. Magician, can you take off your hat?"

"Um...okay."

Although Angelica didn't want to cause a commotion, she still took off her wizard hat obediently, considering that when in Rome, she should follow the local customs.

The guards widened their eyes, seemingly not expecting the true face hidden under the wizard's hat to be so shocking.