Skip to main content

story identification - Seeking a picture book about tricking witches into going out into the rain


In the early 1980s, I read a picture book about how a group of men destroyed the coven of witches that were terrorizing their town. As I remember it, the style of the illustrations was similar to that of Tomie dePaola, but none of the books he illustrated sound like what I am looking for.


I do not recall what the group of witches actually did to make trouble. However, I do remember how they were destroyed. The witches were vulnerable to rainwater, or maybe any water (like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz). However, they were smart enough not to leave their cave when it was raining.


A group of men from the town—the same number as there were witches—headed out to the cave in a downpour. Each of them carried a watertight jar with a fresh set of clothes inside, and they changed out of their wet garments and into the dry ones after they were just inside the cave. Then they headed deeper in, to where the witches were; the men told the witches that they were beautiful, and they wanted to dance with them outside. The witches were suspicious, but the men pointed to their dry garments and said that they were so dextrous that they could walk in between the raindrops without getting wet; they could protect their dance partners from the rain in the same way. This fooled the witches, who went out with the men; but when they started dancing, the rain washed all the witches away.


Does anyone know what book this was?



Answer



Could it be The Rabbi and the 29 Witches by Marilyn Hirsh?


The picture style looks just like the artist you are describing:


enter image description here



The Goodreads page also mentions the dancing and dry clothes (from a review):



I like the concept that witches only come out on full moons and scare the villages. But they won't come out on full moons when it rains. Therefore, if 29 men went to the witches caves when it rains, and were dry, well that would be some trick. The witches wanted to know how the men could walk between the rain drops and not get wet. So the Rabbi and the men lured the witches in the rain to dance...and you can guess the rest...a whole Wizard of OZ "I'm Melting, MELTING M-E-L-T-I-N-G"



Found with the search "trick cave witches rain picture book".


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...