selling the wind
art by Vivienne Shanley
The above illustration by Vivienne Shanley depicts witches selling knotted ropes said to release wind when each knot is untied. It is displayed in Cornwall, England at The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, which is one of my sources.*
My sources* On the Black Sea lies Trebizond, where black market enchanters ply fair breezes for a fair price, so my sources are quick to tell me. There, sailors in the doldrums, and other ancient mariners, roam Turkic streets at dawn, seek magic Greeks in doorways for a small pouch of zephyrs, or better, a knotted cord, the better to loose a great gale upon the dormant waves. Land-bound limeys, too, idling on the Isle of Man, my sources are quicker to relate, get their supply from witches who, for a small premium, in defiance of local law, tap holy wells for a waft waiting, or an ever tempting tempest. What, then, for this old salt an ocean and continent away? No market here for a draft, no pushers peddling mythic gusts down the docks and alleys of this west coast down town east side. At best (and at no charge), a tepid Chinook will grace my cheek, will goad a glacier to thaw, then flow. Not quite what my sources urge me to desire— their words kinetic and blowing through me. —— *Another one of my sources, The Towers of Trebizond, a novel by Rose Macaulay (1956), which I am currently reading.
