The Noon Lady of Towitta by Patricia Sumerling Read Free Book Online Page B

that included dwarfs, dragons and other nightmare-inducing creatures. One of the scariest creatures of all was the waterman, or in Wendish, the wodny muz , who lurked outside the house waiting to entice us into the massive underground water tank or some other forbidding watery place. Fortunately, some of the more frightening tales involving this creature who wished to lure children to watery graves couldn’t happen in Towitta through lack of water. Despite this, Mother was in constant fear that we’d drown in the water tank even though it was kept covered with corrugated iron. We had no need to fear rain, rivers or lakes, but we were terrified of the water tank, a death trap, and the place where horrible creatures of the night lurked. We laughed and gasped but the thrill of being alive when so many of the fairytale characters had been killed, stayed with us long after the story was told.
    On wild nights when the wind moaned and howled around the farm, I might whisper, ‘Watch out, Pauline Schippan, I can hear the Noon Lady coming, she’s coming to get you .’
    This witch, the Noon Lady, also known as the Woman of Midday or Mittagsfrau , was very much like the wodny muz or the Ztynjedobry who also harmed children and babies in horrible ways. It was well known by Wends that when a small child wandered into the bush and disappeared, the horrible witch had stolen the child for herself. As far as we were concerned, it was pointless setting a black tracker onto the 40 trail of a missing child. You couldn’t escape the witch’s power if she had her evil eye on you. Even when she didn’t actually take a child she’d leave little signs of her visits. Freckles were stamped on the uncovered parts of a child’s body when their parents turned away for a moment. Pauline and I couldn’t ignore this witch for we witnessed an event caused by her evil when we were young.
    Sister Kathleen interrupted to ask, ‘This is the truth, Mary?’ I looked at her, ‘Would I make it up?’
    All Wendish children know she takes babies away if they are neglected or not baptised immediately after birth. Although my parents had seven children, I know there had been another baby and when I was about nine it was taken away by the witch and replaced with a changeling. I remembered Mother cried a lot, she kept asking Father if the Noon Lady would strike again. Pauline and I heard snatches of conversation, mainly in hushed but anguished tones and whispers between the aunts long after the event. I heard Father curse the witch, telling Mother, ‘It won’t happen again if we’re careful.’
    From what I could make out the Noon Lady had done a swap and left her with a ‘no good’ creature – half animal, half human, with a big head and swollen belly, that would never live a normal life – a changeling. Mother wept, ‘Oh my poor little baby, where has she taken you?’
    But we knew. We stood rigid with fear watching Father pick up the writhing tiny creature and run with it from the house on what was a rare stormy night. I can remember clutching Pauline’s hand and I couldn’t take my head out of her apron, I was terrified. But Pauline was so fascinated that she dragged me to the kitchen door and outside where we saw Father take this monstrous-looking creature out into a paddock, scattering and startling a large mob of emus that gathered around the farm when food and water were scarce. We watched him put down his oil lamp and drop the squirming changeling on the ground next to it and then he killed it with a spade, shoving the blade through its neck.
    We were shocked. Pauline dragged me back inside. I still can’t quite believe what I saw. I suppose Father must have buried it somewhere so that only he knew of its whereabouts. By this time, Pauline and I were sitting together on the sofa. I wouldn’t let go of her hand. When Father returned, he looked wild and