It is said that witches ride in eggshells downriver
to deliver babies out of wedlock, under cover of night,
that witches turn into hares to escape the grasping fingers
of men with scythes for eyes and briars for tongues.
Of the truthfulness of these two things I do not know,
but I do know that when they ducked Grace Sherwood in
the water, with a thirteen-pound bible tied around her neck,
she sputtered to the surface and spat in the faces of her accusers.
Erin Emily Ann Vance’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Contemporary Verse 2 and filling station. Erin was a 2017 recipient of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Prize and a 2018 Finalist for the Alberta Magazine Awards in Fiction. She will complete her MA in Creative Writing in August 2018 and begin a MA in Irish Folklore and Ethnology at University College Dublin in 2019. Erin’s debut novel. Advice for Amateur Beekeepers and Taxidermists will be published by Stonehouse Publishing in 2019.
