Not far from the owl’s castle was a large forest, in which all kinds of creatures dwelt, and of which the little people from the castle made great and frequent use. They dearly loved to wander amongst the enormous trees, climbing over their branches, and playing around their gigantic trunks. One tree in particular there was which they held very precious. It had fallen down, and lay in the forest, covering a prodigious space of ground. On, under, and around it, wherever they could do so, the little mannikins planted a large number of fungi, under which they sought shelter from the rays of the sun or the pelting of the storm, and which they called their summer palace. Here they would spend hour after hour when the weather was favourable, and I have often wandered up from my river to have a sly peep at the merry little creatures sporting and playing whilst the distant moon shone upon them from afar, lighting up the walls of the old castle in the distance, and bathing with a flood of light the forest and fallen tree and the mannikins’ playground around the latter. There they would be, sure enough, night after night, running one after the other round the tree and under the fungi, having sometimes coaxed a butterfly or two, a big blue-bottle fly, or some other lively insect, to sit up with them and make a night of it. One would have thought that it would have been scarcely worth the witches’ while to have troubled themselves with these harmless people, when there was so much more mischief of a practical character to be done in the world without. But there is no accounting for tastes, {187}and when the evil passion of malice once seizes upon any one, whether mortal or witch, no one can tell to what extremities it will lead. Accordingly, several of the most notorious witches in that part of the country (and ever since England was a country, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire have been the favourite abodes of witches) resolved to harass and worry the mannikins by every means within their power. [Illustration: 204] Dame Stokes, Mother Wandle, and old Goody Tickleback {188}were the names of the three principal plotters, and a rare bad lot they were when you came to know them. Dame Stokes lived at Datchet, whence she generally sallied forth upon one of the biggest broomsticks ever known in that part of the country. [Illustration: 205]