What is it with witches and keeping people in cages?

Ladies and gentlemen, turn the lights down low and shut your faces as I tell you story of a really scary rock wall. This is good, I swear.

Once upon a time, in a big house on top of a big, rocky hill, there lived a witch. This witch had a husband and a son, and aside from the whole witch thing, they were a pretty normal, happy family. Unfortunately, the father, being kind of a jerk, decided one day he wasn’t really into being married to a witch, and left with narry a farewell. The witch promptly redirected all of her love and caring toward her son, but her son wasn’t much of a fan of helicopter parenting, and he took off as well.

Credit: Natalie Bruno

With the loss of her love and child, the witch was stricken with grief, and let out a powerful wail so loud that it split the hill under her house right in half! And then someone paved a road in there at some point, but that’s not important. The witch wanted kids to look after more than anything, so in a move that really plays into stereotypes, she started stealing children. The witch would imprison her captives’ souls within the large rock wall that was created by her wail. The only problem was that there was a big, square hole in the wall that souls could escape from, which she remedied by installing a heavy iron gate. Sometimes, practical solutions work best.

It is said that if you venture to the rock wall at night and touch the bars of that gate, you’ll set one of the witch’s captive souls free, and they’ll escape in a spark of light. You’d better high-tail it out of there afterward, though, because that witch is still living on top of that hill, and she gets really cheesed off when people set her souls free. Like, the Hulk times ten.