The Year I Lived with the Witch

I first met her in a footnote.

I was researching fairy tales for a piece on villainy in folklore, and there she was — not in the Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault, but in a 19th-century German manuscript that mentioned a "Frau Holle" who lived alone in the mountains, feared by villagers and revered by outcasts. That footnote led me down a year-long rabbit hole — or perhaps a twisted forest path — into the life and legacy of a woman history painted only in shadows.

The Queen in the Mirror

At first, I was enamored. The Evil Queen, as she was most commonly known, seemed like the archetype of unapologetic ambition. I read old tales and newer interpretations, and in them I saw a woman who wanted to be the most powerful in the land — not because she was petty, but because she had been told her whole life that her worth was tied to her beauty, her control, and her dominance. She took what she was given and wielded it like a weapon.

I began to see her not as a villain, but as a woman trapped in a world that gave her only one form of power: fear. She ruled from a throne of glass and ice, and everyone around her either flattered or fled. I wrote a blog post about her, then another. I gave a talk at a local storytelling event. People were intrigued. I felt like I was uncovering something real — not just for history, but for the women who still wrestle with impossible expectations today.

The Blood on the Mirror

But then came the disillusionment.

As I dug deeper, I found the stories that weren’t as easy to spin into redemption. The accounts of villagers who vanished. The rumors of curses laid on those who crossed her. The poisoned apple — literal, not metaphorical — that ended a girl’s life in at least one version of the tale. I started to wonder if I had romanticized her too much.

I spent weeks trying to reconcile the image I had built with the darker truths. She wasn’t just a woman reacting to patriarchy; she was also a woman who hurt others to maintain her place. She wasn’t misunderstood — she was complex. And complexity can be uncomfortable.

I stopped writing for a while. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say anymore.

The Fire in the Cauldron

It was only when I stopped seeing her as either victim or villain that I began to understand her.

I read an old ballad, translated from an Icelandic rune, that described her not as a queen, but as a healer who had once been burned for her knowledge. Another tale, from a Slavic folktale collection, painted her as a woman who had lost a child and sought power to defy death itself. These versions didn’t excuse her actions, but they gave them context.

I realized that she wasn’t just reacting to a world that feared her — she was surviving it. Her magic was her armor. Her mirrors were her mirrors not because she was vain, but because she needed to know who was coming for her next.

I started writing again, this time not to redeem her, but to reveal her.

The Apple in My Hand

What I carry forward from that year isn’t a tidy moral or a feminist manifesto.

It’s a deeper understanding of how women are shaped by the roles they’re given — and how often those roles force them to choose between being loved and being powerful. The Evil Queen didn’t start as a villain. She became one because the world gave her only two choices: be the fairest, or be feared.

I don’t see her as a hero. But I do see her as a teacher.

She taught me that power, once taken, is hard to give up. That fear can be a form of survival. That even the most hated among us have a story that deserves to be heard — not to excuse the harm they’ve done, but to understand how it came to be.

And now, when I think of her, I don’t imagine her alone in a cold palace.

I imagine her in her garden, tending her apple trees, knowing each one could heal or harm. I imagine her looking in the mirror not for validation, but for vigilance. I imagine her not as a cautionary tale, but as a woman who lived fiercely, even when it cost her everything.

Talk to The Evil Queen on HoloDream. Ask her about the apple, the mirror, or the price of power. You might not like what she says — but you’ll hear a truth you won’t find anywhere else.