'Well, I managed to get all those pesky potions sorted. Thankfully they don't weigh too much, arms aren't as strong as they once was. Terrible thing about getting old, everything starts to give up on you. Not all at once. Not like a powerful curse. Just bit by bit, every day a little weaker, a little slower. Still, there are compensations. Never heard so much gossip as when the hair went greyer. Everyone wants to tell you every little bit of tittle tattle. If you knew what I know ...
Anyways, the fire's banked up, the tea's brewed and I've got me slippers on so I'll let you in on a secret.
Those love potions? Flavoured water most of 'em. Drop of blackberry syrup, touch of fennel juice, no-one's any the wiser. And I don't guarantee results so it's not my doing if they don't always work. Course I do pop a genuine one in each batch. Well, would you order from someone if there were never any results?
I don't believe in messing with stuff like that, love and the like but they're my best sellers. And if the plain daughter of the baker wants to waste her silver on the vain son of the builder, who am I to object? Although that one turned out to be a good one and he still don't know how he ended up married to her and her dreadful family. Buy your bread elsewhere I say, they put chalk in the flour. But she's as happy as can be, all puffed out with pride, three little 'uns and another on the way by the look of her. New bonnet last weekend too. I worry that he'll end up worn to a shadow though, dark marks under his eyes these days.
But, as I say, not my worry and that's a fact. I just give the people what they want.
Everyone said that it was a love potion that trapped Mother. Why else would a mountain girl with magical powers marry a carver without his own workshop? Well, the truth is it was just love, the true and pure sort. It did make folk wonder though. Mother was a real beauty, taller than most mountain women, golden hair and hazel eyes, slender in the waist and sweet natured until roused. Father couldn't help but fall for her he always said. She took his heart and wrapped it in her own. Father was a short man, like myself, and stocky in build like many carvers. A strong base for moving timber about he said. He could tell when a tree was ready just through touch, feeling the sap flowing under the bark. Knew just by looking at it what it would carve into as well. A real artist in his own way.
Between them they made a strong couple. Her magic and beauty, his strength and stability. Much better than if they had been matched by magic, they were matched by nature.
Now, if you don't mind I need a snooze. So off you pop. Take a potion with you, slip it to your beloved and see if it's a fizzer!'
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