And here is my crone, my witch, my old woman. I see her in a rather more sympathetic light than the classic fairy tale. Old age bears with it a vulnerability that has kinship to childhood, I think, except that children generally grow stronger and firmer in body and more independent as time passes and the old grow more frail and less able to care for themselves. So there, my witch is not a hate figure she has just lived a long time and is what she is because of the life she has lived.