Two dreaming hares orbit the full moon, drifting through a sky be-speckled with constellations of stars. It is an ancient lore in the British Isles that the Hare is one of the forms sometimes assumed by witches.

Imagine this.

There is a woman who lives quietly on the outskirts of the village. The road to her home is little more than a thread of scuffed earth in the dusk. All around is the great chalk downland where hawthorn and elder are the gnarled rulers of root and sky.

By day, the woman does her work, sweeping, singing, tending the bees and the garden. She coos sweet nothings to the sparrows and knows just where to find voluptuous fruiting bodies of chanterelle and ceps come the autumn time.

If you happen upon her garden gate on a late summer evening, stop beneath the rambling rose. Let it assault you with its heavy drowsing perfume as bats chitter high in the bruised sky, circling. Look to the window that spills custard light out into the coming darkness.

The witch woman has lit her candle.

Watch in rapture as shadows dance and shift like reflected water on the walls inside.

Watch the shadow of that woman.

The call of owls un-peel, feather by feather from the beech woods, to the sound of her low humming voice. The swollen moon rises betwixt the grey green hills.

Watch the shadow of that woman.

Watch closely as it ripples in the candle gloom. A metamorphosis is taking place.

Watch where hands give way to coarse hewn paws, bejewelled with shining claws. See how braided hair melts into a pair of long cupped ears. Spine slithers into an arch like the old burial mounds of the past. Back legs are spring-loaded with raw animal power.