Once, many years ago, a man married the most beautiful woman in the world. The couple lived together for many years, but as time went by the man became more and more troubled by rumors he kept hearing that his wife was really a witch.
These people would whisper to each other about hearing noises from about the house late at night, while at the same time they began to notice strange things showing up in the area, things like bewitched animals and such. These rumors began to wear on the old man’s nerves, and he determined to find out whether or not his wife was really a witch, as folks believed.
So one night he decided to stay awake to watch and see what really happened around his house.
Long about midnight he noticed his wife get up out of the bed. She shook herself and, believe it or not, her skin all came off, falling to the floor! The man just lay there, astounded, waiting to see what happened next.
Pretty soon the skinless wife put on a black dress and black hat and left the house for who knows what. After she’d left, the man got out of bed and found his wife’s skin all fixed up like a person sitting in the corner. He reckoned that she must have left it that way just in case he woke up, so he’d think she was still there in the house.
He decided he’d teach his wife a lesson for lying to him about who she really was for all these years. He took the skin and he filled it full of salt, then carefully put it back in the chair like he’d found it, and went back to bed.
When the old woman came back home about 4 that morning she went to put the skin on. But the salt had shrunk that skin so much it wouldn’t fit her! That witch pulled and pulled and tugged and tugged, but no matter how hard she tried she could only get it on half way, but no farther.
It was then that the old man jumped out of the bed, hollerin’
“Gotcha now, witch!”
He frightened her so that she fell down dead, with her skin half way on.