The Widdershins

Leftward went his stride, counter to the sun he strode. They said he was magicked hence by the fairies or was a mechanical manikin witched up from a pot of spells. Old widdershins had a stove pipe hat and his clothes were plucked from a crow he was a longshanks, and wicker-boned, when he circled a church counterclockwise old wives muttered about the ‘devils work’ but he was just crook-legged and addled. Queen Mab midwife of the odd and less ordinary made him from willow cane and burnt straw and when he circled the wrong way all day it was only to stabilize the penny-farthings that roamed around country churches back when. The land, despite dire warnings, did not lose itself in a maze of sorrows, for all was an enchanted misdirection a hocus-pocus roundabout detour, a contrary conjecture that right was always right despite, and left was just a gauche and a gangly wish.