In Galicia, the green and misty corner of northwest Spain, people have a saying: “Eu non creo nas meigas, pero habelas, hainas.” It means, more or less: “I don’t believe in meigas, but they exist all the same.”
Meigas are the wise women of Galician stories. Some are kind, and know which herb will settle a stomach or soothe a sore throat. Some are mischievous, and get the blame whenever the milk turns sour, a hen goes missing or a cart loses a wheel on a perfectly good road. Nobody admits to believing in them. Everybody is a little careful, just in case.
Uxía lived with her grandmother in a stone village above the sea. Her grandmother knew the name of every plant on the hillside and could read the weather from the colour of the fog. People came to her for a cup of tea when they had a cough, and for advice when they had a problem. Nobody ever said the word meiga out loud. But they thought it.
On the shortest night of the year, the Night of San Xoán, the whole village went down to the beach and lit bonfires. Sparks flew up towards the stars, and the older children jumped over the small fires, for a healthy year ahead.
But before the fires, Uxía and her grandmother had work to do. They walked the lanes and the hillside, gathering herbs: wild fennel and rosemary, mallow and elderflower, the yellow herb of San Xoán, and a few others that her grandmother only pointed at and named in a whisper. At home they put them all in a bowl of water and left it outside overnight, under the stars, so that the night could do its part.
“Every plant brings something,” said her grandmother. “But only together, and only in the right mix.”
In the morning, the water smelled of the whole hillside. Uxía washed her face in it, the way every child in the village did, so that the year ahead would be healthy and bright and any mischievous meiga would know to keep her distance.
“Grandmother,” Uxía asked, drying her face, “are you a meiga?”
Her grandmother smiled and put the kettle on.
“I don’t believe in meigas,” she said. “But…”
“…they exist all the same,” said Uxía.
If you would like to mix a few magic ingredients of your own, the Potion Lab is open, and nobody there will ask whether you believe in it.
