The Bewitching Trilogy in 4 Parts - part 1

The Bewitching of Maharaja Richie Red The Rooster 

In the days when Rich was a princeling spry,

With a crown made of twigs and a glint in his eye,

He wandered too far from the palace of jam,

Into woods where the mushrooms whispered, “Scram!”

The trees grew thick with Witch Hazel’s grin,

He tripped on a root and tumbled right in

Down a slope of ferns, green as envy’s face,

Where the moss sang jazz and the spores kept pace.

He rolled past a squirrel who played the kazoo,

Past a fox in socks sipping nettle brew,

Till he landed kerplunk by a bubbling pot,

Where the Witch Panda stirred her spellful lot.

She wore a robe stitched from bamboo dreams,

Her cauldron hissed with musical steam.

She tossed in frog spawn, a bat polished bright,

And a Son House record “Death Letter” for plight.

The brew went boom, the brew went bang,

It fizzed like funk in a gospel gang.

She ladled a sip to the dazed young Rich,

Who drank it down with a hiccup and twitch.

He woke with a howl at the stroke of twelve,

Each night henceforth in a musical delve.

He dreamt of slide guitars and spectral moans,

Of delta ghosts and xylophone bones.

He’d sweat out rhythms, he’d hum in his sleep,

His bedsheets tangled in twelve-bar deep.

He’d croon to the moon, he’d wail to the trees

Oh yes, damn right, he had got the blues.

Now Maharaja Rich, with his regal pout,

Still struts in robes with the mushrooms about.

But deep in his crown, where the Witch once brewed,

Lives a midnight groove that can’t be subdued.

So beware the woods where the pandas chant,

Where the ferns do jazz and the mushrooms rant.

For if you sip from that bubbling stew

You’ll wake up singing the Son House too.

A Synposis

“He drank the brew, and the brew sang back

Now midnight hums in his feathered track.”

The cauldron sang  in spectral yellow, sending musical notes swirling like fireflies around Maharaja Rich’s bewildered crown. 

It was if the Son House spirit itself rose from the brew, wrapping the rooster prince in a halo of midnight melody.

Oh, Maharaja Rich the young Rooster would be utterly flabbergasted; his royal feathers frazzled, his crown tilted like a jazz note mid solo. 

He sat there blinking in slow syncopation as fluorescent musical notes spiralled around his head, each one echoing a midnight riff from the Son House brew. 

He probably did try to cluck out a dignified protest, but it came out as a gravelly blues croon:

“Bawk… I got them cauldron-cooked, frog-spawned, bat-polished, midnight-music makin’ blues…”

He staggered to his feet, robe swirling like a velvet curtain on a smoky stage, and begin pacing in twelve-bar circles. 

The Witch Panda, ever serene, nodded approvingly, adjusting her glasses and whispering, “The potion sings true.”

And from that night on, Rich wouldn’t just dream music—he’d live it. Every royal decree would be delivered in slide guitar. 

Every breakfast egg would be poached to the rhythm of a harmonica solo. 

Even his royal rooster crow would bend into a soulful wail:

“Cock-a-doodle-dooooooo… got the brew-born blues!”