And then, for the first time in his life, a profound thought entered his head: big, strong, wealthy men like Jack looked as beautiful to these maidens as dainty, buxom, smooth-skinned maidens like Belinda had always looked to Ned.  Was it any fairer to apply the one standard of beauty to mate-selection than the other?  Was it any wiser?  Belinda had enslaved him with her calculated coyness as effectively as Jack had enslaved his wife with his brutality.  Why, had Belinda not lost her cool, she might well have persuaded him to try to kill Winnie!

To kill Winnie?  That gentle creature who bore no ill will towards those who bore none towards her, who was so much fun to be with, who took such delight in entertaining him?  How much more appropriate it was for him to have defended her!  In his mind's eye he saw her smiling face, and discovered to his surprise that it no longer repelled him.  A long nose, a protruding chin - what were these trivia beside those fascinating magical powers which attracted him to her like a magnet?

But what did he have that would attract her in return?  His ability to clean house for her?  Useful, yes, but not necessarily attractive.  His musical talent?  Hardly!  Why, she didn't even enjoy his songs!

And then a second profound thought joined the first one which had been rattling around all alone in his head.  He wouldn't have enjoyed listening to love songs in praise of big, strong men like his brother who held him in contempt; so how could he expect her to enjoy listening to his love songs in praise of maidens who were nothing like her and everything like her arch-enemy?  Suddenly he understood what she had meant by her request that he approach the subject of love from an alternative viewpoint: she wanted to hear her own qualities praised in his songs!  With new-found inspiration he composed, revised and rehearsed until the week was up, the long walk through the woods completed, and the thatched hut visible through the trees.

As he knocked on her door, his heart sank under the weight of yet another thought: if he failed to win her heart, it would make any future visits to her a source of pain for him rather than pleasure.  She greeted him enthusiastically.  "That was a beautiful thing you did for me, Ned!  It'll be so nice to be able to go into town again to do my research without disguising myself!  I hate pretending to be someone I'm not!"  Well, that was a good beginning, he thought, and it made him a little more hopeful, but no less nervous.

The next few hours were sheer torture for Ned.  All the time he was tidying up her house, and all the time she was showing off her magic, he kept delaying confessing his growing infatuation with her.  But when she asked him, "Have you written any new songs for me?" he could delay it no longer.  His heart racing, he sang his latest songs to her, playing uncharacteristically many wrong notes on his lute.  When he had finished, she said to him, "That was beautiful, Ned!  It's just the alternative viewpoint I had in mind."

Her positive reaction to his songs finally gave him the courage he needed to declare his love for her - for that, he now realized, is what he felt.  He took a deep breath, but before he could speak she giggled like any young girl and the words started rushing out of her: "I've felt the same way about you ever since you bluffed Belinda into making amends to me, but I didn't know you felt that way too until I got close enough to ... oops!"

Suddenly she put her hand to her mouth, and her face turned as red as a beet.  For a moment she was at a loss for words; then she stammered tentatively, "I was afraid to tell you this, Ned, but I suppose you'll have to know eventually.  I'll break it to you gently.  Do you remember when I asked you if you had really intended to kill me and you said, 'Not if you promise to play no more nasty tricks on Belinda'?  If you had been lying, you could have done me in on any number of occasions.  Can you guess why I trusted you?"  Ned pondered her question until he remembered having wondered if she could read his mind.  Before he could speak, she nodded and said, "Yes I can - from up close.  We aren't born with this ability; it's a learned skill, and very few of us have mastered it, but I'm one of them.  Try not to let it frighten you, Ned.  Think of it as just one of the magical powers that make me so attractive to you!"

"That's just what I was thinking, Winnie," he said, "but of course I didn't need to tell you that!"

Winnie laughed with relief and began stroking his face with her long, bony hands as she continued, "I have a lot more to tell you about witches, Ned.  As I told you, we do get born, but you'll never guess how we get conceived.  Have you ever heard of a male witch?  No, wizards are not male witches, and no, we are not hermaphroditic.  When a witch wants to procreate, she disguises herself as a human female who lives up to human standards of beauty, she selects an unattached human male and she casts an aphrodisiac spell on him.  Then, to avoid casting suspicion on herself, she puts on another human disguise that is very much out of character for a witch: she acts coy, making him pursue her until she decides it's safe to allow him to catch her.  And then she leaves him and raises their daughter by herself.  It's not much fun, and it's especially galling to have to disguise ourselves to live up to standards alien to our own.  We do it as rarely as possible, and that's why we opt for single motherhood and make love only when we want to procreate.  That's the down side of being a witch; the exciting things we get to do with our lives more than make up for it.  But I'm going to have it all because you've learned to love me with no disguises.  And from now on I'm going to show you what a witch is capable of when she feels free to be herself!"  With that, she began her first such demonstration by kissing him, her face at right angles to his so that neither her nose nor her chin got in the way.

If this were a standard fairy tale, that kiss would have transformed him into a big, strong, handsome prince, and her into a beautiful, dainty, curvaceous princess.  It did nothing of the sort, and neither did any of the other 571428 kisses they exchanged in the course of their long, non-standard life together, but the transformation that had already occurred was infinitely more satisfying: they had found all the beauty they needed within themselves.