They called her Nanny Bee, although as far as anyone knew she had never been a wife or a mother, let alone a grandmother. But she was popularly believed to be a witch – so Nanny it was. She lived in a pink-walled thatched cottage that crouched between the village green and the vicarage. The Reverend Alphonso Scoggins (a person of peculiarly mixed heritage and a fondness for large dinners) joked that between him and Nanny they could see the villagers from birth to burial.
Nanny’s garden was the most verdant and productive little patch you could ever imagine, and she could be found pottering in its walled prettiness from dawn to dusk almost every day. People came to visit and were given advice, or medicine, or other potions in tiny bottles or scraps of paper – but they always had the sneaking suspicion they were getting in the way of the gardening.
But there again, digging is second nature to gnomes.
When the sensible wife of a well-to-do sheep farmer appeared at the back door with a request for a love philtre Nanny was surprised.
But she invited the woman in and sat her by the kitchen fire with a mug of camomile tea.
“It’s Amos. He don’t want me no more. Set his eyes on a chit of seventeen summers. With a big belly she swears is his.”
“Wouldn’t be Widow Wossname’s girl would it?”
“It would.”
Nanny sighed.
“You go on home and leave this to me.”
Once the woman was safely away, Nanny swore a bit and went out to talk to the bees.
An hour later a certain widow was banging frantically on the front door with a swarm of bees buzzing about her head.
“Help me, please.”
Nanny looked at her sternly.
“You and your daughter have got to stop trying to foist her brat on every farmer in the valley.”
“Well somebody has to take responsibility.”
“The actual father?”
“She don’t know who it is.”
“There has to be one that isn’t married…”
The widow spread her hands in a gesture of defeat.
“I’ll have her wed by Thursday.”
The bees flew away.
Working Title Blogspot 
There should be a Nanny Bee in every town…
LikeLike