«No hay que creer que existen, no hay que decir que no existen»

«No hay que creer que existen, no hay que decir que no existen» is a traditional defense against witches that gives precise form to uncertainty: it neither asserts that supernatural beings exist nor declares that they do not. In a conversation between Engrasi and Amaia, the expression becomes more than an old saying. It offers a way to speak around an experience Amaia recognizes as extraordinary but cannot settle into a purely ordinary explanation.

An old defense against witches

Engrasi quotes the phrase while responding to Amaia’s resistance to denying the exceptional nature of what happened. She identifies it as an old defense against witches, once popular barely a century earlier. Its balanced wording avoids both belief and outright denial, preserving a space in which the possibility remains unresolved rather than being forced into certainty.

Amaia’s remembered encounter

Amaia does not reject Engrasi’s point: she says she is not denying that the circumstance was special, then trails off. What returns to her mind is a vivid recollection of amber eyes and a strong, short whistle. The sound had guided her through the forest at night, when she was caught between the dreamlike unreality of the experience and the certainty that it was really happening.

The phrase as a stance toward uncertainty

The exchange gives the saying personal weight. Engrasi offers it as inherited language for approaching witches; Amaia’s response shows why that guarded position matters to her. She cannot simply dismiss what she remembers, yet the scene supplies no final explanation for the eyes or the whistle. The phrase holds open precisely that tension between the feeling of unreality and the conviction of lived experience.