The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Complete A-Z for the Entire Magical World - Judika Illes 2005

Fitcher’s Bird (sometimes called Fowler’s Fowl)
Fairy-Tale Witches and Mother Goose

A wizard misuses his powers in this Bluebeardtype tale to become a serial killer of women. Having already murdered many women, he kidnaps three sisters, one after the other. The first two fall prey to his wiles; the third has shamanic skills and is able to resurrect her sisters by reassembling their dismembered parts. The wizard is ultimately burned alive.

The wizard is clearly a villain and so there’s little sympathy for him (his is a flat character, nothing is revealed about him other than he’s an evil wizard/serial killer); however he is also the only person explicitly identified as a magical practitioner. The third sister has her skills too, although this is not made explicit: for those unfamiliar with shamanic ritual, it may seem completely coincidental that she just happens to know how to resurrect her sisters. What is perhaps not coincidental is that the one figure clearly identified as a magical practitioner, the wizard, is burned.