Learn Italian: Appena vide il diavolo, la strega scappò. - As soon as she saw the devil, the witch ran away.

While strict grammar rules state that an action completed immediately before another distant past action should use the trapassato remoto (like ebbe visto), Italian often simplifies this. When the two actions are practically simultaneous and the sequence of events is obvious, writers frequently use the passato remoto for both verbs (vide and scappò).

What tense is scappò, and why does it dictate the tense in the first clause?

Scappò is the passato remoto of scappare. This is important because temporal conjunctions like appena only trigger the trapassato remoto (or this simplified double passato remoto structure) if the main clause is also in the passato remoto. If the main clause were in the passato prossimo (like è scappata), the first clause would instead take the trapassato prossimo (aveva visto).

Why is the subject la strega placed in the second clause instead of at the very beginning?

Placing the subject in the main clause (la strega scappò) rather than the dependent clause is a common stylistic choice in written storytelling. It builds a tiny bit of suspense and makes the narrative flow feel more dynamic. You could absolutely say Appena la strega vide il diavolo, scappò, which is just as grammatically correct.

I sometimes mix up the passato remoto forms of vedere. Is vide regular or irregular?