Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/446

 426 Collectanea,

and call " Mud ! " (an abbreviation of mother) below her breath, and the mother would be with her in a quarter of an hour.

One night a man was out walking accompanied by his dog, and he saw a witch called Maria Chandler in the road. The dog went at her, and she turned into a hare. The dog followed the hare, and bit and tore it. The next morning Maria Chandler was found to be all bitten and torn as by a dog. This same witch was said to have bewitched a young man. He was always weak and ailing, and never could succeed in anything. When she died everything was changed. He became well and strong, and able to do anything he wished.

One day a witch called Mrs. Coventry wished to go to Reading to sell some nuts at the market. She asked a carter who was going there with his wagon and horses to wait for her at the top of the road, and take her there. When the carter got to the top of the road, she was not there, and having no desire for her com- pany he whipped up his horses to go on without her. But all the whipping and coaxing in the world made no difference; the horses could not move. Presently the old woman appeared upon the scenes with her basket of nuts. "So you've waited for ma, carter," she said. " Put me up in the cart and the horses will go on." So " he could not get shot of her," said the teller of the story, and directly she was in the wagon the horses went on.

One witch is told of who used often to be seen dancing at night upon a certain piece of grass called the green. This one was very clever in illness and had the power of " whispering bushes " out of people's hands. (A " bush " is the name for a thorn.) She would whisper some words out of the Bible backwards, moving her finger over the place where the bush had entered, tell the patient to go home and do certain things — put on a poultice sometimes — and the " bush " always came out, but not always at the place where it went in.

One day a witch went to a cottage and asked a poor woman to give her some bread. The woman refused at first ; she had not much in the house, and she wanted it for her children. After some haggling, however, the witch obtained what she wanted, and then she rewarded the hospitality with the most base ingratitude. It seems that whether she had been given the bread or not it would have made no difference to the fate of the inmates of the cottage. They would have been equally unlucky in either case.