Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/272

244 surrounded by his visitors, who beguiled their "longue-veilles" by knitting and telling strange stories of the olden times, of ghosts, of witches and witchcraft, and of hobgoblins, and narrating legends and gruesome tales of horrible deeds.

Witchcraft.—It is one of the greatest characteristics of wizards and witches that they have the power of assuming any form they please. A man who kept a number of cows observed that they were gradually pining away, and failed to give him the usual quantity of milk. No care that he could bestow on them improved their condition. On the contrary, two died. Moreover, when the farmer visited his cows in the morning, he generally, found them showing signs of exhaustion, as if they had been hard driven. At length he began to suspect that the animals were under a spell; he determined to watch, and concealed himself at dusk in a cattle shed, which stood in a corner of the field in which the cows were tethered. At midnight his attention was attracted to a large black dog which jumped over the hedge which separated his field from that of a neighbour with whom he had lately had a quarrel. The dog approached the cows, stood upon his hind legs, and began to dance before them, cutting such capers and somersaults as the farmer had never seen before. No sooner had the cows seen the dog than they also stood upright, and imitated all his movements. The farmer crept stealthily out of the field, went home, and loaded his gun with a silver coin which he cut into slugs,—well knowing that no baser metal than silver will succeed against a witch or wizard. He then returned to the field, and found the dance still going on, as fast and furious as ever; he fired at the dog, which ran away howling and limping on three legs. The next day his neighbour was seen with an arm in a sling, and it was given out that in returning from town, the previous evening, he had fallen on a heap of stones and broken his arm. The farmer had his own ideas, but wisely kept them to himself. The neighbour had had a lesson, and found he had to deal with a resolute man, so that the cows were allowed to remain unmolested, and soon recovered their health and strength.

That witchcraft has its practical side is proved by the following incident. A young lady lost a diamond ring. She felt certain