Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/313

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Witchcraft.—In the first half of this century a reputed witch lived in the village of Strathkinness, near St. Andrews. She was believed to have the power of invisibly transferring the butter from the churns of her neighbours to her own. They alleged that on the last night of the year she skipped in the open air, swinging a cow-tether made of hair over her head, while she repeated the words:

Having on one occasion asked leave to examine the tail of a neighbour's cow, because there was something wrong with the tail of her own cow, she was unfortunately permitted to do so. The result was that, while the witch's cow gradually recovered, the tail of the neighbour's cow became diseased and slowly rotted away, until the owner was compelled to sell the unsightly but otherwise valuable animal to a butcher. The witch might, of course, inadvertently convey the germs of disease from the tail of one cow to that of another, and the recovery of her own cow might only be a coincidence, but it was not so regarded by the villagers. A young man who was out shooting on an adjacent muir saw a hare, and levelling his gun fired at it. The hare, though wounded, was able to elude him by running down the hill, crossing the road, and getting over the wall into the witch's garden. There it disappeared. When the young fellow went home he told his people that he had shot the witch, and next day when she appeared her head was bandaged. The sportsman was not unduly afraid, for he afterwards married the witch's daughter.

In the same parish another witch, who seems to have lived about the latter part of last century, proved very troublesome to the servants at Clermont Farm. She usually entered the kitchen when butter was being made, and when she appeared the butter would not form, no matter how strenuously or how long the servant might churn. Driven to desperation, it was at last resolved that, when she was next seen approaching the farm, one of the ploughmen should be called into the house to counteract her purpose. Accordingly, when she one day entered the kitchen, she was surprised to see a ploughman at the churn. She took her