Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/277

 WITCHCRAFT keeps its hold on the minds of many of our peasants. They never doubt its reality, although their conceptions of its effects, and the powers of those who are supposed to practise the art, have undergone much modification since the time when witchcraft was made a capital crime. At present reputed witches are supposed to employ themselves much more in doing mischief than in "raising storms and causing great devastations both by sea and land." Witch feasts are now unknown; nor do "the old crones" now fly through the air on broomsticks; but they are supposed to be able to cause bad luck to those who offend them; to produce fatal diseases in those they desire to punish more severely; and to plague the farmers by afflicting their cattle, and rendering their produce almost unprofitable. Sickles, triple pieces of iron, and horse shoes, may still be found on the beams and behind the doors of stables and shippons; which are supposed to possess the power of destroying, or preventing, the effects of witchcraft; and self-holed stones, termed "lucky-stones," are still suspended over the backs of cows in order that they may be protected from every diabolical influence. When cream is "bynged," and will produce no butter by any amount of churning, it is said to be bewitched, and a piece of red hot-iron is frequently put into the churn, in order that "the witch may be burnt out," and that butter may be produced. To prevent cream from being bynged, dairy-maids are taught to sing when churning—