Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/295

 gentleman's dairymaid not far distant. This vexed Margery, and made her resolved to be revenged for it; so one day as they went abroad in the fields about courtship, she, by casting up dust in the air and other enchantments, raised up a mighty storm of rain, which so swelled the ditches that they overflowed in their way and stopped them; but as they began to think of going back, Margery immediately transformed herself into the shape of a black mare, and came gently towards them; when Roger, glad of the opportunity, first mounted his sweetheart, and then got up himself. But they were no sooner in the middle of the water than she threw them heels overhead, and ran away laughing, soon recovering her shape; while Roger and Dorothy were in a piteous case, and forced to trudge home, like drowned rats, with the story of their unfortunate disaster.

A witch rescues a man, who was going to goal, and plagues the bailiffs, by leading them a dance over hedge and ditch.

man, being arrested by a cruel creditor for debt, and he not being able to pay it, they were carrying him to Lancaster Gaol, when Mother Cuthbert met them, and desired to know the matter. The officers answered her very surlily, pushing her aside, which, raising her choler, she said, "But you shall let him go before we do part." And they said he should not. Whereupon she bade the poor man stop his ears close; and then she drew out a pipe which had been given her by the Witch of Penmure, and then set piping, and led them through hedges and thorns, over ditches, banks, and poles,