Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/95

Rh maukens (hares) to be devils and witches, and if they but see a sight of a dead mauken it sets them a trembling." Mr. Gregor notes that to say to a fisherwoman of the north-east of Scotland that there is a hare's foot in her creel, or to say to a fisherman that there is a hare in his boat, arouses great ire, and calls forth strong words; the word "hare" is not pronounced at sea. In Cornwall a maiden who has been deceived and dies, haunts her deceiver in the guise of a white hare, sometimes saving his life, but in the end causing his death. So, too, in South Northamptonshire the running of a hare along the street of a village portends fire to some house in the immediate neighbourhood. In the Isle of Man they say women are turned into hares, and can only be shot with a silver sixpence. When a witch is in shape of a hare, the Scotch continue, she can only be hit by a crooked sixpence. "It is unlucky," Dr. Brewer corroborates, "for a hare to cross your path, because witches were said to transform themselves into hares." Indeed, the greatest of all northern wizards. Sir Michael Scott, was turned into a hare by the witch of Falsehope. Several curious hare stories will be found in Mr. Henderson's valuable notes on north-country lore.

The spot which discovered witches to the world sometimes resembled a hare's foot in the experience of continental experts, but it must be borne in mind "ce signe n'est pas toujours de même forme ou figure; tantôt c'est l'image d'un lièvre, tantôt une patte de crapaud, tantôt une orraignée, im petit chien, un loir."

Having gathered together these few illustrations of the unhappy