"Witch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... This witch had been coming to the castle for years; the huntsman knew her well. Every autumn she would swear must prove her last visit—yet here she was again, with "her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes, of no use ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... Broken Straw, Witch Hazel and Colored Daisy—"Your folly and coquetry have broken the spell ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... has our village blacksmith critic requested a sermon upon the genealogy of Melchizedek, which the minister agreed to furnish when our blacksmith could tell him the foundry which manufactured Tubal Cain's hammer and anvil. Lot's wife, the witch of Endor, Jonah's whale, the sundial of Ahaz, and the population of Nineveh, were all duly discussed, together with the bodies in which the angels dined with Abraham. Did the loaves and fishes miraculously multiply in numbers, or increase in size? ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... parts of the world; indeed, in some respects they are less so, but their barbarism is the result of their ignorance and debased condition. They have no religion—properly so called—their only belief is in what we denote fetishism, which is a word taken from the Portuguese feticeira or witch. They have idols, but they can scarcely be said to worship these, and they believe that power resides in serpents and birds, as well as in inanimate objects, such as mountain peaks, in bones, and feathers, and ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... of an extremely well-dressed, refined-looking woman whom he judged to be anything over fifty. But what held his attention most was the lean, emaciated face and penetrating eyes. There was something of the witch about it, as there was about the bowed figure. But more than ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... that witch of a Molly Winston contrived to gather the clan together round her and Jack, and give me a chance to play guide to Pat. To be sure, Mrs. Shuster, loyal to her absent partner, tried to form a hollow square around us. But she couldn't ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... on the kitchen table. There was a teasing wind outside, with a flurry of snow, and she had acknowledged that the irritating weather made her as nervous as a witch. So she had taken to ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... seeing a witch, not mounted on a broomstick, but on the respectable household cat, changed for that night into a flying fury; finally, along with my brothers, being captured, washed, and dressed, to join with other spirits worse than ourselves in "dooking" for apples and eating mashed potatoes in momentary expectation ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... was mistaken and I'm real glad of it. I ain't one of those kind of people, Marilla, as can never be brought to own up that they've made a mistake. No, that never was my way, thank goodness. I did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren't no wonder, for an odder, unexpecteder witch of a child there never was in this world, that's what. There was no ciphering her out by the rules that worked with other children. It's nothing short of wonderful how she's improved these three years, ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... kept him wakeful. To see Count Hannibal roll in the dust had gone but a little way towards satisfying him. No! But to drag from his arms the woman for whom he had sinned, to subject her to shame and torture in the depths of some convent, and finally to burn her as a witch—it was that which had seemed to the priest in the night hours a vengeance sweet in ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... anguish. Yes, she, the keen, mordant, jesting little woman, prayed and implored her Maker to unloose her from the enchantment, and permit her to find the long-sought-for entrance. But praying was in vain, the door was not to be found, it was witch craft, and she must submit to it. The rustling and moving her arms frightened her now, and when she walked the darkness prevented her seeing if any one followed her; so she crouched upon the floor, yielding to the unavoidable ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... Miss Oman whisked to the right-about and vanished into the depths of the cavern like the Witch of Wokey, while I hurried on to the surgery to provide myself with the necessary instruments and materials, and thence ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Impudence of the donors, and the childish Credulity of the Receivers. the Church misled the Vulgar, and then made Money of their Errors. There is not an Attribute of God, and hardly a Word in the Bible, to which she gave not some Turn or other, to serve her Worldly Interest. The Relief of Witch-craft was the Fore-runner of Exorcisms; and the Priests forged Apparitions to shew the Power they pretended to, of laying Spirits, and casting out Devils. To make accused Persons, sometimes by Ordeal, at others by single Combat, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... Tree Honey Locust Red or Canada Plum Wild Plum Green Ash Sassafras American Elm Rock Elm Slippery Elm Wild Red Cherry Wild Black Cherry Wild Crab Apple Mountain Ash Cockspur Thorn Black Haw Scarlet Fruited Thorn Shad Bush Witch Hazel Sweet Gum Flowering Dogwood Pepperidge Persimmon Black Ash White Ash Red Ash Scarlet Oak Black Oak Pin Oak Jack Oak Hackberry Red Mulberry Sycamore Butternut Black Walnut Bitternut Shagbark Hickory Mockernut Hickory Pignut Hickory King Nut Hickory Small ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... unfailing attraction: 'There's a man in it,' 'It is Lubari; it is witch-craft,' they would cry.' He talks; he says, Teek, teek, teek,' My nose they would compare to a spear; it struck them as so sharp and thin compared to the African production, and ofttimes one bolder than the rest would give my hair and my beard a sharp pull, imagining them to be wigs worn for ornament. ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... Atlanta were paralysed with horror. When Uncle Jake Norris ran up the mountain to alarm Poteet, the witch-like figure of the woman sprang from the bushes and fell upon Woodward with a loud outcry. The whole occurrence, so strange, so unnatural, and so unexpected, stripped the young men of their power of reasoning; and if the rocks had ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... floor. Waiting a moment, he tapped again. There was no sign. He opened the door; but his Scots body-guard was not in sight. "That's unusual," he said. Then, looking round: "Where is our other councillor? Gone?" he laughed. "Faith, I did not see her go. And now we can swear that where the dear witch is will Morris, my Scotsman, be found. Well, well! They have their way with us whether we will or no. But, here, I'll have your Radisson in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the room, said, pensively, "Excellent creature, that! I've liked her better every day for twenty years, but I've always thought she's the plainest-headed woman in England!" Fewer still would wish to emulate the sturdy plain-speaking of the "gudeman" in the Scottish ballad, who, when his witch-wife boasted how she bloomed into beauty after drinking the "wild-flower wine," ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... branches by the shore; music of the softest and the loudest swells from the palace; cool corridors and sunny seats stand ready for the noontide heat or evening calm; without, are olive-gardens, green and fresh and full of flowers. But the witch herself holds her high court and never-ending festival of sin in the painted banquet-halls and among ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... you that! Some witch had told you that!" cried the little man; and he dashed his left foot in a rage so deep into the floor that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. Then he made the best of his way off, while everybody ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... souls of children; and the people act thus in order to prevent them. He who does not wish to have this observed in public, through fear of punishment, removes his wife to another house for the parturition, if he thinks that the witch is in his. The procurer of this witch they say is the bird tictic, [352] and that this bird, by flying and singing, shows the witch or osuang the house where there is a parturition, and even guides him to work other misfortunes. Consequently, whenever ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... room. The headmistress is summoned then, and I—I am doomed. I get my pieces to do out of school; and when I come home mother lectures me, and sends me to my bedroom. But I am free to-night. I have been good all day; and it is on account of you, Nora; just because you are a little Irish witch; and I sympathize with you to the bottom of ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... dame combed her hair, Gerda forgot her adopted brother Kay more and more; for this old woman could conjure, but she was not a wicked witch. She only practiced a little magic for her own amusement, and wanted to keep little Gerda. Therefore she went into the garden, stretched out her crutch toward all the rosebushes, and, beautiful as they were, they all sank into the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... indeed? Who is this demure young black-eyed witch that has come between us, this friend ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... voices in the air, subdued murmurings such as she had never heard before, and that made her start in terror; the stifled hum of marching men, the neighing and snorting of steeds, the clash of arms, hoarse words of command, given in guttural accents; an evil dream of a demoniac crew, a witch's sabbat, in the depths of those unholy shades. Suddenly a single cannon-shot rang out, ear-rending, adding fresh terror to the dead silence that succeeded it. It froze her very marrow; what could it mean? A signal, doubtless, telling of the successful completion of some movement, announcing that ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... peal. In the end he half grinned. Little use trying to convince the little witch! He had much ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... very heavy,' she said, turning, and looking up at him from under her brows, like a smiling witch. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... to earth, and stamped with impatience, for he thought it shame to go afoot into the presence of the maid. Presently he remembered that his witch-mother had given him a magic potion which would enable a man to take the face and form of another at will. So he proposed that Sigurd should take his appearance and win Brunhild for him by proxy, for he knew that Greyfell would dare anything ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... greater; For though the body may creep through, The hands in grate are fast enough: 1155 And when a circle 'bout the wrist Is made by beadle exorcist, The body feels the spur and switch, As if 'twere ridden post by witch At twenty miles an hour pace, 1160 And yet ne'er stirs out of the place. On top of this there is a spire, On which Sir Knight first bids the Squire The fiddle and its spoils, the case, In manner of a trophee place. 1165 That done, they ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... stopped. "Aren't you well? No wonder—I'm as nervous as a witch myself." The egg-beater whirred again encouragingly. "You must use your will power—you mustn't allow yourself to be ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... leaders, bidding them to depart and save their lives while there was time, for otherwise the French would fall upon them and slay them all—but the English laughed greatly at the letter pretending to scorn it and really believing it to be the work of a witch who was led by evil spirits; and they answered her with vile taunts and insults, and one of their captains named Glasdale shook his fist in her direction and shouted in a voice that reached her ears: "Witch, if ever we lay our hands ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... heart beating faster in her bosom, thanks to this affection, and from that minute a transformation takes place within her. Landry, who has been observing her, is of opinion that she must be something of a witch. Landry is very simple-minded. There is no witchcraft here except that of love, and it was not difficult for that to work the metamorphosis. It has worked many others in ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... my widow'd heart A tale of vanish'd innocence and love, And bliss that screw'd around the ark of life Sweet flow'rs of summer hue. It hath the tone, The very tone which wrapt my spirit up, In silent dreams mid visions. Oft, at eve, I heard it wandering thro' the silver air, As if some sylph had witch'd the stringed shell Of woods and lonely fountains:—and the birds That sang in the blue glow of heaven, the trees That whisper'd like a timid maiden's lips, The bees that kiss'd their bride-flow'rs into sleep, All breath'd the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... half-a-dozen fierce smugglers or so, and he felt somewhat disappointed at the inactive part he was called on to play. From the words Polly had dropped he guessed that the cottage was the one inhabited by old Dame Herring, who was looked upon by the inhabitants of the country for miles round as a witch, and known to be a very bad character. She took advantage of her evil reputation, and practised on the credulity of the people. It is not necessary to mention her bad practices. A few years before she would very probably have been burnt as ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... all this comes well about yet. I play the Fortune-teller as well as if I had had a Witch to my Grannam: for by good happiness, being in my Hostesses' Garden, which neighbours the Orchard o the Widdow, I laid the hole of mine ear to a hole in the wall, and heard 'em make these vows, and speak those words upon which I wrought ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... creature seemed to know it, and chuckled, in her own peculiar style, immensely. For old Kannoa had not been overburdened with demonstrative affection by the members of her tribe, some of whom had even called her an old witch—a name which had sent a thrill of great terror through her trembling old heart, for the doom of witches in Eskimo land in those days was ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... quarrelling, and he asks what it all means. Now there comes forward a man who has all this while been standing silent beside his wife; and it may be as well to say just here that this man's wife is a wicked witch and that the man himself is none too good. So a part of what he tells the King is true and another good large part is not true at all. When he tells what the King knew before, he tells the truth; and when he tells anything that the King did ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... that such violence should be done to so easy a text, our hair-splitting and irrefragable doctor went on in triumph. To prove it yet (says he) more undeniably, it is commanded in the old law [Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live]: now then every Maleficus, or witch, is to be killed, but an heretic is Maleficus, which in the Latin translation is put for a witch, ergo, &c. All that were present wondered at the ingenuity of the person, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... arm around her, I said: "It is not those who work or suffer most who are always rewarded as they would hope to be; and, as Johnston once said, the fallen have done great things. But we will look forward. You made true forecasts that night at Lone Hollow, and no fairer witch ever came out of Lancashire. So look again deep into the future, and tell me what ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... don't know whose money—but that does not matter. They are always ready to trumpet his greatness. Evil greatness it is—but neither does that matter. Briefly, this is his history. He was originally a witch-finder—about as low an occupation as exists amongst aboriginal savages. Then he got up in the world and became an Obi-man, which gives an opportunity to wealth via blackmail. Finally, he reached the highest honour in hellish service. He became ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... down in one of the wooden chairs. "I quit working long before the witch hunts came. ...
— Now We Are Three • Joe L. Hensley
... whole morning with that tiresome Bergenheim on my hands, and I verily believe he made me count every stick in his park and every frog in his pond. Tonight, when that old witch of Endor proposed her infernal game of whist, to which it seems I am to be condemned daily, you-excused yourself upon the pretext of ignorance, and yet you play as good ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Danube, now collected in "Ghitza," flash colourful and foreign from the Dobrudja Mountains and the Black Sea. In one remarkable piece of melodrama, "Rra Boloi," by the Englishman Crosbie Garstin (Adventure), and the African witch doctor of the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... assist them to Shore. In short, he left me sick, in Debt, and without a Penny; but as I begin to recover, and have a little time to Think, I can't help considering myself, as one whisk'd up behind a Witch upon a Broomstick, and hurried over Mountains and Dales through confus'd Woods and thorny Thickets, and when the Charm is ended, and the poor Wretch dropp'd in a Desart, he can give no other Account of his ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the General lodges, blazes a huge fire. Round it gather some staff officers, and among them, recognised from afar, are the welcome tiger-skins of the Guides' officers. The Major sits by the blaze in that familiar attitude of his, like a witch in "Macbeth," with a wolf-skin karross drawn over his shoulders, and the firelight on his swarthy face as he turns it up with a grim laugh to chaff the others standing round. But there is rather a gloom ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... probably the simple-minded young gentleman, who was unconsciously bred in the belief that he and his own kin had no superiors anywhere, never noticed it. To be sure they quarreled a good deal, but truth to say Phil was never more fascinated with the little witch, whom he felt himself strong enough to protect, than when she showed a pretty temper. He rather liked to be ordered about by the little tyrant. And sometimes he wished that Murad Ault, the big boy ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Rufus appeared all dripping with Gore, his Seconds would cool him out and rub him with Witch Hazel and pin Medals ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... ended here, had not the mention of Spain suggested one other topic, which I should not leave unnoticed. The Spain of Cervantes and Don Quixote was the Spain of the Inquisition. The Scotland of Knox and Melville was the Scotland of the witch trials and witch burnings. The belief in witches was common to all the world. The prosecution and punishment of the poor creatures was more conspicuous in Scotland when the Kirk was most powerful; in England and New England, when Puritan principles were also dominant there. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... two that death had left her; she could not bear them out of her sight for an instant. A very weird-looking cummer was the grand-dame—with a broken, piping voice—tremulous hands, and jaws that, like the stage witch wife's, ever munched and mumbled. She seldom spoke aloud, except to groan out a startlingly sudden ejaculation of "Oh, Lord," or "O dear;" these widows' mites cast into the conversational treasury did not greatly ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... farmer folk Mary was merely "queer," but as the man in the buggy sat looking down at her he realized the promise of something strangely gorgeous. As she shifted her position a shaft of mellow sunlight struck her face and it was as though her witch—or fairy—godmother had switched ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... his brows and looked angry, or sad and solemn, or sprung to his feet from the rock on which he was sitting beside Eric. When Eric came to speak about the old woman and her daughter, "Ah!" said Darkeye, "there are not worse people in that wicked country! They say that the old woman is a witch of some kind. But whether she poisons travellers or drowns them, I know not. No doubt she is in league with Ralph the robber, and would have robbed you or kept you fast in some way or other till you were handed over to him. You were right, my prince, in all you did. ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod
... devil, of whom I have been one, admitted that in the end you had a soul, though not that you had been born with one. They said you stole it, and so made a woman of yourself. But again I say I am not your judge, and when I picture you as Gavin saw you first, a bare-legged witch dancing up Windyghoul, rowan berries in your black hair, and on your finger a jewel the little minister could not have bought with five years of toil, the shadows on my pages lift, and I cannot ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... that she was downright plain, but might probably be that mysterious and incomprehensible and dangerous creature, "a gentleman's beauty," which, to women, means no beauty at all, but a witch-like creature, that goes and hits foul, and eclipses real beauty—dolls, to ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... impossible to beat up against it, so I stood to the eastward all that day and night, under a try-sail and storm-jib. During this time the gale showed no signs of abating. It was a good trial to our tempers, at all events. Grampus vowed that there was some old witch in Halifax who must have taken a spite to us and was resolved to keep us out of the harbour as long as she could. He was devising all sorts of plans for exorcising her, but none seemed likely to prove satisfactory. In the morning, the weather moderating a little, I stood to the westward under close-reefed ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... for you to tread on. You will no be for going right intil the cave? Would it no do you to shout when you got to the mouth of it? I dinna like that cave with the red sides till it. I'm thinking maybe there was red sides to the cave where the witch of Endor dweft. Are you no sure that there isna something of that kind, something no right ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... at Ilium endeavored to persuade Philip to hire the services of a witch-hazel professor of that region, who could walk over the land with his wand and tell him infallibly whether it contained coal, and exactly where the strata ran. But Philip preferred to trust to his ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... my dear, because Rhoda has told me so much about you. She has explained your character, I see, very truthfully. Your features bear out all she has said. You see, my dear, I am a witch!" and ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... I forget her name. The other was Countess Rastaglione; you must have heard of her; a towering witch, an empress, Helen of Troy; though Ducie would have it the brunette was Queen of Paris. For French ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were Madam Conway and Theo, the former of whom chided her for staying so late at the cottage, while Theo asked what queer things the old witch-woman ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... people had experimented with the leaves of other plants—with lettuce, spinach, and various of the greens from the garden. But it was useless. The wee spinners scorned every such offering. One woman, it is true, had succeeded in raising a few worms on witch-grass; but they had not prospered, the silk from their cocoons proving poor. Mulberry leaves they craved and mulberry leaves they must have. In time the French peasants as well as the silk raisers of other nations ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... that the eare was rather cut than bitten off." Rumour had spread that the boy had had half his face devoured; when it was examined, it turned out that his ear had only been scratched! However, there can be no doubt of the existence of "witch-wolves;" for Hall saw at Limburgh "one of those miscreants executed, who confessed on the wheel to have devoured two-and-forty children in that form." They would probably have found it difficult to have summoned the mothers who had lost the children. But observe our philosopher's reasoning: ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... is, up to a certain point; which point Forms the most difficult in punctuation. Appearances appear to form the joint On which it hinges in a higher station; And so that no explosion cry "Aroint Thee, witch!"[684] or each Medea has her Jason; Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci)[mm] "Omne tulit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... manners have never been popular in France.' The spoilt little lady was by no means satisfied with this portrait, and Sir Charles, who was away from home at the time the Memoirs appeared, writes to console her. 'You must not mind that lying old witch Madame de Genlis' attack upon you,' says the admiring husband. 'I thought she would not let you off easily; you were not only a better and younger (and I may say prettier) author than herself, but also ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... her; but who gave it? This aid must come, people thought then, either from heaven or hell—either from God and his saints, or from the devil and his angels. Now, if any doubt could be thrown on the source whence Joan's aid came, the English might argue (as of course they did) that she was a witch and a heretic. If she was a heretic and a witch, then her king was involved in her wickedness, and so he might be legally shut out from his kingdom. It was necessary, therefore, that Joan should be examined by learned men. They must find out whether ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... years later still, when, in 1484, there came the yet more terrible bull of Pope Innocent VIII, known as Summis Desiderantes, which let inquisitors loose upon Germany, with Sprenger at their head, armed with the Witch-Hammer, the fearful manual Malleus Maleficarum, to torture and destroy men and women by tens of thousands for sorcery and magic. Similar bulls were issued in 1504 by Julius II, and ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... pretty girl and Dick suddenly forced his way through the crowd, going in the direction of the buffet. I had no idea on what a serious mission he was bound, of course, and so I called him to introduce him to the pretty girl, who had with her an aunt, a veritable witch, as hideous as a Medusa, and who, in addition, is afflicted with a wooden leg. Dick gave the aunt only a glance. That was enough, but he was all smiles for her pretty niece, who, I must admit, is somewhat of a flirt. ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... faithful horse to his majesty from the island, to crave pardon for his sin; and the king pardoned him; and then, right joyfully, he swam back to the land, where, on his dismounting, he was accosted by a foul witch, who prophesied that the horse which had saved him should be the cause of his death; but, in order to prevent the accomplishment of the prophecy, he slew the faithful animal upon the beach;—how that some time afterwards he passed by the carcass, and striking a bone with his ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... slashed, Bleeds from the mangled breast and gapes a frightful gash.... Here Iris bends her various-painted arch, There artificial clouds in sullen order march; Here stands a crown upon a rack, and there A witch's broomstick, by great Hector's spear: Here stands a throne, and there the cynic's tub, Here Bullock's cudgel, and there Alcides' club. Beards, plumes, and spangles in confusion rise, Whilst rocks of Cornish diamonds reach the skies; ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... like the witches on the broom-sticks in our fairy-book, Olly?" cried Milly. "Don't you think, Aunt Emma, he must have been changed into something? Perhaps he was a wicked witch once, or a magician, you know, and the fairies changed ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the manager. "You're not hurt. You only think so. Here, Mrs. Maguire, give him that bottle of witch hazel I saw you use for little Tommy the other day. That will fix you up, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... you decide to be a servant? Ah, I know now. You look down at that little witch of a girl who ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... about him in an instant, tremulous as brilliant butterflies hovering around a royal rose: Faustina, with the proud face of a Roman marble; Messalinda, with the fair hair of some witch-woman of the North; Yolande, the exquisite French girl with the brown hair and the brown eyes—Yolande so envied of all the others, as being, as it seemed, the latest in the King's favor, the nearest in the King's grace. Robert caught Faustina and Messalinda ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... go clad my body in gay garments, And lull myself within a lady's lap, And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks. Oh monstrous man, to harbour such a thought! Why, love did scorn me in my mother's womb; And, for I should not deal in her affairs, She did corrupt frail nature in the flesh, And plac'd an envious mountain on my back, Where sits deformity to mock my body; ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... bleared eyes, in their cracked hands; especially in the long, snaky locks, stiff with loathsome ichor, and, like their eyebrows, ghastly white. Nor was it possible to have told which was mother, which daughter; both alike seemed witch-like old. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... by east. The captain went here ashore and found the ground to be full of pease, strawberries, whortleberries, &c., as then unripe, the sand also by the shore somewhat deep, the firewood there by us taken in was of cypress, birch, witch-hazel and beech. A young Indian came here to the captain, armed with his bow and arrows, and had certain plates of copper hanging at his ears; he showed a willingness to ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... little head and determined that she for one would never be subjugated by such a naughty girl. Hester could read character with tolerable clearness; she was an observant child—very observant, and very thoughtful for her twelve years; and as the little witch Annie had failed to throw any spell over her, she saw her faults far more clearly than did her companions. There is no doubt that this brilliant, charming, and naughty Annie had heaps of faults; she had no perseverance; she was all passion and impulse; she could ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... he had gypsy blood, That in his heart was guile: Yet he had gone through fire and flood Only to win her smile. Some say his grandam was a witch, A black witch from beyond the Nile, Who kept an image in a niche And talked with it the while. And by her hut far down the lane Some say they would not pass at night, Lest they should hear an unked strain Or ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... the faculty opposite to that of a witch, and canst lay a tempest. I should as soon have imagined one man could have stopt a cannon-ball in its full force ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... nothing absurd in believing that the spirit of the just man, being about to smite the king with the divine sentence, was permitted to appear to him, not by the sway of magic art or power, but by some occult dispensation of which neither the witch nor Saul was aware. Or else the spirit of Samuel was not in reality aroused from his rest, but some phantom or mock apparition formed by the machinations of the devil, and styled by Scripture under the name of Samuel, just as the images ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... principal incident in this little tale should seem incredible, it may be mentioned that an instance of a child being deprived of speech for several days, at the bidding of a reputed witch, came under the author's immediate notice less than three years ago, in a village but three miles distant from ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... loving anybody but herself, and I do not think she could have managed that if she had not somehow got used to herself. But what made it highly imprudent in the king to forget her was—that she was awfully clever. In fact, she was a witch; and when she bewitched anybody, he very soon had enough of it; for she beat all the wicked fairies in wickedness, and all the clever ones in cleverness. She despised all the modes we read of in history, in which offended fairies and witches have taken ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... smartest clothes, to the platform on which the Princess and her ladies and her courtiers were assembled, Fritz felt sure that he would win, for this reason: There was an old woman living in a cottage near his castle, who was said to be a witch. Fritz had ordered her to be seized and put to the most cruel tortures, in order to force her to say what the Princess was going to dream on the night before the day fixed for his trial. This was very silly of him, as the old woman might be a witch ten times over, ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... Charon, leaning forward on his knee and speaking confidentially; "just as this chap was putting off,—with some of Davy's belongings, likely,—Davy up and cuts a slice of flesh and blood off him. Well, he takes this slice and fixes it up one way or another, and makes a witch out of it,—handsome as she can be,—enough to draw a chap's heart right out through his jacket. Now, being as she's his own flesh and blood, d' yer see, this chap I'm telling yer on's bound to come back after ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... through the city we were met by an old female mendicant, who, by her beggings and importunities, disturbed him in his story. "Pack yourself off, old witch!" said he, and walked by. She shouted after him the well-known retort,—only somewhat changed, since she saw well that the unfriendly man was old himself,—"If you did not wish to be old, you should have had yourself hanged in your youth!" He turned round violently, and ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... thinking, as I watched the flickering flame, that this was something like a witch's incantation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... cried, "don't you want to come out under the trees and have the good Mr. Hemphill tell you a story? I know he wants to tell you one, and it is about a witch and two pussy-cats and a kangaroo. Come along. He is out there waiting for us." Down dropped the ball of yarn, and with exultant cries each little girl seized an outstretched hand of the secretary, and together they ran over the grass to meet ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... the year 1682; but the Statute of I James I, c. 12, so minute in its enactments against witches, was not repealed till the 9 Geo. II, c. 5. In Scotland, so late as the year 1722, when the local jurisdictions were still hereditary [see post, Sept. 11], the sheriff of Sutherlandshire condemned a witch to death.' Penny Cyclo. xxvii. 490. In the Bishopric of Wurtzburg, so late as 1750, a nun was burnt for witchcraft: 'Cette malheureuse fille soutint opiniatrement qu'elle etait sorciere.... Elle etait folle, ses juges furent imbecilles ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... He stood up, manly and strong, and somehow touched her with a subtle influence. It is not in a woman's nature to listen to a tale of passionate love unmoved. "Once, among the Hurons an old witch woman was wild to adopt me for her son. She gave me a great many secret charms, many you white people would think the utmost foolishness. Some were curious. And my people are superstitious. I have used them ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... You have not been thinking much of these things. You have your eye upon Fame, and that old witch lives in another direction. To illustrate—our bull-necked friend and illustrious critic, James Rutlidge, in my story, will be named 'Sensual.' His distinguished father was one 'Lust.' The horrible example, Mr. Edward Taine,—boon ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... the grim old castle, in the Black Forest, there lived an old woman. She was wiser than her neighbors, and was regarded as a witch. She was able to tell inquirers whatever they wished to know, and so was as useful as a newspaper, in ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... a dream of sleep. And I have said when morning shone:— "Why should the night-witch, Fancy, keep "These ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the leg; and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might. At this the robber ran back as fast as he could to his comrades, and told the captain how a horrid witch had got into the house, and had spat at him and scratched his face with her long bony fingers; how a man with a knife in his hand had hidden himself behind the door, and stabbed him in the leg; how a black monster stood in the yard and struck ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... of Europe is filled with allusions to the witch-hazel, which, however, is quite distinct from ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... in so-called fairy-tale pictures by "stop-camera" work, or by simply stopping the character at a certain point just prior to the scheduled appearance of some supernatural visitant, having the other characters hold their positions while the witch or the fairy character walks into the scene and takes her proper position in it, and then starting the camera again, the result on the screen being that the supernatural figure stands, in the fraction of a second, where nothing of the kind appeared before. ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... and dead men's bones, its 'wandering islands,' its 'quicksands of Unthriftihead,' its 'whirlepoole of Decay,' its 'sea-monsters,' and lastly, its 'bower of Bliss,' and the doom which overtakes it, together with the deliverance of Acrasia's victims, transformed by that witch's spells into beasts. Still more powerful is the allegory of worldly ambition, illustrated under the name of 'the cave of Mammon.' The Legend of Holiness delineates with not less insight those enemies which wage war upon the spiritual ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... was the witch who had worked the marvellous transformation, Maud with her tender mother-wisdom that divined so much. He looked at her now, and wondered as he met her smile if she fully realized what she ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... all. Lord Arden will be safe enough. And now, my lamb, I've more to tell thee. But come into thy panelled chamber where thy tutor cannot eavesdrop and betray us, and have thee given over to him wholly, and me burned for a witch." ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... Morfydd back, who was coming to the wood to keep an assignation with him, but not a little of this abuse is wonderfully expressive and truthful. He calls the owl a grey thief—the haunter of the ivy bush—the chick of the oak, a blinking eyed witch, greedy of mice, with a visage like the bald forehead of a big ram, or the dirty face of an old abbess, which bears no little resemblance to the chine of an ape. Of its cry he says that it is as great a ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... An old witch, who had half starved us at Montpellier, for want of provisions, when we went, and for want of fire to dry us, when we came back, left a piece of candle in my budget, which I did not omit to return by the post, well packed up, lest it should ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... finally made off with itself, and the next morning the schooner followed suit. The ice, however, had not done with us. It lingered near the land, while farther out it was seen in solid mass, making witch-work, as usual, on the northern and eastern sky; and we were soon dodging through the more open portion, still dense enough, close to the coast. It was dangerous business. A pretty breeze blew; and with anything of a wind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... sequi videtur, an old widow, a mother so long since ([4741]in Pliny's opinion), she doth very unseemly seek to marry, yet whilst she is [4742]so old a crone, a beldam, she can neither see, nor hear, go nor stand, a mere [4743]carcass, a witch, and scarce feel; she caterwauls, and must have a stallion, a champion, she must and will marry again, and betroth herself to some young man, [4744]that hates to look on, but for her goods; abhors the sight of her, to the prejudice of her good name, her own ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... illuminations on the 5th of November. Threatened with the loss of their Guy Fawkes, the barbarians rose upon him, and he had a narrow escape from their violence. We are reminded of the case of Cotton Mather, who, after being a leader in witch-burning, nearly sacrificed his life in combatting the fanaticism which opposed itself to the introduction of inoculation. Let it always be remembered that besides its theological side, the Revival had its philanthropic and moral ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... returned Holmes, calmly. "If you will go yourself and slide down that mast you will see. Shem has stopped for a little witch-hazel to soothe his burns. It is no cool matter sliding down a mast two hundred ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... What woman! Who but that scullery-wench, that onion-monger, That slatternly, pale bakress, that foul witch, The coroneted Fish-Wife of Fiori, ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... Dark Empire's Western gate Eight stately, painted Sachems wait For Amochol—for Amochol! Hazel and samphire consecrate The magic blaze that burns like Hate, While the deep witch-drums roll—and roll. Sorceress, shake thy dark hair down! The Red ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... days of witchcraft superstitions, they used to think that when the cream did not readily turn to butter, the churn had been tampered with by some witch, like Mabel Martin's mother in Whittier's poem. Witches were sometimes supposed to work a baleful charm on the milk by putting under the doorsill some magical object, such as a picture of a toad or ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... "you are uncommonly like—you are that accursed witch of a hare which cost me my life. There are the white marks on your back, and there is the grey splotch on your ear. Oh! if only I had ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... an' sweep, An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep; An' all us other childern, when the supper things is done, We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about, An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... her feet suddenly. "My friend," she said, "I think you are a witch. Yes, you are quite right. I have not seen a line of the other man's writing; and I have no more notion than the dead of what or where he is. But it is of him that I am frightened. It is he who is all about my path. It is he who has half driven me mad. Indeed, I think he has driven ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... was a great deal like the message of the Delaware prophet, as used by Pontiac. The Indians were to cease white-man habits. They must quit fire-water poison, must cherish the old and sick, must not marry with the white people, must cease bad medicine-making (witch-craft) and tortures; and must live happily and peacefully, sharing their lands ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... abyss, and close behind the horseshoe range of rocks, stood a humble log-cabin, occupied by an old free negress, who picked up a scanty living by telling fortunes and showing the way to the Punch Bowl. Her cabin went by the name of the Witch's Hut, or Old Hat's Cabin. A short distance from Hat's cabin the road became impassable, and the travelers got out, and, preceded by the coachman bearing the lantern, struggled along on foot through the drifted snow and against the buffeting ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... came to me. I do not doubt what others tell me, but I sometimes wonder over my own incapacity. I should like to see some dear ghost walk in and sit down by me when I am here alone. The doings of the old witch days have never been explained; and as we are so soon to be transferred to another state, how natural it appears that some of us should have glimpses of it here! We all feel the help we receive from the Divine Spirit. Why ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... betwixt two rooms, than betwixt two houses; betwixt two houses, than betwixt two cities; and so of the rest: Reason, therefore, can sooner be led, by imagination, to step from one room into another, than to walk to two distant houses, and yet rather to go thither, than to fly like a witch through the air, and be hurried from one region to another. Fancy and Reason go hand in hand; the first cannot leave the last behind: And though Fancy, when it sees the wide gulph, would venture over, as the nimbler, yet it is with-held by Reason, which will ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... witch or a fairy," said Mrs. Rossitur, catching her again in her arms,—"nothing else! You must try your powers ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... classes, professions, or offices, with such energy that the enraged hearers proceeded to violence against those whom the preacher had denounced. A sermon which Bernardino once preached in Rome (1424) had another consequence besides a bonfire of vanities on the Capitol: 'After this,' we read, 'the witch Finicella was burnt, because by her diabolical arts she had killed many children and bewitched many other persons; and all Rome ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... peoples even the child is their. AEsculapius, at once human and divine, hero and god. An Iroquois legend recorded by Mrs. Smith attributes to a boy the discovery of witch-charms: "A certain boy while out hunting came across a beautiful snake. Taking a great fancy to it, he caught it and cared for it, feeding it on birds, etc., and made a bark bowl in which he kept it. He put fibres, down, and small feathers into ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... kitchen was empty, and he opened the door of the sitting-room, but paused on the threshold. Miss Phrony Marlin was sitting in the corner, weeping ostentatiously, with loud and prolonged sniffs. Her mother, a little withered woman like crumpled parchment, cowered witch-like over the air-tight stove, and looked at Calvin and then at her daughter, but ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... the Golden Palace. Queen Maya sat like one in a dream and questioned nothing, and Dwaymenau ruled with wisdom but none loved her. To all she was the interloper, the witch-woman, the out-land upstart. Only the fear of the King guarded her and her boy, but that was strong. The boys played together sometimes, Mindon tyrannizing and cruel, Ananda fearing and ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... sense of boundlessness we have here—boundless space, boundless opportunity? It often makes fools of us: it intoxicates, turns our heads. There is a germ of madness in this Northwest. I have seen men destroyed by it. But it is Nature who is the witch. She brews ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... day and evening was filled with preparation for a great hunt—spears were overhauled, quivers were replenished, bows were restrung; and all the while the village witch doctor passed through the busy throngs disposing of various charms and amulets designed to protect the possessor from hurt, or bring him good fortune in the ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Elizabeth, looking as if she would annihilate her. "You little witch! You dared to—" and then she felt such a relief to think she would have ample time to keep her engagement after all, that the ridiculous side of the affair struck her, and she ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... shook his head. "Is it Hans? or Hal?" Still "No," he said. "Is it Rumpelstiltskin?" then she cried. "A witch has told you," he replied, And shrieked and stamped his foot so hard That the very marble floor was jarred; And his leg broke off above the knee, And ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... his little goat-carriage at the Tuileries. I do not know what has become of him. They say he is dead; but I do not believe that, any more than I believe that my emperor is dead. Two deaths? Bah! old women's stories,—witch stories, good only to frighten children to sleep. When my emperor and his son come back, we shall be amazed that ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... of, en dat's dat Pudd'nhead Wilson. Dey calls him a pudd'nhead, en says he's a fool. My lan, dat man ain't no mo' fool den I is! He's de smartes' man in dis town, lessn' it's Jedge Driscoll or maybe Pem Howard. Blame dat man, he worries me wid dem ornery glasses o' his'n; I b'lieve he's a witch. But nemmine, I's gwine to happen aroun' dah one o' dese days en let on dat I reckon he wants to print a chillen's fingers ag'in; en if HE don't notice dey's changed, I bound dey ain't nobody gwine to notice it, en den I's safe, sho'. But I reckon I'll tote along a hoss-shoe to keep ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... one of the marvels yet unobtained?" Said one of his men, "There is—the blood of the witch Orddu, the daughter of the witch Orwen, of Penn Nant Govid, on the confines of Hell." Arthur set forth towards the North, and came to the place where was the witch's cave. And Gwyn ab Nudd, and Gwythyr the son of Greidawl, counselled him to send ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... Church was equal only to the duty of burning witches. It burned them by the thousand, simply because ancient Judaism had a profound belief in the witch and because a blood-thirsty Jewish murderer-monarch ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... good angel turns her back to me in anger! And now, politics, thou witch, I am irretrievably ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... him to the back of a horse and rapidly borne him into the interior. They might not have meant any harm to him at first, he thought, but when they found him examining a dog with great care they were convinced the simple-minded old man was a witch doctor and at once sentenced him to be burned ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... magistrate and Bimsha, together with the whole populace, came to Katipah's cell to see her led out to death. And when it was found that her child had disappeared, "She is a witch!" they cried; "she has eaten it!" And the chief magistrate said that, being a witch, instead of hanging she was ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... goat-skin apron, adorned with numerous charms, and used a paddle for a mace or walking stick. He was not an old man, though he affected to be so—walking very slowly and deliberately, coughing asthmatically, glimmering with his eyes, and mumbling like a witch. With much affected difficulty he sat at the end of the hut beside the symbols alluded to, and continued his coughing full half an hour, when his wife came in in the same manner, without saying a word, and assumed the same affected style. The king jokingly ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... to the destruction of their persons. The queen, who, though defended by the Tower, was terrified by the neighborhood of such dangerous commotions, resolved to go by water to the Castle of Windsor; but as she approached the bridge, the populace assembled against her: the cry ran, "Drown the witch;" and besides abusing her with the most opprobrious language, and pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they had prepared large stones to sink her barge, when she should attempt to shoot the bridge; and she was so frightened, that she returned ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... witch!" cries grandmama, "You're like the naughty rat I found within the cellar once, Who on a barrel sat, Filled with molasses, which he reached By dipping in the hole His great long tail from which he licked The sweets ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... exposes. The king advanced—then cursing fled amain Dashing the phial to the stony plain (Where't straight became a fountain brimming o'er, Whence Father Tweed derives his liquid store) For lo! already on each back sans stitch The red sign manual of the Rosy Witch! ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... you. See how harmless I am? No witch, I hope, you think I am. For shame that youth, who would be brave knight, should fear a lady and in especial one so young ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... are taken against all supposed to be attached to the Regency. Concini's wife, the favorite Leonora, is burned as a witch,—Regent Mary is sent to Blois,—Richelieu ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... ran and told AEgeus, where he sat in his chamber within, by Medeia the dark witch-woman, watching her eye and hand. And when AEgeus heard of Troezene, he turned pale and red again, and rose from his seat trembling, while Medeia watched ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes |
