"Witch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Native Land." The motto which he chose for the title-page was "We are Seven," from Wordsworth. My informant read the tales in manuscript, and says some of them were very striking, particularly one or two Witch Stories. As soon as the little book was well prepared for the press he deliberately threw it into the fire, and sat by to see ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... come to him smilingly, with soft hands, with wisdom and comfort passing that of life, she came with terrible empty eyes. He could see her gaunt profile, her black brows. She was like an engraving he had once seen of the witch Saul had used at En-dor, to call up Samuel, who was dead. She had the same awful majesty, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... crowing of the cock. Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... information from a diviner about these unfortunate asses. What a contrast between the thoughts of the two, as they looked at each other! Saul begins by consulting Samuel as a magician; he ends by seeking counsel from the witch at Endor. Samuel's words are beautiful in their smothering of all personal feeling, and dignified in their authority. He at once takes command of Saul, and prepares him by half-hints for something great to come. The direction to 'go ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... dwarf, but a gallant knight. At that moment his memory came back to him, and he knew he was Conal, one of the Knights of the Red Branch, and he remembered now that the spell of dumbness and deformity had been cast upon him by the Witch of the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... moonflower on the bookcase behind Alexander was a thing of beauty. Alexander liked beauty. He had said so, and the Great Hall below them bore it out. It was a lovely room. Those four bronze Lani in the fountain were works of art. One of them looked remarkably like Copper. Copper in bronze. The little witch had probably posed for the casting. Maybe it had even been made from ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... Odour of Sanctity to fail once," said the Churchwarden, coolly. "Hardly ever go out without it. There ain't a witch or an imp or a bad spirit of any kind whatever can stand up against my Odour of Sanctity, if he once gets a couple of good whiffs of it out of this little bottle. Just a few drops from the bottle, and a few sniffs, and whoof! they're ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... our widening V-shaped wake glowed with opalescent witch-fires. Watching the oily ripples, I steered wild and lost the channel. We all got out and, wading in different directions, went hunting for the Missouri River. It had flattened out into a lake three ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... in truth a witch," said he; "you must have some genius in your service, who listens to every wish you express, in order to fulfil it without delay! This letter contains an invitation from the cardinal. He gives a great entertainment to-morrow, and begs of me that I will bring you to it. The ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Havana's Witch-fog murks my Horoscope Until my dream-enamoured Senses grope Towards the Light, where in her opal Shrine Smiles Hopefulness, the great Reward ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... Because one of the fairies there had seen, just one second too late to save the Princess, what he was up to, and had made a strong little charm in a great hurry to prevent his vanishing. This Fairy was a White Witch, and of course you know that White Magic is much stronger than Black Magic, as well as more suited for drawing-room performances. So there the Magician stood, 'looking like a thunder-struck pig,' as some one unkindly said, and the dear White ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... Europe, away we dashed in the little witch of a pilot, a craft of some eighty tons' burthen, but, viewed from a short distance, not looking more than half that size, so snug was her build, as well as from the absence of every kind of hamper; her shrouds were without ratlins, and her deck without even the ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... of sickness were treated as the effect of witchcraft by the Indians, and the afflicted were carried into the woods and left alone with none near them except the medicine man whose business it was to expel the witch. ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... that Vitellius Germanicus shall be no more, by the day of the said calends." He was even suspected of being accessary to his mother's death, by forbidding sustenance to be given her when she was unwell; a German witch [714], whom he held to be oracular, having told him, "That he would long reign in security if he survived his mother." But others say, that being quite weary of the state of affairs, and apprehensive of the future, she obtained without difficulty ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... I thought, was a very graceful invitation for Andrew Drever to give to a stranger who had only a few moments before implied that his mother was a witch. But it was a kindness such as he was ever showing; and I must add that Captain Gordon was one of those easy-mannered sailors who at once give an agreeable impression. I myself liked him from the very first, and I had afterwards many reasons for rejoicing in ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... She is a Caliph's daughter. 'Tis not forgotten. The axe would close her life. Her fair neck would give slight trouble to the headsman's art. But for thy sister, but for Miriam, she is a witch, a Jewish witch! They would ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... in the forest under the mora tree had proved so delightful that I was eager for more rambles and talks with her, but the variable little witch had a great surprise in store for me. All her wild natural gaiety had unaccountably gone out of her: when I walked in the shade she was there, but no longer as the blithe, fantastic being, bright as an angel, innocent and ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... The witch-light danced in the steady glance she turned upon him; she threw her head back and her slim throat showed white and ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... he mayn't be just the old-fashioned water-witch, but it ain't right; it's tamperin' with the secrets of the Most High, that's ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... great plain south of Nazareth is Esdraelon, the 'battle-field of Palestine'; these rounded mountains here in the eastern part of the Valley of Esdraelon are Tabor, Little Hermon, and Gilboa;—on the north is Tabor, at whose base Napoleon fought; the next is Little Hermon, where lived the witch of Endor; and the one south of Little Hermon is Gilboa, where Saul and his sons were slain; that range of mountains forming the southern wall of Esdraelon is Carmel, where Elijah held his trial with the priests of Baal; here below us, winding in its serpentine course, ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... of a sovereign prince, who, in my favour, and to abate my incredulity, did me the honour to let me see, in his own presence, and in a private place, ten or twelve prisoners of this kind, and amongst others, an old woman, a real witch in foulness and deformity, who long had been famous in that profession. I saw both proofs and free confessions, and I know not what insensible mark upon the miserable creature: I examined and talked with her and the rest as much and as long as I would, and gave the best and soundest ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Anthony Croft sitting in the kitchen doorway had seemingly missed the heights of life he might have trod, and had walked his close on fifty years through level meadows of mediocrity, a witch in every finger-tip waiting to be set to work, head among the clouds, feet stumbling, eyes and ears open to hear God's secret thought; seeing and hearing it, too, but lacking force to speak it forth again; ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... could only mumble something which sounded like "yeast." They asked a pussy-cat and she said if they would come home with her first she would look it up in a book she had there. But Hazel did not want to go. "For," she whispered to Bushy-Tail, "she has eyes like a witch." ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... force you to perdition! execrable witch," cried he, "that knew no better how to prepare a slave to receive her lord!" As he spoke, he struck her again; but it was with his gauntlet hand, and the eyes of the unfortunate woman opened no more. The blow fell on her temple, and a ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... tar, Captain Whitmore; quizzing the old witch, his sister; and making love to his charming daughter. Upon my word, sir, she is a delightful creature, and sings and plays divinely! Her personal charms I might have withstood, but her voice has taken me by ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... one, a plenty: sort of a gashly critter like a witch, with teeth all same like a lobo. Kind 'at'd stick a knife in yuh ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... the medicine-man than decades of preaching and reasoning would have done. No man living could have done the thing with like effect, nor any woman save one of her complete self-possession and natural authority. The younger villagers chuckle over the jest of it to this day, and the old witch-doctor himself was crouching at her feet and, as one may say, eating out of her hand, ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... bringing her here to destroy his daughter's happiness. So that was why she held off from Mr. Hope,' cried Albinia, burning with such indignation, that on some one she must expend it, but a tirade against the artfulness of the little French witch was cut ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who trembled with something more than cold. "M'anam go'n Dhia! She was a witch woman, or worse, Turlough Wolf. She leaped out of the snow in my path, told me to bear that skin to Yellow Brian, and vanished in a burst of fire. How could she not ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... and don't want to go on with it. Dr. Astroff hardly ever used to come here; it was all we could do to persuade him to visit us once a month, and now he has abandoned his forestry and his practice, and comes every day. You must be a witch. ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... think you reason rightly; but these reflections should have come sooner. What has prevented you from seeing all this before? there was no need to be a witch to foresee, as soon as you fell in love with Valere, all that your genius never found out until to-day. It is the natural consequence of what you have done; as soon as I was made acquainted with it I never imagined it would ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... she answered in the same tongue. "There was no witch-fire there," she continued, pointing to the tower; "when it came not, Olooya came! Olooya found white chief sick and alone. White chief could not get up! Olooya ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... into a ship (I'll show you how to make one out of paper, exactly like W), and sailed up into the sky, for the ship was a Ship of Stars—you make X's for stars; but that's a witch-ship; so it stuck fast in Y, which is a cleft ash-stick, and then came a stroke of lightning, Z, and burnt them all up!" He ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... answered this in the affirmative, she presently laid a hand on my shoulder. In the other she had a stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the witch of the place. She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said, "Come, come, ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad, The nights are wholesome—then no planets strike, No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? And therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue taxed. Nay, we see [the] weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often refer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician. And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme folly when they made AEsculapius and Circe, brother and sister, both children of the sun, as in the ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... beautiful to me as my being merges into harmony with them and dilates with the emotion of intenser and fuller life. The Sistine Madonna is generally regarded as beautiful. But what is the beauty in the unspeakable witch on the canvas of Frans Hals? Harmony of color and of composition is employed by Raphael in the rendering of a figure and in the expression of an emotion both of which relate themselves to the veneration of mankind. Maternity, Christian or pagan, divine ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... more successful, at last, in dealing with this strange woman. I do not know if she is a witch or an epileptic, or what—but she has convinced me that Alibi ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... ells high, of his royal apparel, of his crown graven with the Name of God. At the end of seven days Joshua appeared with twelve thousand troops. When the mother of King Shobach, who was a powerful witch, espied the host, she exercised her magic art, and enclosed the Isrealitish army in seven walls. Joshua thereupon sent forth a carrier pigeon to communicate his plight to Nabiah, the king of the trans-Jordanic tribes. He urged him to hasten to his help ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... marriage bells Tuning the air with fragrance of sweet sound; But the low dirge that ever rose and died, Recurring without pause or any close, Like one verse chaunted aye in sleepless brain. Down to the shore it drew her from the heights, Like witch's demon-spell, that fearful moan. She knew that somewhere in the green abyss His body swung in curves of watery force, Now in a circle slow revolved, and now Swaying like wind-swung bell, when surface waves Sank their ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... eclipsed when not long afterward Howland and Aspinwall, now converted to the clipper, ordered the Sea Witch to be built for Captain Bob Waterman. Among all the splendid skippers of the time he was the most dashing figure. About his briny memory cluster a hundred yarns, some of them true, others legendary. It has been argued that the speed of the clippers was due more to the men who commanded ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... a doublet of paganism, occurring in paynim host, paynim knight, etc. The correct name for the individual fairy is fay, Fr. fee, Vulgar Lat. *fata, connected with fatum, fate. This appears in Ital. fata, "a fairie, a witch, an enchantres, an elfe" (Florio). The fata morgana, the mirage sometimes seen in the Strait of Messina, is attributed to the fairy Morgana of Tasso, the Morgan le Fay of our own ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... Philadelphia Art-Union, Huntington's Christiana and Her Children, by Andrews; and for the same purpose, Mr. Perkins, of Boston, has allowed the New-England Art-Union to make use of his magnificent picture of Saul and the Witch of Endor, painted by Alston, and generally considered one of the finest historical productions of that eminent artist. Each of the Unions, we believe, will also publish some less important works ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Autumn, which imparts a human interest to the bald entries set against each year of these annals, there are several allusions to the Supreme Being. For instance, at a time of great drought the Duke of Lu wished, in accordance with custom, to burn a witch and a person in the last stage of consumption; the latter being sometimes exposed in the sun so as to excite the compassion of God, who would then cause rain to fall. A Minister vigorously protested against this superstition, pointing out that the proper way to meet ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... ran up the stairs he was confronted by what he took to be an old witch in a purple wrapper. She barred his way in a decidedly militant manner, her sunken black eyes flashing anger. She seemed about to ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... for months after drank of that well was sure to be ill. To this, one of them, however, added that he remembered his mother saying that whoever in bad health drank of the well was sure to get better. But the majority agreed that the former was the right version of the story—for was she not a witch, an old hating witch, whose delight was to do mischief? One said he had heard that she took the shape of a young woman sometimes, as beautiful as an angel, and then was most dangerous of all, for she struck every man ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... in the back, ground. He had been seen going from one to another of his partisans, advising them to keep calm, in order that they might retain the cold, keen coup d'oeil which in warfare generally decides the victory. Briefly, such was the plotting and intriguing that never had any witch's cauldron brimful of drugs and nameless abominations been set to boil on a more hellish fire than that of this ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... witch's, Missy?" Virgie said, as Vesta took in its not unpicturesque outlines and crude plank carpentry, the weather-rotted roof, the decrepit chimney at the far end, the one garret window in the sharp gable, the scant little windows above stairs, and the ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... gardens like slow rockets and burst into purple blooms and stood there huge and radiant on six-foot stalks and softly sang strange songs. Others came up beside them and bloomed and began singing too. A very old witch came out of her cottage by the back door and into the garden ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... Maitre Cornelius had lived entirely alone with his aged sister, who was thought a witch. A tailor in the neighborhood declared that he had often seen her at night, on the roof of the house, waiting for the hour of the witches' sabbath. This fact seemed the more extraordinary because it was known to be the miser's custom to lock up his sister ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... investigate the hidden things of another world, you might as well measure with the palm of your hand the waters of the Isis. Indeed, good sir, you err in this, and give men too much pretence to confound your honourable name with witch-advocates, free-thinkers, and atheists, even with such as this man Bletson, who, if the discipline of the church had its hand strengthened, as it was in the beginning of the great conflict, would have been long ere now cast out of the pale, and delivered ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... to drop in at a certain coffee-house at Charing Cross, kept by a Mr Fenton, in the days when the first George was King, might—indeed, he could not have failed to—have made the acquaintance of a "little witch" (as Swift called her) with a voice of gold, who was destined one day to be a Duchess. This little elf with the merry eyes, dancing feet, and the voice of an angel, was none other than Mrs Fenton's daughter by a former husband, a naval officer, and the prime favourite of all ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... exasperated him beyond bearing. He felt shut up in it, and yet would not leave it. Somebody certainly might come even to-night. Fred himself perhaps, if he could escape from the rigid guardianship he was under; or was that miraculous Australian Nettie a little witch, who had spirited the whole party in a nutshell over the seas? Never was man delivered from a burden with a worse grace than was Dr Rider; and the matter had not mended in these ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... m'teoulin can, when speaking, make themselves heard to whom they will, at any distance. They, can confer with one another secretly when miles away, or make themselves known to many. I was informed by an Indian in all faith that an old witch who died in 1876, twelve miles from Pleasant Point, was heard to speak in the latter place when at her last. A very intelligent Passamaquoddy told me that when Osalik (Sarah) Hequin died he himself heard all she said, though sixty-five miles distant. I am certain ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... No wither'd witch shall here be seen, No goblins lead their nightly crew; The female fays shall haunt the green, And dress thy grave with ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... Princess clamoured for the promised game at once, and soon the flicker from the flaming bow lighted up the darkened nursery as, around the witch-like caldron, they watched their opportunity to snatch the lucky raisin. The room rang so loudly with fun and laughter that even the King himself, big of head and rickety of legs, shambled in good-humouredly ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... be fleyt (frightened) at ye. Ye're no sic a witch as that comes till, though ye div ken a body's fit upo' the flags! My blin' luckie deddy can du mair nor that!" said Malcolm, irritated by her persistency, threats ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... preferred the simplest, like his own, would have highly disapproved. The most grateful names to Allah are Abdallah (Allah's Slave) and Abd al-Rahman (Slave of the Compassionate); the truest are Al-Harith (the gainer, "bread winner") and Al-Hammam (the griever); and the hatefullest are Al-Harb (witch) and Al-Murrah (bitterness, Abu Murrah being a kunyat or by-name of the Devil). Abu al-Shamat (pronounced Abushshamat)Father of Moles, concerning which I have already given details. These names ending in -Din (faith) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... for her. And there was the spinet, with its mysterious music, the drives about, and she was learning to ride on a pillion; and Patty knew so many stories about everything, merry and sad and awesome, for her grandmother's sister had been thrust into prison at Salem for being a witch. And Patty also knew some fairy stories, chief among them a version of "Cinderella," and that fascinating "Little ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... unboastful charms! whom white-robed Truth Right onward guiding through the maze of youth, Forbade the Circe Praise to witch thy soul, And dash'd to earth th' intoxicating bowl: Thee meek-eyed Pity, eloquently fair, 5 Clasp'd to her bosom with a mother's care; And, as she lov'd thy kindred form to trace, The slow smile wander'd o'er her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the leaves are shed In headlong troops and nightmare herds; And, like a witch who calls the dead, The hill-stream whirls ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... them little trouble, and Mamma Gerard loved him as if he were her own. The orphan was now inseparable from little Maria, a perfect little witch, who became prettier every day. The engraver, having found in a cupboard the old bearskin cap which he had worn as a grenadier in the National Guard, a headdress that had been suppressed since '98, gave it to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... strange premonitions, to which if I were superstitious I could not help giving heed. But I have seen too much of the faith that deals in miracles to accept the supernatural in any shape,—assuredly when it comes from an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her revelations of the future. Be it so: though I am not superstitious, I have a right to be imaginative, and my imagination will hold to those words of the old zingara with an irresistible ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a go for me. I couldn't get out, so I bobbed under a four-legged wooden table, picked it up on my shoulders, and tried to protect my legs as much as I could. The girl screamed, and rushed to open the door, and then called out for me to run. I didn't need any telling. I rushed out, the old witch laying on the table with all her might until I got out of her reach. And that is the way I am here, because I shipped at once aboard the Betty Sharp, for fear I might be copped and put in choky ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... was a young witch whose blue eyes, As she stood naked by the river springs, Drew down a god: I watched his radiant form Growing less radiant, and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... bush. It is a dreadful place and she keeps a fierce dog! But perhaps she keeps a boat, too. She must keep a boat," cheerfully, "because she lives right by the water and I know she fishes. If she would only let us have the boat! But I warn you she may refuse. She is like the witch in 'Hansel ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Wagner's finest works, had remained unsung—they en merely howled. Evelyn should be the first to sing them. His eyes glowed with subdued passion as he thought of an afternoon, some three years hence, in the great theatre planned by the master himself, when he should see her rush in as the Witch Kundry. The marvellous evocation of Arabia flashed upon him.... Would he ever hear her sing it?... Yes, if she would consent to go away with him he would hear her sing it. But would she go away with him? Her love of her father, and her religion, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... for them—and probably have expressed more of it than I intended—for my preliminary chapter has caused the greatest uproar that has happened here since witch-times. If I escape from town without being tarred and feathered, I shall consider it good luck. I wish they would tar and feather me; it would be such an entirely novel kind of distinction for a literary man. And, from such judges as my fellow-citizens, I should look upon it ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... has bad dreams, looks black around the eyes, or feels tired, while the disease is assigned such names as "when they dream of snakes," "when they dream of fish," "when ghosts trouble them," "when something is making something else eat them," or "when the food is changed," i.e., when a witch causes it to sprout and grow in the body of the patient or transforms it into a ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... three years past there came to these parts one who called himself Doctor Doboobie, although it may be he never wrote even MAGISTER ARTIUM, save in right of his hungry belly. Or it may be, that if he had any degrees, they were of the devil's giving; for he was what the vulgar call a white witch, a cunning man, and such like.—Now, good sir, I perceive you are impatient; but if a man tell not his tale his own way, how have you warrant to think that he can tell ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... chief's wife took the boy to the headmen, and the witch- doctors. They drew on his body the sign of the otter—he who is cunning and brave, who is at home on land or in the water. They made him a warrior, he who was a boy, because there was always meat in the hut of ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... here a-new, Here, on thy Lips— Exhausted Treasures that wou'd purchase Crowns, To buy thy Smiles—to buy a gentle Look; And when thou didst repay me—blest the Giver? Oh, Abdelazer, more than this I've done— This very Hour, the last the King can live, Urg'd by thy Witch-craft, I his Life betray'd; And is it thus my Bounties are repaid? Whate'er a Crime so great deserves from Heav'n, By Abdelazer might have been forgiven: [Weeps. But I will be reveng'd by penitence, And ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... hath driven me to such a fatall necessity, as that I cannot hide the misery which you have caused. Sure, the hostil goddes have, to plague me, ordayned that fatal marridge, by which you are bound to one so infinitly below you in degree. Were that bond of ill-omind Hymen cut in twayn witch binds you, I swear, Madam, that my happiniss woulde be to offer you this hande, as I have my harte long agoe. And I praye you to beare in minde this declaracion, which I here sign with my hande, and witch I pray you may one day be called upon to prove the truth on. Beleave me, Madam, that there ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... silent—you will not say? . . . Oh! I understand it all. He—I know he would never have ventured it. But it is your 'noble lady Damia'—that old woman, who has told you what to say. You are her echo, and as for Marcus. . . . Confess, confess at once, you witch. . . ." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... crowds of people whirled through our streets on these new-fashioned cars, with their witch-broomsticks overhead,—if they don't come from Salem, they ought to,—and not more than one in a dozen of these fish-eyed bipeds thinks or cares a nickel's worth about the miracle which is wrought for their convenience. They know that without hands or feet, without horses, without steam, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... me like that, you sorceress, you witch! Disdain you! Here, I must kiss your lower lip once more. It looks as though it were swollen, and now it will be more so, and more and more. Look how she laughs, Alexey Fyodorovitch! It does one's heart good to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?" he demanded. "What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the room besides you? Have you ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... He should not only resist and attack the world; he should hate it. He early learned to love the pleasure of hating. He hated himself if no more promising victim loomed on the horizon. He early became the foremost Persecutor and Vice-Crusader of the new world. He made witch-hunting one of the ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... places; and to protect yourself from this trick of his, it is necessary to learn that by joining your hands in a particular way, so as to leave a diamond-shaped aperture between the crossed fingers, you can extinguish the witch-fire at any distance simply by blowing through the aperture in the direction of the light and ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... and peeped and pried here and there, like a young witch. Presently she took a few steps toward him, with her finger mysteriously to her lips, and beckoned him. He entered into the pantomime—she seemed so earnest in ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Hallowe'en, You big stiff." or "On Monday next comes All-Hallows-Even, My grandmother's maiden name was Stephens." or "On Hallowe'en you may see a witch If you don't look out, you funny fellow." or "Harry and I are giving a Hallowe'en party; Harry says you owe him four dollars; please be prompt. or "Monday night the ghosts do dance; Why didn't you enlist and go ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... and rout The Death-fires danc'd at night; The water, like a witch's oils. Burnt green ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... not, however, stupid, but rather quick-witted and adroit. He won the Queen partly indeed by presents (how pitifully characteristic of her!), but also by 'witch-craft of his wit' or intellect. He seems to have been soft-spoken, ingratiating in manner, and given to smiling on the person he addressed ('that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain'). We see ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... on Witchcraft" which Cotton Mather studied, I thought, "Well, that goblin is laid at last!"—and while I mused the tables were turning, and the chairs beating the devil's tattoo all over Christendom. I have a neighbor who dug down through tough strata of clay to a spring pointed out by a witch-hazel rod in the hands of a seventh son's seventh son, and the water is the sweeter to him for the wonder that is mixed with it. After all, it seems that our scientific gas, be it never so brilliant, is not equal to the dingy ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... Dacotahs works in a similar manner. Before a party starts on the war-trail, the chief, with various ceremonies, takes his club and stands before his tent. An old witch bowls hoops at him; each hoop represents an enemy, and for each he strikes a foeman is expected to fall. A bowl of sweetened water is also set out to entice the spirits of the enemy.(1) The war-magic of the Aryans in India does not differ much in character from ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... terrified by the neighbourhood 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, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... episode of the heart. It would be strange were it otherwise. He had in no ordinary degree a rich and sensuous nature, and his responsiveness was so quick that the barriers of prudence were apt to be as shadowy to him as to the author of "The Witch of Atlas." But he was the earnest student for the most part, and, above all, the poet. His other pleasure, in his happy vagrant days, was to join company with any tramps, gipsies, or other wayfarers, and in good ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... apparitions—of spectres that flit about lonely roads on moonlight nights, or haunt peaceful people in their own homes; of funeral processions, with long trains of mourners, watched from a distance, but which, on nearer approach, melt into a line of mist; of wild witch-dances in deserted houses, and balls of fire bounding out of doors and windows—stories which cause the flesh of children to creep upon their bones, and make cowards of them where there is no reason for fear. For you may lay it ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... oblivious of what she had done by the irresistible charm of what she was. You forgot all about her books,—you only felt the intense delight of life with her; she was penetrating and sympathetic, and entered into your feelings so entirely that you wondered how 'the little witch' could read you so readily and so rightly,—and if, now and then, you were startled, perhaps dismayed, by her wit, it was but the prick of a diamond arrow. Words and thoughts that she flung hither and thither, without design or intent beyond the amusement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... once a witch who desired to know everything. But the wiser a witch is, the harder she knocks her head against the wall when she comes to it. Her name was Watho, and she had a wolf in her mind. She cared for nothing in itself—only ...
— Harper's Young People, December 2, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... five Pence. That's too much, you nasty Jade. Nay, 'tis too little, no Body will sell you for less. Upon my Life it cost me as much within a Trifle. You Witch, you tell a Lie, that you may sell it for twice or three Times as much as it cost you. Ay, I'll sell it for a hundred Times as much if I can, but I can't find such Fools. What if I should ask the Price of yourself? What do you value ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... you are a witch," said he. "I do carry it about next my heart. Take it out of my waistcoat, if you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... good for him, and the face of a pretty girl had bewitched him, stirring up desire. He wanted to kiss her lips... There were no women in the Ypres salient. Nothing pretty or soft. It was hell up there, and this girl was a pretty witch, bringing back thoughts of the other side—for life, womanhood, love, caresses which were good for the souls and bodies of men. It was a starved life up there in the salient... Why shouldn't she give him her lips? Wasn't he fighting for ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... was named Nanny Town, after his wife. Here two mountain streams plunged over a rock nine hundred feet high into a romantic gorge, where their waters met in a seething caldron called "Nanny's Pot." Into this, as the negroes believed, the black witch Nanny could, by her sorcery, cast the white soldiers who pursued them. As for old Cudjoe himself, the English declared that he must be in league with the devil, whom he resembled closely enough to be his ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... thou bearded old witch," she cried; "make way, I say, before the wife of Halil Patrona. Why, thou art not worthy to kiss the dust off her feet. Stand aside if thou wilt ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... witch must have stolen my brother's child from the cradle and put that spawn of a starved devil in its place," Dominic would say to me. "Look at him! Just ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... from outside and laid on the table, where the doctor attended to them. Some ghastly sights were disclosed when the stretcher-bearers ripped off the blood-stained clothes and laid bare the hideous wounds. At the end of the room, an old woman, with a face like the witch of Endor, apparently quite unmoved by anything that was happening, was grinding coffee in a mill and making a black concoction which she sold to the men. It was no doubt a good thing for them to get a little stimulant. In another room the floor was covered with wounded waiting ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... 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!" ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the sides of the bucket all the way up, as the shortening rope brought it near; but when he drew it over the well's brink wonder and grief held him fast, for the bucket was as empty as vanity. From behind him came a noise of laughter, and there was the old witch running round and round in a circle; and everywhere a hedge of thorns came shooting up to enclose him and keep him fast ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... sovereign from his meagrely-furnished purse. 'It is only right you should do something; indeed, anything is better than wasting your life in such a hole as this. But what if you do get any answers to your advertisement? Who is to give you a character, since that old witch at Mauleverer Manor has chosen to put up her ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... drabbled tail." The good woman who treated Susanna Martin on this occasion with such hospitable kindness received the impression, as appears by the import of her deposition, that, because Martin came into the house so wonderfully dry, she was therefore a witch. The only inference we are likely to draw is, that she was a particularly neat person; careful to pick her way; and did not wear skirts of the dimensions ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... home to me the fact that I was really in a Catholic country. I had never thought of going to Ammergau, and so, when reading of these shows, I had entertained no more hope of seeing one than of assisting at an auto-da-fe or a witch-burning. I went to the box-office to buy seats. But they were all sold. The forestallers had swept the board. I was never able to determine whether I most pitied or despised these pests of the theatre. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... of hand, magic, witchcraft, were the subjects of the evening. Miss Pole was slightly sceptical, and inclined to think there might be a scientific solution found for even the proceedings of the Witch of Endor. Mrs Forrester believed everything, from ghosts to death-watches. Miss Matty ranged between the two—always convinced by the last speaker. I think she was naturally more inclined to Mrs Forrester's side, but a desire of proving herself ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell |
