"Witch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Polly's Solomon. She talks to him till she's made him most a witch, and she thinks he ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... a hallucinator," Horace said. He leaned forward and gave it to us in not much more than a whisper. "This witch used her HC to pass five dollar bills off as hundreds, getting change. But they caught her at it." He laughed harshly. "And tried her for it," he added. "Get the picture on that ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a misprint for hagge, will be evident from the circumstance, that in the first folio we have a similar error in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IV. Sc. 2., where instead of "you witch, you hagge," it is misprinted "you witch, you ragge." It is observable that hagge is the form in which the word is most frequently found in the folios, and it is the epithet the poet applies to a witch ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... a silly idea, but it still haunted her and would not be shaken off. Granny Thomas was a very old woman who lived at Burnley Cove and was reputed to be something of a witch. That is, people who were not Sparhallows or Burnleys gave her that name. Sparhallows or Burnleys, of course, were above believing in such nonsense. Janet was above believing it; but still—the sailors along shore were careful to "keep on the good side" ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... never say again that there are not two sides to a story. If I am ever tempted to believe one side without waiting to hear the other, I shall surely feel again the hands of that old witch ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... illuminative treatment of this subject I would refer my readers to the essays of Professor Karl Pearson, The Chances of Death, Vol. II.—"Woman as Witch: Evidences of Mother-Right in the Customs of Mediaeval Witchcraft"; "Ashiepattle, or Hans Seeks his Luck"; "Kindred Group Marriage," Part I.; "The Mother-Age Civilisation," Part II.; "General Words for Sex ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... although she made this an occasion for ordering "mountains of pretty clothes and pyramids of hats." But still she refused to go on board the flag-ship. Leclerc expostulated and pleaded, but the lovely witch laughed in his face and still persisted that she ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... 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, within ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... down, but not convinced; and he seemed determined to spit out all his venom. Well, says he, at any rate you will not deny that the English have not got a language of their own, and that they came by it in a very odd way. Of this at least I am certain, for the whole history was related to me by a witch in Lapland, whilst I was bargaining for a wind. Here the company were all in unison again ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... 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 in the ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... - - d confounded Bitch, Ugly and cunning as a Witch. Her Bill shall be preferr'd by Law; The House we wish we'd never saw. One Pound five and ten Pence; Grant her Repentance; We'll never come here again; And let her ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... doctors to the population is very small, and the people still have great confidence in their quacks and witch-doctors. The elementary rules of sanitation are generally neglected, water supplies are polluted, filth is piled up in the streets and the courtyards, as it was in England and Western Europe generally until a century ago, and the framing of regulations ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... had their ghost stories, their witch stories, and their traditions of hidden treasure, guarded by spirits of persons who had been murdered, and buried with the gold in order that their spirits might act as a charm to frighten away anybody who should presume to ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... 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 ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... a justice in Lancashire has so much skill in witches as I have? Nay, I'll speak a proud word; you shall turn me loose against any Witch-finder in Europe. I'd make an ass of Hopkins if he ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 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
... to pasture every morning and back to the village every evening. She had to pass a small cottage, almost hidden with flowers, where lived a mysterious woman whom the foolish and ignorant children of the neighborhood called "old witch," simply because she had a hump on her back and was rarely seen, except when she rushed out to drive away some naughty child trying to steal her flowers through the fence. She attended to her garden very early in the morning before other people were out of bed, and ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... gold tooth of the Witch of Endor!" I cried, "if you can construe all that from his appearance you are dealing in nothing else ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... defended by the Tower, was 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, that she returned ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Of sifted sun And forest star-grass, cool With shadows tunnelling: Witch-work that tauntingly Webs my bare floor: Ah, Pan ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... if it would make the old man comfortable for life; and why not my soul too? Don't that belong to me as much as any other part of me? Why am I to be condemned to sacrifice my prospects in life to a girl of whose honesty I am not even sure? What is this intolerable fascination? Witch! I almost believe in mesmerism now!— Again, I say, why should I not sell my soul, as I'd sell my coat, if the bargain's but ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... of Camilla gave way to the feelings of the dutiful and affectionate son, as they met Mrs. Thorpe, who had descried them from above, in the passage. "Ah, Mother! How do you do?" said he, giving her a hearty shake of the hand. "Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch. Here is Morland and I come to stay a few days with you, so you must look out for a couple of good beds somewhere near." And this address seemed to satisfy all the fondest wishes of the mother's heart, for she received him with the most ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... broken buttes, between which one caught wild views of a tortured country; twisted strata, strange distorted cedar and cactus, uncanny shapes of rock pinnacles, in colors somber and strange. They stopped at noon in the shadow of a weathered overhanging rock, with the profile of a witch. The atmosphere of dissension had by this time permeated the crew and this meal, usually so jovial, was eaten with no general conversation and all were glad to take to the boats as soon as the ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... all? The little motherless darlin', with the goold hair I combed the knots out iv many's the time? The little witch that run barefoot an' barelegged ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the old Witch House? I met on the street this morning Johnnie Evans and his mother, who came way down from Boston just to see that, and Witch Hill, and some other places here in Salem that they had been reading about together this vacation. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... "Aroint thee, foul witch!" cried Thord. They should see, said he, that Helga would turn out fine. But Cormac answered, "Said it may be, for sooth it may be: I will never ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... glass, the bullets clanging against the metal work as they struck and struck and struck. The men leaned from the cabs towards each other, frantic with excitement, shouting curses, the engines rocking, the steam roaring; confusion whirling in the scene like the whirl of a witch's dance, the white clouds of steam, the black eddies from the smokestack, the blue wreaths from the hot mouths of revolvers, swirling together in a blinding maze of vapour, spinning around them, dazing them, dizzying them, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... that hour of pass ing day—all things had eyes wistful and unblessed. In those moments glamour was so dead that it was as if meaning had abandoned the earth. But not for long. Winged with darkness, it stole back; not the soul of meaning that had gone, but a witch-like and brooding spirit harbouring in the black trees, in the high dark spears of the rushes, and on the grim-snouted snags that lurked along the river bank. Then the owls came out, and night-flying things. And in the wood there began a cruel bird-tragedy—some dark pursuit in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... farthing, if she came not of her own good will,' murmured Richard, turning towards his mare. 'But come, mistress Rees, you know you couldn't do it, even if you were the black witch the neighbours would have you—though I, for my part, will not hear a word against you—never since you set my poor old dog upon his legs again—though to be sure he will die one of these days, and that no one can help—dogs have such ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... if you knew how horrid it all was. Just now, as I was sitting alone, I felt like a poor little princess shut up in an enchanted tower. Giles is the magician, and Etta is the wicked witch. I was making up quite ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... 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 upon you, ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... Ho! What woman! Who but that scullery-wench, that onion-monger, That slatternly, pale bakress, that foul witch, The coroneted Fish-Wife of Fiori, Her Majesty, ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... mile broad, and lieth north-east 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
... relapse into heresy which doomed her to death. At the close of May, 1431, a great pile was raised in the market-place of Rouen where her statue stands now. Even the brutal soldiers who snatched the hated "witch" from the hands of the clergy and hurried her to her doom were hushed as she reached the stake. One indeed passed to her a rough cross he had made from a stick he held, and she clasped it to her bosom. As her eyes ranged over the city from the lofty scaffold she ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... torture, not brutal but exquisitely refined, of perfected pain, achieved by the stimulation of recondite nerves of very delicate sensibility. Lawyers wear archaic robes and use a strange language in their mysteries, conveying to us a belief that Justice is an ancient witch whose evil eye can be averted only by the incantation and grotesque posturing of her initiate priests. But I am not sure that financiers do not understand the art of hypnotic suggestion best of all. I have worshipped in cathedrals, sweated ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... trembling, fantastic shadow on the wall at her back. Her head, shorn of the false "front" she wore in the day, appeared to have become all forehead and beaked nose; her eyes had dwindled to mere points of blackness; her mouth, sunken and drawn over toothless gums, was like the mouth of a witch. The wind, blowing in gusts through the open door, inflated her gray shawl and the skirt of her dressing-gown, while, with each flutter of her garments, the grotesque shadow on the white wall danced and gibbered behind her. And, as she gazed down on the girl, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... weather and her power over youth and maid. In the dimmest distance we can see traces of the earlier kindred group marriage, and in the near foreground the beginnings of that fight with patriarchal institutions which led the priestess to be branded by the new Christian civilization as the evil-working witch of ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... with color, lights and song, Calls from St. Mark's with ancient voice and strange: I am the Witch of Cities! glide along My silver streets that never wear by change Of years: forget the years, and pain, and wrong, And every sorrow reigning men among. Know I can soothe thee, please and marry ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... presentments, and tell nothing of the spirit living in those marvellous eyes. This was a thing of vital force, for ever changeful. Even the colour of her eyes was varying, and yet there was a curious persistency of gaze, a power of fixing. The Guestrow citizens called Wilhelmine von Graevenitz witch and sorceress because of these strange eyes; they said she could freeze men with a look, that she had a serpent's gaze that grew cold and petrifying, when she chose, and yet those who loved her (they were not many) knew that her eyes could dance with laughter like a child's, that ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... have guessed. The names of these hardy adventurers must by no means go unrecorded: shepherd's purse, wild pepper-grass, pansy, common chickweed (Stellaria media), mouse-ear chickweed (Cerastium viscosum), knawel, common mallow, witch-hazel, cinque-foil (Potentilla Norvegica,—not argentea, as I should certainly have expected), many-flowered aster, cone-flower, yarrow, two kinds of groundsel, fall dandelion, and jointweed. Six of ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... cleaned—(here his voice would drop to a whisper)—"What do you think!—why out popped the sleeve-link that was in his cuff this minute!" And for the hundredth time the bit of gold would be examined by each child in turn. Or it was the witch story—about the Yahoo wild man with great horns and a lashing tail, who lived in the swamp and went howling and prowling about for plunder and prey. (This was always given with a low, prolonged growl, like a dog in pain—all the children shuddering.) And then followed the oft-told tale ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in Ayrshire, on the banks of "bonny Doon," in a clay biggin not far from "Alloway's auld haunted kirk," the scene of the witch dance in Tam O'Shanter. His father was a hard-headed, God-fearing tenant farmer, whose life and that of his sons was a harsh struggle with poverty. The crops failed; the landlord pressed for his rent; for weeks at a time the family tasted no meat; yet this life of toil was lightened by love and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... a room, rent one Irwadi month in arrears, in a cold-water tenement near the river which demarked the Old and the New Quarters. The facade of the old building was dark now. His landlady was probably asleep, although you never could tell with that old witch. Ramsey knew it wouldn't be the first time she stayed up through half the night to await a ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... 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? ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... changed for another on his initiation into the secret society, this secret society having also, as usual, a secret language. About the age of three or five years the boy is decorated, under the auspices of the witch doctor, with certain scars on the face. These scars run from the root of the nose across the cheeks, and are sometimes carried up in a curve on ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... naturally, as though I was very surprised; but you could not deceive Mlle. Rosamunda. A more artful little witch never played at fairies ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... Both Swedes and Quakers composed the jury; there were no hysterics; the matter was dispassionately canvassed; impressions and prejudices were not accepted as evidence; and in the end the verdict was that though she was guilty of being called a witch, a witch she nevertheless was not. The distinction was so well taken that no more witch trials or panics occurred. This was in 1684, eight years before the disasters in New England. But newspapers did not exist in those days, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... for a minute, but the influence of the Intendant was all-powerful over him. He gave way. "Damn De Repentigny," said he, "I only meant to do honor to the pretty witch. Who would have expected him to take it up in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Gross, that lives in yon tow'r, The ugliest witch i' the north country, Has trysted me ae day up till her bow'r, An' monny fair ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... and long-suffering metis and Indians to prompt and decisive action. He intended to go off again in a few hours to Prince Albert to direct the siege against that town. Only those who had witnessed the wantonness and the capture of the "white witch" followed. Most of the rebels were too busy improving the shining hour of unlimited loot. A half-breed on one side and an Indian on the other, each with a dirty mitt on Dorothy's shoulder, led her to the Judgment Hall of the dusky prophet, Louis David Riel, "stickit priest," and now malcontent ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... ever since. Her term of service is long out; but there is nothing that could drive her from this plantation. She wanders about as she pleases, and has a cabin in the woods yonder; for she will not live in the quarters. They say that she is a white witch; and the Indians, who reverence the mad, lay maize and venison ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... of remark, that Coke, in the trial of Mrs. Turner, told her that she was guilty of the seven deadly sins: she was a whore, a bawd, a sorcerer, a witch, a Papist, a felon, and a murderer.[*] And, what may more surprise us, Bacon, then attorney-general, took care to observe, that poisoning was a Popish trick.[**] Such were the bigoted prejudices which prevailed: poisoning was not of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... cap I doff, Stooping. 'T is the white-witch. 'Hail,' Quoth the witch, 'thou shalt prevail An thou wilt; I swear to thee All thy days shall glorious shine, Great and rich, ay, fair and fine, So what followeth rest my fee, So thou'lt give thy ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... witch—this stranger in silk and jewels who walked in darkness so confidently up the tortuous unpaved street?—this apparition who, coming out of the seas and the dumb fog, talked of the Islands and the Islanders as though she had known them all ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... is named the Castle of Weeds,' replied the lady, 'and the lands about it for many miles belonged to my husband, the Earl Mador. And he was a bold and very valiant man; and he slew Maelond, the eldest son of Domna, the great witch of Glaive, and ever thereafter things were not well with him. For she and her eight evil sisters laid a curse upon him. And that in spite of this, that he slew Maelond in fair fight, for all that he was a false and powerful wizard. And Domna came to my husband, when he was worn ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... Rudolph had received the Protestant Kepler, driven from Tubingen because Lutheran doctors, knowing from Holy Writ that the sun had stood still in Ajalon, had denounced his theory of planetary motion. His mother had just escaped being burned as a witch, and the world owes a debt of gratitude to the Emperor for protecting the astrologer, when enlightened theologians might, perhaps, have hanged ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bark upon the ocean. Now he seemed as if about to turn a somerset and circumnavigate the beam from which he hung, creaking and groaning dismally all the while, like an unhappy soul in purgatory. The loose shutters of the upper story of the tavern chattered like the teeth of a witch-ridden old crone. But cheerful fires of hickory and maple were burning within doors; a merry group was gathered in the old oak parlor, and little recked the guests of the elemental war without. In fact, they knew nothing of it, till the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... them all; but what was it, in either of the white twain, to the bursting ties of that lovely quadroon, raised like a lily in the household heat of kindness and the breath of purity, to be cast forth like a witch, on a moment's information, and consigned ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more; Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe,— Not that she is truly so, But no other way they know A contentment to express, Borders so upon excess, That they ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... water and drunk: if the body ejected the poison it was a sign of innocence. This method was the surest and least troublesome—for the investigation, sentence, and punishment were carried out simultaneously—unless the witch-doctor had been influenced, which sometimes happened, for there were various ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... and reflected with pride that not a man in the room could boast such a taking little witch for his daughter. Then he grew grave, and returned ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... witch, you can't make a false note. But how do you suppose I can keep hold of the tail of the Air, if you send me chasing after it through so many capricious variations? Now begin again, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... said, "I feel all through me that somethin' terrible is comin'. That woman back thar has clean give me the shivers. I'm more afraid of her than I am of Timmendiquas or Thayendanegea. Do you think she is a witch?" ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and Yusuf came to pay us a visit, and related divers sorts of wonders of this and other countries of Africa. The first matter concerned us. Eight days ago died in Tintalous an old witch, or prophetess, a negress, who foretold our arrival, and said to En-Noor, "A caravan of Englishmen is on the road from Tripoli, coming to you." This woman for many years was a foreteller of future events. The next thing we heard referred to the secret societies ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... conceive to be the more probable, for that the sap of the oak is of an unkind tincture to most trees. But for this improvement, I would rather advise inoculation, as the ordinary elm upon the witch-hazel, for those large leaves we shall anon mention, and which ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... of the good leaves there is hounds tongue. Wear it at the feet of you against dogs what be savage. Herb Benet you nail upon the door. No witch nor evil thing can enter to ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... to plan something. It's no good asking Mrs. Wylie. We'll have to do something ourselves. I'm afraid the people she's with lock her up, or something. P'raps they daren't let her go out, if there's some wicked fairy, or a witch, or something like that, that wants to run ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... a string of horrors that fairly froze their blood. She was a wrinkled-up and wizened personage—she must have been eighty—and as she mumbled the grim story through her toothless gums, she seemed a very old witch to them. Grandmother Majauszkiene had lived in the midst of misfortune so long that it had come to be her element, and she talked about starvation, sickness, and death as other people might about ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... and damp, while they seemed glad of the company of the men, whinnying low and rubbing themselves against them as they came into the stalls. I heard one thrall say to another that the whole stable had surely been witch ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... crazy?" he demanded, clutching the floating bills, and then catching her about the waist. "You act like a witch! Where did all this money come from? ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... a field I saw an old witch-hare this night; And she cocked a lissome ear, And she eyed the moon so bright, And she nibbled of the green; And I whispered "Wh-s-st! witch-hare," Away like a ghostie o'er the field She fled, and ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... at her. There was a funny little smile twitching the corners of her mouth. Her beauty was irresistible. Even the iron barrier of his churlish avoidance was severely shaken. She was hard to withstand, this witch with her friendly eyes and frank speech, despite her ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... as the gentlemen, a dreadful riot ensued. Gillstoups, porter bottles, and penny pies flew like balls and bomb-shells in battle. Mrs Fenton, with her mutch off, and her hair loose, with wide and wild arms, like a witch in a whirlwind, was seen trying to sunder the challengers, and the champions. Finding, however, her endeavours unavailing, and fearing that murder would be committed, she ran like desperation into the streets, crying for help. I was just at the time ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... 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
... 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 stopped, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... better say, Though better figured on that day,[261] A horse, which might appear to us, Who deal in rhyme, a Pegasus; A rider, who, when once got on, Might pass for a Bellerophon, 930 Dropt on a sudden from the skies, To catch and fix our wondering eyes, To witch, with wand instead of whip, The world with noble horsemanship, To twist and twine, both horse and man, On such a well-concerted plan, That, Centaur-like, when all was done, We scarce could think they were not one? Could she not to our itching ears Bring the new names of new-coin'd peers, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Nay, why should I not tell it? Is it true, Thorolf, that for three nights thy father sat in woman's weed, doing sorceries with the witch of Smalserhorn, ere he dared face ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... prove false, I will stab him to the heart, with my own hand, though he be my father's brother's grandson, and the best warrior of our tribe; but no, no, Phadraig, the boy is young, and his blood is hot and fiery; and the charms of that witch might well move a colder spirit—but he is true as steel, and wise and wary for one so young. He may sun himself in her smiles, or revel on her lips, but trust me, Eachin of the iron hand, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... South of the village I invariably find one species of birds, north of it another. In only one locality, full of azalea and swamp-huckleberry, I am always sure of finding the hooded warbler. In a dense undergrowth of spice-bush, witch-hazel, and alder, I meet the worm-eating warbler. In a remote clearing, covered with heath and fern, with here and there a chestnut and an oak, I go to hear in July the wood sparrow, and returning by a stumpy, shallow pond, I am sure ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... 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 of the school, would be rude to the small damsel, so that he could ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... "dutchman" in the place of a lost suspender button; how to make bird-traps; and how to "skin the cat." Eph initiated him into the mysteries of magic and witchcraft, and showed him how to locate a subterranean vein of water by means of a twig of witch-hazel. Eph also confided to Johnnie that he himself could stanch the flow of blood or stop a toothache instantly by force of a certain charm, but he could not tell how to do this because the secret could be imparted only from man to woman, or vice versa. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... jostle of sweet and bitter memories. So near, so near again! The same warm seductive witch. He strove ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... 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
... majesty, and, of course, there was a great crush. The king and queen returned the tickets, but everybody else was there. I remember that the Duke of Cleveland appeared as Henry VIII.; the Duke of Gloucester as a fine old English gentleman; the Duchess of Buccleugh as the Witch of Endor; Lady Edgecombe as a nun; the Duchess of Bolton as the goddess Diana; Lady Stanhope as Melopomene; the Countess of Waldegrave as Jane Shore; Lord Galway's daughter, Mrs. Monckton, as an Indian princess, in a golden robe, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... An event so miraculously corresponding with the prediction of the witches astonished Macbeth, and he stood wrapt in amazement, unable to make reply to the messengers: and in that point of time swelling hopes arose in his mind, that the prediction of the third witch might in like manner have its accomplishment, and that he should one day reign king ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the other hand, not a gnome, witch, Norna's Head, or other intimation of the underworld. The shore looked like many other Italian shores. It looked not very unlike what we Yankees call salt-marsh. At all events, we should not break our heads against a wall! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... sprite! Elf of eve! and starry Fay! Ye that love the moon's soft light, Hither—hither wend your way; Twine ye in the jocund ring, Sing and trip it merrily, Hand to hand, and wing to wing, Round the wild witch-hazel tree. ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... have art enoof, and, to gi' the witch her due, beauty enoof to make a mon play the rule, an' she tak it into ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... she exclaimed, and was about to burst into tears. But he arrested their course by saying, playfully, "Come, Loo Loo, kiss my hand, and say, 'Thank you, Sir, for buying me.' Say it just as you did six years ago, you little witch!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... he said bluffly. "I ask you. Leave it alone. I've got the price. Ever try witch hazel ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... but Samuel mourns for Saul, that Jehovah had repented of having made him king over Israel. There is another narrative intimately connected with this one in subject and treatment, thought and expression, namely, that of the witch of Endor. When Saul, shortly before the battle in which he fell, surveyed the hostile army, he was seized with anxiety and terror. He inquired of Jehovah, but received no answer, neither by dreams, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... not Madame Beattie who came to the stair-head and looked down; it was Rhoda Knox. After the glance she went away, though in no haste, and summoned Madame Beattie, who appeared in a silk negligee of black and white swirls like witch's fires and, after one ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... you need just now is not a discourse, but a bath and court-plaster and witch-hazel and cold-water bandages," Mr. Bronson said; "so to bed with you. You 'll need all the sleep you can get, and you 'll feel stiff and sore ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... left the room with the boy's arm linked in his. And the woman's face on the wall smiled behind them—the smile of a witch, mysterious, derisive, aloof, yet touched with that same magic with which Piers had learned even in his infancy to charm away the evil spirit that lurked ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... could be of any assistance either to Bakuma, the white men or himself. Indeed he had been waiting the arrival of these goods to secure the subjection of Bakahenzie to his will. He determined that the trial should be now. Merely to demand would, he felt, arouse the obstinacy of the chief witch-doctor, who would never, unless compelled by force or cunning, give up the reins of power which to him was the raison d'etre of his life. Birnier must attack through the line of least resistance. With the carriers bearing the mail was a case of ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... education, their daily professional and business needs, is increasing and will continually increase. The phraseology of Supernaturalism may remain on men's lips, but in practice they are Naturalists. The magistrate who listens with devout attention to the precept "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" on Sunday, on Monday, dismisses, as intrinsically absurd, a charge of bewitching a cow brought against some old woman; the superintendent of a lunatic asylum who substituted exorcism for rational modes of treatment ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... of wound-nursing, Storri went to the San Reve. He found that lady of the gray-green eyes sitting sullen and silent, wrapped in resentful anger like a witch's cloak. One thing in his favor; the San Reve had not heard of his return, and supposed him just back from ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... 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
... baptized at St. Thomas's Church. Callon's son Langi, and half a dozen other boys, lived with Mr. Gomes, and ran after him all day—nice little fellows, who fraternized with our boys at the school-house. There were also five men, the chief of whom was Bulan (Moon), one of the manangs, or witch-doctors, of the tribe. These manangs, being as it were the priests of Dyak superstitions, and getting their living by pretended cures, interpretations of omens and the voices of birds, were of course the natural enemies of truth and enlightenment. Bulan, however, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... found the equivocal Predictions, on which his Hero so fatally depended. "He had learned of certain wysards, how that he ought to take heede of Macduffe;—and surely hereupon had he put Macduffe to death, but a certaine witch, whom he had in great trust, had tolde that he should neuer be slain with man borne of any woman, nor vanquished till the Wood of Bernane came to the Castell of Dunsinane." p. 244. And the Scene between Malcolm and Macduff ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith |
