"Beldam" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... So each came up to her in turn and she grounded them forthright, and pinioned them with their girdles, and ceased not wrestling and pitching them until she had overthrown one and all. Then there turned to her an old woman who was before her, and the beldam said as in wrath, "O strumpet, cost thou glory in grounding these girls? Behold I am an old woman, yet have I thrown them forty times! So what hast thou to boast of? But if thou have the strength to wrestle ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... first town- born child, now a youth of twenty, whose eye wanders with peculiar interest towards that buxom damsel who comes up the steps at the same instant. There hobbles Goody Foster, a sour and bitter old beldam, looking as if she went to curse, and not to pray, and whom many of her neighbors suspect of taking an occasional airing on a broomstick. There, too, slinking shamefacedly in, you observe that same poor do-nothing and good-for-nothing ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... chapeau-de-soie immediately beyond. Your patience is exhausted, and your curiosity driven to the highest pitch of anxiety; you make a desperate stride, push by the old bonnet, and look round with indignation to see what beldam had thus been between you and the "cynosure of neighbouring eyes:"—whew! 'tis the pretty young shop-girl that served you with your last pair of gloves, and measured them so fascinatingly along ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Al-Nashshar rose and opened the trap door in fear and trembling and crept out into the open; and Allah protected him, so that he went on in the darkness and hid himself in the vestibule till dawn, when he saw the accursed beldam sally forth in quest of other quarry. He followed in her wake without her knowing it, and made for his own lodging where he dressed his wounds and medicined himself till he was whole. Meanwhile he used to watch the old woman, tracking her at all times ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... wither'd Beldam's face; Can thy keen inspection trace Aught of Humanity's sweet, melting grace? Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows; Pity's flood there never rose, See these hands ne'er stretched to save, Hands that took, but never gave: Keeper ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... departed at once. The galloping of their horses soon died away in the distance. "Now for this beldam," said Whately, sternly, as Aun' Jinkey approached, tottering in her excess of fear and ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... arm as if to reach her outstretched hand, the figure made a step forward—a kind of hitch and jerk, however, rather than a step—then tottered and almost lost its balance. What could the witch expect? It was nothing, after all, but a scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. But the strong-willed old beldam scowled, and beckoned, and flung the energy of her purpose so forcibly at this poor combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and ragged garments, that it was compelled to show itself a man, in spite of the reality ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Save that the sea, playing on yellow sand, Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land, Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus In silence of the night to visit us), 350 My turret stands; and there, God knows, I play With Venus' swans and sparrows all the day. A[21] dwarfish beldam bears me company, That hops about the chamber where I lie, And spends the night, that might be better spent, In vain discourse and apish merriment:— Come thither." As she spake this, her tongue tripp'd, For unawares "Come thither" from her slipp'd; ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... ill-omen, wilt thou contradict me and tell me that I am not the Commander of the Faithful? It was I who commanded Jaafer the Barmecide to beat the sheikhs and parade them about the city and make proclamation before them and who sent thee the hundred dinars and sent to salute thee, and I, O beldam of ill-luck, am in very deed the Commander of the Faithful, and thou art a liar, who would make me ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... yellow sand, Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land, Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus In silence of the night to visit us,) My turret stands; and there, God knows, I play With Venus' swans and sparrows all the day. A dwarfish beldam bears me company, That hops about the chamber where I lie, And spends the night, that might be better spent, In vain discourse and apish merriment:— Come thither." As she spake this, her tongue tripp'd, For ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... hour afterwards, the old beldam had breathed her last, but not before she had made her false deposition to the officer of justice; not before she had learned that a paper containing evidence of poison had been found in Magdalena's room; not before she had seen the hapless ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... the beldam with a certain uneasiness now. He felt a veiled threat, although, he told himself, she was mad. And, yet if she felt that Seguis must be recognized, what would keep her ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams |
