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Witch   /wɪtʃ/   Listen
Witch

verb
(past & past part. witched; pres. part. witching)
1.
Cast a spell over someone or something; put a hex on someone or something.  Synonyms: bewitch, enchant, glamour, hex, jinx.



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"Witch" Quotes from Famous Books



... own land! This place must be bewitched, I think. There is a witch upon the moors, I know, who can take almost any shape; but—but they say she is three hundred years of ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... whispering of the strange things that had been found in old Mrs. Gibbon's cottage, obscene figures, and unknown contrivances. She was a witch, he said, and ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... firelight. The effect was picturesque indeed. The furniture and the polished wainscoting glinted and shone, and the shadows of the big brass andirons were thrown upon the ceiling, where they performed a witch's dance, the intricacy of ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... gradual beauty and significance Emerge! And did you hear That little twitter-and-cheep, Breaking inordinately loud and clear On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere? 'Tis a first nest at matins! And behold A rakehell cat—how furtive and acold! A spent witch homing from some infamous dance - Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade! And now! a little wind and shy, The smell of ships (that earnest of romance), A sense of space and water, and thereby A lamplit bridge ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... them—crystal gazers, mediums, fortune tellers, and the rest. They are reaping a rare harvest for the moment. We punish the humbler rogues, but we don't punish the fools who go to see them. If I had my way, the man or woman who visited the modern witch or wizard should get six months in the second division. Fools should be punished oftener for their folly. But education will sweep these things into the limbo of man's ignorance and mental infancy. Ghosts cannot stand ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... forms and ghostly 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 down ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... 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 ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... and the whole atmosphere was filled with the glory of the crown of the year. By a clever contrivance, autumn leaves came fluttering down and Patty's bare feet nestled in them with childish enjoyment. Her smile was roguish, she was a witch, an eerie thing. The orange light glowed and shone, and at the height of a tumultuous burst of music, there was a sudden pause. Patty stopped still, her smile faded, and the colours changed from autumn glows to a cold wintry ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells

... Belphoebe; the story of Florimel and the Witch's son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout's vision, in the last book. But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... me only to-night! If one of t' witch people wud come, them we heard oft' home, and gif hur all hur wants, what ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis

... with her wrath, does the Norseman feel pleasure. Nature to him was not, as in Mr. Longfellow's exquisite poem, {3} the kind old nurse, to take him on her knee and whisper to him, ever anew, the story without an end. She was a weird witch-wife, mother of storm demons and frost giants, who must be fought with steadily, warily, wearily, over dreary heaths and snow-capped fells, and rugged nesses and tossing sounds, and away into the boundless ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... pipers played ere a Celtic Medusa gazed at them and turned them into stone. Every one knows the story of the Rollright stones, a similar stone circle in Oxfordshire, which were once upon a time a king and his army, and were converted into stone by a witch who cast a fatal spell ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... 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 to join in the sport that was giving ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... called Gods to serve his stead; Forth Aias like a beast, to mangle me— These things ye will not credit, but I see." Then once again, and last, she turned her switch On Helen, hissing, "Out upon thee, witch, Smooth-handed traitress, speak thy secrets out That we may know thee, how thou goest about Caressing, with a hand that hides a knife, That which shall prove false paramour, false wife, Fair as the sun is fair ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... reading it in the town while Lizzie went inside the shops. Then I forgot about it till just now. Oh, I must know what happened when the Prince went to see the old witch!" ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... once," she observed, innocently; "but I took her down to the cowslip meadow and lost her. We called her the White Witch, she was so pretty and so full of mischief. I made myself quite ill crying over her loss, we were so afraid she was killed," and here Fay buried her face in the little creature's fur, as she rocked herself to and ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... is the name of this little bush? Why, it is the witch hazel. And sometime when you fall down and bump yourself hard grandma will go to the medicine closet and will bring out a bottle, and from that bottle she will pour something on that little sore place and it will make it feel better. Do you know what it ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... Saul visited the Witch of Endor, and she, by some magic spell, called up Samuel, the prophet said: "Why hast thou disquieted me, to call me up?" He did not say: Why have you called me from another world? The idea expressed is: ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... Claus had cut was a rod of witch-hazel, which has the power of showing wherever treasure lies buried. But Claus knew no more of that than the ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle

... 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 it ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... teeth vindictively, and put an inch more onto his stride. He was descending a long, open valley that seemed from its trackless snows to have been immemorially life-shunned and accursed. Black, witch-like pines sentinelled its flanks, and accentuated its desolation. And over all there was the silence of the Wild, that double-strong solution of silence from which all other silences are distilled, and spread out. Yet, as he gazed around him in this everlasting ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... foreign novelists, each of whom, so far as I know, has only two books. This green-and-gold volume contains both the works of the Pomeranian Meinhold in an excellent translation by Lady Wilde. The first is "Sidonia the Sorceress," the second, "The Amber Witch." I don't know where one may turn for a stranger view of the Middle Ages, the quaint details of simple life, with sudden intervals of grotesque savagery. The most weird and barbarous things are made human and comprehensible. There is one incident which ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... tell dat, but I done study hit out dis-a-way, dat mo'n likely de gal bin turnin' up her nose at some young Injun man, an' outer spite he done gone an' got some witch ter putt a spell on her so's't de Owl 'ud look lak a man an' she 'ud go an' th'ow husse'f away on a ol' no-kyount bu'd. Yas, I reckon dat wuz 'bout de way. An' now y'all better shet up dem peepers er you'll be gittin' lak ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... will believe no ill. All this a wondrous witch did tell me true: One who can guide the stars to work her will, Or turn a torrent's course ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... however, wholly prepared for what happened next. The man in green, riding the frail topmost bough like a witch on a very risky broomstick, reached up and rent the black hat from its airy nest of twigs. It had been broken across a heavy bough in the first burst of its passage, a tangle of branches in torn and scored and scratched ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... Tso-ch'iu Ming on the Spring and 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 ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles

... the son of a farmer. My father was the son of a farmer, as was his father, and his. There is no break, so far as I know, in the line of farmers back into the seventeenth century. There was a Rev. George Burroughs who was hanged (in 1692) for a witch in Salem. He was a Harvard graduate. I know of no other Harvard graduate by our name until Julian (Mr. Burroughs's son) graduated in 1901 from Harvard. My father's cousin, the Rev. John C. Burroughs, the first president of ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... up this expedition, and sets off. We will not spoil the story for you except to say that he spends some time on the way with a witch-doctor, who is able to conjure up for him a vision of where little Nell is. His adventures thereafter are many and various, and some of them are hair's-breadth ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... they had fashioned was a gossamer veil rent asunder by a miserable lunatic. It was too much for their sanity. Mere human reason could not withstand the shock. As the savage is crushed by the sleight-of-hand of the witch doctor, so was the world crushed by the magic of Goliah. How did he do it? It was the awful face of the Unknown upon which the world gazed and by which it was frightened out of the memory of its ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... dressed in deep mourning even to a little black silk bonnet, for the lost mother, she sang Lily Dale and Old Dog Tray while all listened with tears and astonishment to the sympathetic voice, and an uncle, Mr. James Cameron, exclaimed, "It's not a child, it's a witch." In the old Rincon school, so famous for its splendid teachers and also many scholars who afterwards became famous in California history, Maggie Cameron was called Hail Columbia because her voice could lead the singing of the entire school so strongly. In the old ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... in the balsam's ear That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's,— A syllabled silence that no man may hear,— As dreamily upon its stem it rocks? What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant, Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant, Some specter of some perished flower ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... bade him have a care for the welfare of Egypt before he refused her. Her words were dark and full of evil portent. The air seemed to winnow with bat-wings and to reek with vapors from witch-potions and murmur with mystic formulas. Every man of us crept, and drew near to his neighbor. When she paused for an answer, the king hesitated. She had menaced Egypt and it stirreth the heart of the father when the child is threatened. He turned to Har-hat in his perplexity and ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... connexion with Punchkin and "the Giant who had no Heart in his Body"—Excursus on Bluebeard's Chamber; 4. The Water King or Subaqueous Demon—Female Embodiments of Evil: 1. The Baba Yaga or Hag, and 2. The Witch, feminine counterparts of ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... 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 or ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... going to die just yet," he said as merrily as he could; "and if I find myself going, I shall take care the blame falls on the right person. What was the witch woman like? Sit down on the chair there, and tell me ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... Frankenstein was the outcome of the project before mentioned of writing tales of horror. One night, when pouring rain detained Shelley's party at the Villa Diodati over a blazing fire, they told strange stories, till Byron, leading to poetic ideas, recited the witch's scene from "Christabel," which so excited Shelley's imagination that he shrieked, and ran from the room; and Polidori writes that he brought him to by throwing water in his face. Upon his reviving, they agreed to write each a supernatural tale. Matthew Gregory Lewis, the author of ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... Vaucouleurs was a much perplexed man. It was a very natural idea then, and in accordance with every sentiment of the time that he should suspect this wonderful girl, who would not be daunted, of being a witch and capable of bringing an evil fate on all who crossed her. All thought of boxing her ears must ere this have departed from his mind. He hastened to consult the cure, which was the most reasonable thing to do. The cure was as much ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... 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

... thirty standards rose. 160 From every warlike city That boasts the Latian name, Foredoomed to dogs and vultures, That gallant army came; From Sofia's purple vineyards, 165 From Norba's ancient wall, From the white streets of Tusculum, The proudest town of all; From where the Witch's Fortress[29] O'erhangs the dark-blue seas; 170 From the still glassy lake that sleeps Beneath Aricia's trees— Those trees in whose dim shadow The ghastly priest[30] doth reign, The priest who slew the slayer, 175 And shall himself be slain; From the drear banks of Ufens,[31] Where ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... "The old witch said I was to meet with many misfortunes, pass a dreadful crisis, and then come out with ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton

... the side of the boat, and took up his position at the helm. He looked at the sky, and as soon as they were out in the open sea, he shouted to the men: "Pull away, pull with all your might! The sea is smiling at a squall, the witch! I can feel the swell by the way the rudder works, and ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac

... things of the follies and madnesses (for it is all one) that your worship has done and is still doing, that I will manage to make her softer than a glove though I find her harder than a cork tree; and with her sweet and honeyed answer I will come back through the air like a witch, and take your worship out of this purgatory that seems to be hell but is not, as there is hope of getting out of it; which, as I have said, those in hell have not, and I believe your worship will not say ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... accuser to single combat, when frequently the stoutest champion was allowed to supply their place; swallowing a morsel of consecrated bread; sinking or swimming in a river for witchcraft; or weighing a witch; stretching out the arms before the cross, till the champion soonest wearied dropped his arms, and lost his estate, which was decided by this very short chancery suit, called the judicium crucis. The bishop of Paris and the abbot of St. Denis disputed about the patronage of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... the reason why she was so vigorous and showed her sixty-six years so little. The fact that the two sixes stood together caused her, according to an old country saying[3] (which, however, was not universally believed in) to be regarded as a witch. It was said that she sometimes milked her black goat for hours at a time, and that this goat gave an astonishing quantity of milk, but that in milking this goat she was in reality drawing the milk out of the udders of the cows belonging ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... regiment, as well as bedchamber, were taken away, I would not believe it, till last night the Duchess of Grafton told me, that the night before the Duchess of Bedford said to her, "Are not you sorry for Poor Mr. Conway? He has lost every thing." When the Witch of Endor pities, one knows she has raised ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... mixed with 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 means ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... he found himself face to face with a keen-eyed, swarthy, wrinkled old woman, whose untended grey hair hung in ragged locks about her cheeks, and whose hooked nose and prominent chin gave her quite the aspect of some old witch as fancied by ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... stairs is the heat. That old arbor in the corner has been here ever since I was a child, and so have the syringa bushes and the green box next the wall. I wanted them all the year round—not just for three or four months in the year—and that witch Holker said he could do it, and he has. Half the weddings in town have been begun right on that bench, and when the lanterns are lighted and the fountain turned on outside, no gentleman ever escapes. You and Peter are immune, so I sha'n't waste any of my precious ammunition on you. And now what ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... mare could do to me, by fair play and horse-trickery, but that the glory of sitting upon her seemed to be too great for me; especially as there were rumours abroad that she was not a mare after all, but a witch. However, she looked like a filly all over, and wonderfully beautiful, with her supple stride, and soft slope of shoulder, and glossy coat beaded with water, and prominent eyes full of docile fire. Whether ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... sate there, waiting quietly to be summoned, and as though we had troubled him, and—as though he had joined us. I think he was an evil man, close and evil. And there hangs in my mind a verse of Scripture, where Samuel said to the witch, 'Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?' Oh," he went on, "I do not know why I talk wildly thus"; for he saw that Roland was looking at him with astonishment, with parted lips; "but a shadow has fallen upon me, and there ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... nature is weak, I put on a stronger, double leader and dropped another fly into the current. I might not get my salmon; but it was worth the price of fly and leader just to raise him from the deeps and see his terrific rush downstream, jumping, jumping, as if the witch of Endor were astride of his tail ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... a cavern (1-1/2 m. away) which gives its name (said to be a corruption of ogof, Celtic for "cavern") to the village. It is the oldest known cave in Great Britain, and was once inhabited (legend asserts) by an ancient witch. It may be reached either from Wookey Station or, just as easily, from Wells. Proceed through the hamlet to the large paper-mill and inquire at the farm opposite for a guide (fee, 1s. 6d.; 1s. each for two or more). A pathway runs up the L. bank ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... joined company with the old Cavalier Colonel and went on her way as Emlyn made that ugly face that Stead knew of old, clenched her hand and muttered, "Old witch! She is a Puritan at heart, after all! She is turning the house upside down, and my poor mistress has not spirit to say 'tis her own, with the old woman and the old hunks both against her! Why, she threatened to beat ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... they returned to New York, Kathi having begged some more money from Vienna. She was already a worn, old witch of a woman, dressed gayly in remnants of past grandeur and always painting her face. She and her son held together in a partnership strained and rasping, but unbreakable, united by the mysterious tie of ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... Galland grounds as the angle of a redoubt, not a shot, not a sound; silence on the part of officers and men as profound as Mrs. Galland's slumber, while one of the Browns' search-lights, like some great witch's slow-turning eye in a narrow radius, covered the lower ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... about requiting her with the just penalties of a perfidious breach of contract. Their threats induced her instant flight toward my house for the usual protection, but the enraged friends of the dead man gave hot chase, and overtook the witch just inside the limits of the garrison, where, on the parade-ground, in sight of the officers' quarters, and before any one could interfere, they killed her. There were sixteen men in pursuit of the doctress, and sixteen gun-shot ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... is almost sad to think that any one could be so foolish, yet when Folks know but little, they will catch up strange notions and listen to silly signs without an atom of truth or common sense in them. So some ignorant Folks once believed that a witch, or some witchy Folk with an evil eye, might look upon them and cause them harm, or ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever

... peculiarities were such that, a hundred years before, she might have been burned for a witch, and fifty years later might have been honoured as a prophetess. But she missed the crest of the wave both ways and fell in the trough; her views on religious matters procured neither a witch's grave nor a prophet's crown, but ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... their misery. When, therefore, he sees his neighbour struck down before his face by some invisible power, and writhing with pain as though unseen snakes and tigers were rending him, what should he naturally conclude save that demon or witch or wizard is at work? and if he cares about the matter at all, what should he do save endeavour to find the culprit out and inflict condign punishment? In savage states, whenever anything untoward happens to the king or ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... the pink-and-black type. She used to cry over me and say—I don't suppose she thought I would ever understand or remember—'Beware the brown-eyed boys, darlin'. False an' foul they are, the brown ones. They take a girl's poor heart an' witch it away an' twitch it away, an' toss it back all crushed an' spoilt.' Then she would hug me and sob. She left soon after; but the warning has haunted me like a superstition.... Could you kiss it away, Ban? Tell me I'm a ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Grumkow, 'will think Reichenbach is a witch (SORVIER) to be so well informed about all that, and will redouble the good opinion he has of Reichenbach. And so, if Reichenbach second my ideas, we will pack Borck and Knyphausen about their business; ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... save trouble or to avoid a charge of false modesty, express it. 'This over-pressure of a heavy pleasure,' &c., is admirable; and, indeed, it would be tedious to praise all that pleases me. Shelley's 'Witch of Atlas' I never saw; therefore the stanza referring to Narcissus and her was read by me to some disadvantage. One observation I am about to make will at least prove I am no flatterer, and will therefore give a qualified ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... 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. ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... 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

... woman, looking rather droll; "it's very strange such a young creature as you should come down here to weep on account of great wickedness. You don't look much like a Salem witch, or a runaway from the ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams

... diminutive monkey form, and she looked as though a moderately high wind could blow her about like a feather. Her face was brown and puckered and lined in a most wonderful fashion. Where a wrinkle could be, there a wrinkle was, and her nose and chin were of the true nutcracker order, as a witch's should be. Only her eyes betrayed the powerful vitality that still animated the tiny frame, for these were large and dark, and had in them a piercing look which seemed to gaze not at any one, but through and beyond. Her figure, dried like that of a mummy, was surprisingly straight for one of ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... and 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

... Wizard King The Nixy The Glass Mountain Alphege, or the Green Monkey Fairer-than-a-Fairy The Three Brothers The Boy and the Wolves, or the Broken Promise The Glass Axe The Dead Wife In the Land of Souls The White Duck The Witch and her Servants The Magic Ring The Flower Queen's Daughter The Flying Ship The Snow-daughter and the Fire-son The Story of King Frost The Death of the Sun-hero The Witch The Hazel-nut Child The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus Prince Ring ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... quite forget, that in there dwells a witch, who wants to put us unhappy little children into an oven and eat us. No, it is much better that we resist the sugar-panes and the pancake-roof, take each other by the hand, and go back ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... dear,' replied the witch, 'I found hundreds of them. They are on a shelf behind the cupboard, in a dark corner, but are locked up in a glass box. I am afraid the Magician carries the key with him, and I dare not ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn

... Whistlers. Black Flusterers, or bald Coot. Turkeys wild. Fishermen. Divers. Raft Fowl. Bull-necks. Redheads. Tropick-birds. Pellican. Cormorant. Gannet. Shear-water. Great black pied Gull. Marsh-hens. Blue Peter's. Sand-birds. Runners. Tutcocks. Swaddle-bills. Mew. Sheldrakes. Bald Faces. Water Witch, or Ware Coot. ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... 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

... I did; I'd have him arrested for neglecting to watch over this case. As it is, when he comes back I'll dismiss him from my employment. He can go back to his infernal laundry work along with his old witch of ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... clever craft," mourned the Ancient Mariner. "Never were there more dainty and lovable topmasts on a three- masted schooner, and never was there a three-masted schooner that worked like the witch she was to windward." ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... 'twas as if dogs and cats had fared in and out. But at this Ulrich's coming her pulse did leap, and her eye shine; and when he went, she did sink back and sigh; and 'twas to be seen the sun had gone out of the room for her. Nay, burgomaster, look not on me so scared: no witch or magician I, but a poor girl that hath been docile, and so bettered herself by a great neglected leech's art and learning. I tell ye all this hath been done before, thousands of years ere we were born. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... 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 by the ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... 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 thee To my illusions. Old and siren-strong, ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall

... about twenty-eight hundred years ago, ghosts were believed to appear. The Witch of Endor pretended to raise the ghost of Samuel, at about ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... skald, who had once been at the English court, had said that she seemed to have eaten her namesake's apple of immortality, without her apple of beauty, for no one could ever remember to have seen her other than a tiny dried-up old witch, with keen gray eyes, a sharp tongue, an ever ready foot and hand, and a frame utterly unaffected by any of the influences so sinister to far younger and stronger ones. Devoted to all the royal family, her special passion was for Prince Edmund, ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... nearly two thousand years after his time, still do as the old Rabbis did, and continue to treat the body—the effect—instead of the mental cause? But," looking down in meditation, "I suppose if you did that the people would cry, 'He hath a devil!' They thought I was a witch ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... old lady. "Take what you like," I said. "But what use is she to you?" "I like her, good ma'am; put yourself in my position.... Allow me to kiss your little hand." And I positively kissed the wretch's hand! "Well," mumbled the old witch, "I'll tell Marya Ilyinishna—it's for her to decide; you come back in a couple of days." I went home in great uneasiness. I began to suspect that I'd managed the thing badly; that I'd been wrong in letting her notice my state of mind, but I thought ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... father has prior claims; and I hardly need tell you, that once restored and reconciled to him, I expect as long a visit as you can afford to pay me. Think on what I have said; and, in the meantime, as I daresay your finances are not very flourishing"—(thinks I, you are a witch!)—"allow me to leave this ten-pound note in your hands." This part of his request was much more readily complied ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Magic and wizardy seem to have held a great fascination for mankind, an example being in the story of the Witch of Endor. That this tendency has in no wise altered is clear from the popularity of conjurors, illusionists, and so called magicians who still, be it East or West, attract an audience so easily and so surely. This little volume is ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

... unassimilated news of events, that made a thunder in her head, Aminta walked down the garden path, meeting Selina and bearing her on. She had a witch's will to rouse gales. Hers was not the woman's nature to be driven cowering by stories of men's bloody deeds. She took the field, revolted, dissevering herself from the class which tolerated them—actuated ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... like a witch-spell!" he declared. "There's nowt to do but whisper, 'Parson's fav'rite!'—an' Parson hisself melts away like a mist o' the mornin' or a weasel runnin' into its 'ole! ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... conjuring, which she firmly believed the Widow Keswick to be; but, as she possessed no such gift, she made up the deficiency, as well as she could, by mixing up her mind, her soul, and her desires, into a sort of witch's hodge-podge, which she thrust as a spell into the affairs of other people. Twice had the devices of this stupid-looking wooden peg of a negro girl stopped Lawrence Croft in the path he was following ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... hast 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 as ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... what you're driving at. You're kind of played out, after this long trip. You'll feel better when you get home and have a good bath, and put on the blue negligee. That's some vampire costume, you witch!" ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... purposes, and the process of preparing meals was conducted with an indifference that promised no savory results. About the glowing points of light wrinkled hags appeared irregularly, as if brewing some witch's broth, but they could not understand the phenomenon of Americans being hungry and signified no readiness to relieve them. In several instances Kirk and Mrs. Cortlandt were treated with open suspicion. But eventually they found a more pretentious- looking place, where they were taken ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... then, in those troublous times, that she had to give up the ghost. And your dear worthy father, he is the only person I have to thank for the judges not having treated me just like a faggot some years after: they had somehow got it into their pates that I was a witch, and there was no avail in denying it. But Signor Guido fought my battle, what with reason and what with ranting, what with entreaties and what with threats: so they merely banisht me out of the dear land. And now this thunderstorm brings me the son of my benefactor into my ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... and of her he begat nothing but devils." A commentator on Skinner, quoted in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, says that the English word Lullaby is derived from Lilla, abi (begone, Lilith)! In the demonology of the Middle Ages, Lilis was a famous witch, and is introduced as such in the Walpurgis night scene ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... the end of a narrow way, bordered by cinnamon-roses and stragglers from old gardens; and some of the neighbors said it would make them as nervous as a witch to be so far from the road. But it did not make Miss Letty nervous. For some reason, perhaps because of long usage, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... plot. This is an agreeable affair of a maid, reputed Catholic heir to the English Crown, and used as pretext for an abortive rising against KING JAMES I. You can see that in practised hands (as here) and decorated with a pretty trimming of sentiment, abductions, witch-finding and other appropriate accessories, this furnishes a theme rich in romance. Perhaps I was a thought disappointed that more was not made of the actual conspiracy, and that, having started "too near the throne," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various

... is your true water-witch, one who snuffs and paws, snuffs and paws again at the smallest spot of moisture-scented earth until he has freed the blind water from the soil. Many water-holes are no more than this detected by the lean hobo of the hills in localities ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... laughter behind her, and turning round saw the ugly stranger whom she had dismissed, who was making very merry over the disasters and mocking everyone, but especially the Queen. This annoyed Her Majesty very much, and she was about to order that she should be arrested, when the witch—for she was a witch—with two blows from a wand summoned a chariot of fire drawn by winged dragons, and was whirled off through the air uttering threats and cries. When the King ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... one thousand, but will speake false Latine, and breake Priscians head. Attempt nothing that you may with great reason doubt of and out of doubt you shall obtaine nothing. I tell thee, friend, the eminent confidence of strong spirits is the onely witch-craft of this World, Spirits wrastling with spirits as bodies with bodies: this were enough to make thee hope well, if she were one of these painted communities, that are ravisht with Coaches, and upper hands,[13] and brave men of durt: but thou knowest friend shees a good scholler, and like ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... for a witch. The silence was broken by the tapping of a cane. Around the corner the witch hobbled into the scene, testing each step before her. She was dressed in black, of course, and bent over with just the curve of the back the Artist loves to give to his old women. She was a friendly soul, and did not ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... 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 ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... was in the realm where his mother had lived, prepared a great feast in honor of his mother. But he began thinking how he might honor her in a different way. So he cut a witch-hazel wand with which to point at anything he wished to use in the preparation of this feast. Thus he collected wood and stones and many things on the face of the earth. And when all this was assembled he built him a ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... instructed them in witchcraft, and, after executing the witches' dance, they returned to their respective homes in the same fashion. This tradition is common to other countries, but in Jutland the belief was that the favourite form a witch adopted was that of a hare, which evaded the huntsmen, and could not be shot except by a piece of silver, which must have been inherited—a piece of silver purchased or given had no effect. The witch was then found in the person of some old woman with a ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... supernatural means for its discovery. They believed in omens, signs, and other superstitions. As a boy Joseph had been shrewd enough and superstitious enough to play this trait up for all it was worth. He had a magic peep-stone and a witch-hazel divining-rod that he manipulated so skillfully as to cause other boys and even older men to dig for him as he wished. He seemed to delight in tricking his companions in various ways, by telling fortunes, reeling off tall yarns, and posing as one possessed ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... a mountainous country. In two hours from Nazareth we passed a small rivulet. Two hours and a half, the village Denouny (Arabic), and near it the ruins of Endor, where the witch's grotto is shewn. From hence the direction of our route was S.S.E. Leaving Mount Tabor to the left we passed along the plain of Esdrelon: meeting with several springs in our road; but the country is a complete desert, although the soil is fertile. At five hours and a half is ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... and anticipate that. Why on earth do women let their nerves run away with them, in the first place? Nerves in this country are a mixture of climate, selfishness, and stupidity. I could be as nervous as a witch, but I won't. I walk miles every day and don't think about myself. Well! I told Mr. North all about the bold course of the young lady weary of frivolities, and he seemed much interested, paid you some compliment or other, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... to hear more and more insistent the accents of one voice, and out of the crowd of faces, began to distinguish more and more clearly the features of the writer; for all the world like some lovelorn girl, who, gazing with her soul in her eyes, finds in the witch's cauldron ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... hath power to draw from heaven the wandering huntress, Song was the witch's spell transformed the mates of Ulysses.... Home from the city to me, my song, lead ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... the Judge, "there are things that neither clergy nor lawyers nor doctors can explain. Tell me, what do people think concerning this witch?" ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... to be 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, had tried ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... woman of the Renaissance is very different from the Medea of Victor Hugo's romance; and what remains most revolting to the modern conscience in her conduct is complacent acquiescence in scenes of debauchery devised for her amusement.[2] Instead of viewing her with dread as a potent and malignant witch, we have to regard her with contempt as a feeble woman, soiled with sensual foulness from the cradle. It is also due to truth to remember that at Ferrara she won the esteem of a husband who had married her unwillingly, attached ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... depart. Then the Gypsies huddled into the wagons, and she was seized by Zelaya and put into the first van. The old witch was ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... "Helen, you witch, you darling sister," says Frank, kissing her, "I will do it—yes, to-morrow I will set forth, like Coelebs, in search of a wife! Now you must help me farther with your lively imagination; you must choose ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... a copy of Villamaria's fairy stories in my hands, and I had a delightful dream wherein, under the protection and guidance of my fairy godmother, I undertook the rescue of a beautiful princess who had been enchanted by a cruel witch and was kept in prison by the witch's son, a hideous ogre with seven heads, whose companions ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... After eyeing him carefully I recognised by his strong odours, dewy locks and blear eyes, that the man was no other than my good Master Sleep. "I pray you, sir," cried I, squeaking, "what have I done to you that you bring that witch here to torment me?" "Hush," said he, "it is only my sister Nightmare; we twain are going to pay our brother Death {43b} a visit, and want a third to accompany us, and lest thou shouldst resist we came upon thee, just as he does, unawares. Consequently come thou must, willy-nilly." "Alas," ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... 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

... looked as if she had come from a witch's Sabbath, if ever girl, scarce more than child, walked as if she had plucked the fruit of the Tree and savoured it bitter, it was the girl before him. Despair—it seemed to him—rode her like a hag. Dejection, fear, misery, were in her whole bearing. ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... most vigorous attempts which have been made to turn the elements we have been considering to a profitable end. I have in my thoughts the invention of ether-inhalation and the induction of trance in mesmerism. The witch narcotised her pupils in order to produce in them delusive visions; the surgeon stupifies his patient to prevent the pain of an operation being felt. The fanatic preacher excites convulsions and trance in his auditory to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... may see—come into my study and I will show you her picture—she died, at least her body did, some sixty years ago. I frequently see her and talk with her." This spot must not be quitted without recalling that Marsland-mouth is the home of Lucy Passmore, the white witch in Westward Ho! It was hither that Rose Salterne came to perform the love-charm that should reveal her lover. It can hardly be said that such superstitions have yet died out of the West Country, but it is the older people now that cherish these ideas, secretly and ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... was extremely inquisitive about witches and witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, supplied me with good store. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosity originally into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the History of the Bible, by Stackhouse, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... fall back in her chair with a little satisfied smile. Doris, silent and forgotten, could not keep her eyes for long from the two distant figures—from this new Arthur, and the sallow-faced, dark-eyed witch who had ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... warlike city That boasts the Latian name, Fordoomed to dogs and vultures, That gallant army came; From Setia's purple vineyards, From Norba's ancient wall, From the white streets of Tusculum, The proudust town of all; From where the Witch's Fortress O'er hangs the dark-blue seas; From the still glassy lake that sleeps Beneath Aricia's trees— Those trees in whose dim shadow The ghastly priest doth reign, The priest who slew the slayer, And shall himself be slain; From the drear banks of Ufens, Where ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... 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 ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... age. He informed him that God would punish his impieties—that he was worse than any Saracen; and hinted that he might have inherited his wickedness from his grandmother, the Countess of Anjou, who was reported to be a witch, and of whom it was said that she had flown through the window during the most solemn part of Mass, though four ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... that's certain. What a plague has this little witch done to you all? And how did ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... this all, your Majesty; there is more and worse. Many testified that a witch, since gone from the village, none know whither, did foretell, and speak it privately in their ears, that the sick man WOULD DIE BY POISON—and more, that a stranger would give it—a stranger with brown hair and clothed in a worn ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... milk-veined rascals! ... What abject terror makes ye thus quiver like aspen-leaves in a storm? ... this darkness is but a conjurer's trick to scare women, and Khosrul's followers can so play with the strings of electricity that ye are duped into accepting the witch-glamour as Heaven's own cloud-flame! By the gods! If Al-Kyris falls, as yon dotard pronounceth, her ruins shall bury but few heroes! O superstitious and degraded souls! ... I would ye were even as I am—a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... the landing stand, While here I'll kneel and blow, So that the little "Water-witch" Beneath the arch ...
— Cousin Hatty's Hymns and Twilight Stories • Wm. Crosby And H.P. Nichols

... 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

... witch!" he exclaimed. "She could wheedle the fish out of the sea if she'd say please to 'em that way. But how that honey-sweet tone and the yells she was letting loose awhile back could come out of that same little rose of a mouth, ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... slowly, [16] and in good order; and when Joram met him in the field of Naboth, he asked him if all things were well in the camp; but Jehu reproached him bitterly, and ventured to call his mother a witch and a harlot. Upon this the king, fearing what he intended, and suspecting he had no good meaning, turned his chariot about as soon as he could, and said to Ahaziah, "We are fought against by deceit and treachery." But Jehu drew his bow, and smote him, the arrow ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... got?" Libbie Liberty burst out, basting the turkey. "I declare, I'm nervous as a witch, I'm ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... and the witch-like groping of her glance had cast a momentary spell over him. When it was gone, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... be lucky, and who shall be rich? Whether both, neither, one, or all three; Is a mystery which, Dame Fortune, the witch, Tells neither ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles

... the drugs and the ceremonies are methods emphatically to be avoided by any one who wishes to approach clairvoyance from the higher side, and use it for his own progress and for the helping of others. The Central African medicine-man or witch-doctor and some of the Tartar Shamans are good ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater

... this matter," replied Pharaoh quietly, "make your prayer to the Prince of Egypt, in whose household I understand the woman dwells. If it pleases him to surrender her who, I take it, is a witch or a cunning worker of tricks, to her betrothed and her kindred, let him do so. It is not for Pharaoh to judge of the fate ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... for fish were scarce, and some settlers were drowned. At that day, some of the new comers were Christians, some still worshipped the old Gods, Thor and Woden, and practised magic. These sent for a prophetess to tell them what the end of their new colony would be. It is curious to know what a real witch was like, and how she behaved, so we shall copy the story from ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... taste," remarked an odd-looking elf, who appeared suddenly from nowhere in particular. "For my part, I prefer to be just exactly what I am. Once a witch changed me into a boy for ten minutes, and I give you my word I never was ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... her, but this woman's nerve failed, and the "high priest" was called in, who decreed a whipping. The victim explained to the police that she would have deserved to be whipped had she really been a witch, but a mistake had been made—it was another woman who was the witch. And again in the Los Angeles "Times" I read a perfectly serious news item, telling how a certain man awakened one morning, and found on his pillow where his head had lain a perfect reproduction ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... the neighbouring village was spoiled. This occasioned very great noise in the country, and so greatly provoked were the people who resided in the other parishes that they absolutely accused her of being a witch, and sent old Gaffer Goosecap, a busy fellow in other people's concerns, to find out evidence against her. The wiseacre happened to come to her school when she was walking about with the raven ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous

... the people were so completely absorbed in the movements and words of their piache, or medicine man, or witch doctor, as the man in the jaguar skin proved to be, that they were quite oblivious of the presence of the two Englishmen; but suddenly the piache caught sight of them and stopped short in his leapings and howlings, and ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... that, Provost?' said Summertrees. 'Your wife's a witch, man; you should nail a horse-shoe on your chamber ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... brain. I am pinking me with a pin. I dead myself in envy to see her. I take a broth all morning. I shall not tell you than two woods. Have you understanded? Let him have know? Have you understand they? Do you know they? Do you know they to? The storm is go over. The sun begins to dissipe it. Witch prefer you? The paving stone is sliphery. The thunderbolt is falling down. The rose-trees begins to button. The ears are too length. The hands itch at him. Have you forgeted me? Lay him hir apron. Help-to a little most the better yours terms. Dont you are awaken ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca

... through the woof of the spirit tales was the mention of witch-craft—witchcraft with which Kilbuck was now preparing to deal; not because he hoped to benefit the natives and free them from the curse of superstition, but because owing to a belief in the black art, the Indians of Katleean were not bringing in the amount of furs expected, and ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... 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 companion ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... was a little too much breadth, perhaps, in the picture. Her pointed cap, however, with the little bow of ribbon on the top, gave her a piquant air, and did away with the heavy appearance of her costume to some extent; in fact, Edith looked like a fat little witch. But if she looked fat before being wrapped up in the sledge furs, she looked infinitely fatter when thus placed, and nothing of her visible except her two twinkling eyes. So grotesque was she that the whole party burst into a loud laugh as they ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... incensed waiting-woman, while Magdalen Graeme left the apartment; "I say, duck her in the loch, and then we will see whether she is witch or not, as every body in the village of Lochside will say and swear. I marvel your ladyship could bear so long with her insolence." But the commands of the Lady were obeyed, and the old dame, dismissed from the castle, was committed to her fortune. She kept ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... few moments, and then continued: "Green left for the city nixt mornin', an' Florence went back to her home with my kiss on her lips as a weddin' gift. A month passed, an' I was wonderin' why Florence had not been over to see me, an' then Silas Raeburn came into my tavern in a mighty rage. 'Ye old witch, where's my ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer

... ownself afther 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 over ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... bad-will, or any way at all; and if this shaving can't be done without my mounting on the croup, my master had better look out for another squire to go with him, and these ladies for some other way of making their faces smooth; I'm no witch to have a taste for travelling through the air. What would my islanders say when they heard their governor was going, strolling about on the winds? And another thing, as it is three thousand and odd leagues from this to Kandy, if the horse ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... back to you," he said. "You are too fast for me, but I tell you to your face that you had better change your tongue for a lock of an old witch's hair unless you intend to ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... scene, perhaps to foresee the law by which a new order, a new poetry, is to be evoked from this chaos, and with a curiosity as ardent, but not so selfish, as that of Macbeth, to call up the apparitions of future kings from the strange ingredients of the witch's caldron. Thus I will not grieve that all the noble trees are gone already from this island to feed this caldron, but believe it will have Medea's virtue, and reproduce them in the form of new intellectual growths, since centuries cannot again adorn ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... broom can have to do with it, when a dwarf old dame appears, through a slit in the drapery—as perfect a dwarf as ever breathed,—but three feet high, and so really true that no one for a moment doubts her identity or vitality. "She is a Witch!" cry all, that has come down the chimney. The dame bows acquiescence, with numberless courtseys, telling the little company of her immense age and adventures—recounting her history:—about the large family she kept in the shoe; about the refractory ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... receptacle of lurid things, but there was an odd recognition of my superiority—my accomplishments and my function—in her patience under my pain. She offered her mind to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix a witch's broth and proposed it with assurance, she would have held out a large clean saucepan. This had become thoroughly her attitude by the time that, in my recital of the events of the night, I reached the point of what Miles had said to me when, after seeing him, ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... neither a wizard nor a witch to perceive that "Mary Bowline" is a creation of my own brain, and is of course defective, and will disappoint. But if it is true that "Bacon, Butler, and Shakspeare have rendered it impossible for any one after them to ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... exclaimed—"Up in the air and riding a theory like a witch on a broomstick! It's NOT natural. That's just where you're wrong! It's quite UN-natural. If a man has plenty of money he ought to be perfectly happy and satisfied,—he can get everything he wants,—he can move the whole world ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... runs, interpreted to mean that he could conquer the Romans, whereas the oracle subsequently explained to him that the real meaning was that the Romans could conquer him. Similar to this, as Shakspeare makes the Duke of York point out, is the witch's prophecy in Henry VI (Second Part, ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... practitioners were to apply painful treatments like allopaths use, ones with such poor statistical outcomes like allopaths use, there would most certainly be witch hunts and all such irresponsible, greedy quacks would be safely imprisoned. I find it highly ironic that for at least the past twenty five hundred years the basic principle of good medicine has been that the treatment must first do no harm. This is such an obvious ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... in fact, cased with ebony, boxwood, rosewood, cedar or sandalwood. English yew also serves the purpose; so does almond wood. Simpler, less expensive, and almost as effective, are Wands made of witch-hazel. In fact, apart from the Wands of live ivory, I consider that witch-hazel is as powerful as the golden Wand. Next in force to this witch-hazel are the shoots of the almond tree, and, lastly, the peach and ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... Margrave, no longer with gasp and effort, but with the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below—"and this witch, whom I trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring my death than my life. She thinks that in life I should scorn and forsake her, that in death I should die in her arms! Sorceress, avaunt! Art thou useless and powerless ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... had), for with his own most Gracious hand he penned a most Gracious consignment of them to everlasting wrath, and devised most Gracious means for their confusion and slaughter, in virtue whereof scarcely a day passed but one witch at the least was most graciously hanged, drowned, or roasted in some part of his dominions. Still the press teemed with strange and terrible news from the North or the South, or the East or the West, relative to witches and their unhappy ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... first began to find Christianity too serious, and devised a merrier faith for France, and would have bright-glancing, soubrette Madonnas everywhere—letting their own dark-eyed Joan of Arc be burned for a witch. And thenceforward, things went their merry way, straight on, 'ca allait, ca ira,' to the ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... 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 Ef ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley

... Grace. She was wrapped in the folds of a pale blue silk kimono. Her hair hung in loose golden waves far below her waist and she reminded Grace of the beautiful Rapunzel of fairy tale fame who was shut up in a tower by a wicked witch and forced each night to let down her golden hair so that her dreadful jailer might climb up ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower

... and bending over the fire,—was an old woman, so wild and shrivelled in her appearance that a much less superstitious urchin than Jacky might have believed her to be a witch. Her clothing may be described as a bundle of rags, with the exception of a shepherd's-plaid on her shoulders, the spotless purity of which contrasted strangely with the dirtiness of every thing else around. The old creature was moaning and moping over the fire, and drawing ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... clever you are at flattering and paying compliments! A pretty little creature like you was just made to turn all the men's heads—a little witch." ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... to breathe. Overhead, masses of black cloud, heavy with storm, hung low down over the town, and the earth, panting and worn out with the heat, waited thirstily for the cool drench of the rain. Evidently a witch-tempest was brewing in the halls of heaven on no small scale, and Gabriel wished that it would break at once to relieve the strain from which nature seemed to suffer. Whether it was the fatigue of his day's labour, or the late interview with Bell which depressed him, he did ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... comprised many oddities, eccentric men and women, recluses and other kinds,—one of old Philip English, (a Jersey man, the name originally L'Anglais,) who had been persecuted by John Hawthorne, of witch-time memory, and a violent quarrel ensued. When Philip lay on his death-bed, he consented to forgive his persecutor; "But if I get well," said he, "I'll be damned if I forgive him!" This Philip left daughters, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various



Words linked to "Witch" :   coven, imaginary being, becharm, voodoo, old woman, pythoness, imaginary creature, warlock, charm, occultist, pagan, spell



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