The Witch. 303 As was only natural, the boiling lead hissed and spluttered as it was poured into the water. '* Just listen to the wickedness of it, — it must come out now/' said the sorceress to the peasant woman, who with a mixed feeling of fear and awe, stood listening with the child In her arms. When the oatmeal cake was tåken off the bowl, a couple of figures formed by the melted lead were seen in the water. The sorceress regarded them for some time^ with her head on one side ; she then began nodding it and said :— " Corpse-spell, corpse-spell I—first goblin-spell, then water-spell, and now corpse-spell. One of them would have been enough ! " she added, shaking her head. "Yes, I now see how it all has happened," she continued aloud, and turned round to the mistres-s of the house. " First, you travelled through a wood and past a hill while the trolls were out, there you blessed the child. You then crossed a river, and there you also blessed the child ; but when you came past the churchyard, — it was before the cock crowed, —you forgot to bless the child, and there it caught the corpse-spell." " Bless me, —how do you know that ? " exclaimed Marit with great surprise. " Every word you say is true. When wc left the dairy last summer on our way home, it was rather late before wc started, as some of the sheep got astray from us, and it was growing dark by the time wc got down into the valley, — once I thought I saw the glimmer of a light over in the forest and I heard something like a gate being opened in the Vesæt hill, — they say there are fairies there—and then I blessed the child. When wc crossed the river, I heard a terrible cry, and I blessed the child again, —the others said it was only the loon, which screamed for bad weather." " Yes, that would have been sufficient, if there was nothing else but the loon," said Gubjor ; " when it screams at a new-born babe, that child is bewitched." " Yes, I have also heard that," said the mother ; " but when wc came past the churchyard, — it was just past midntght—then the bull got unruly and wc had such trouble to keep the cattle together, that I forgot to bless the child there." " That's where the child caught it then, you may be sure, for the
