maukens (hares) to be devils and witches, and if they but see a sight of a dead mauken it sets them a trembling."[1] Mr. Gregor notes that to say to a fisherwoman of the north-east of Scotland that there is a hare's foot in her creel, or to say to a fisherman that there is a hare in his boat, arouses great ire, and calls forth strong words; the word "hare" is not pronounced at sea.[2] In Cornwall a maiden who has been deceived and dies, haunts her deceiver in the guise of a white hare, sometimes saving his life, but in the end causing his death.[3] So, too, in South Northamptonshire the running of a hare along the street of a village portends fire to some house in the immediate neighbourhood.[4] In the Isle of Man they say women are turned into hares, and can only be shot with a silver sixpence. When a witch is in shape of a hare, the Scotch continue, she can only be hit by a crooked sixpence.[5] "It is unlucky," Dr. Brewer corroborates, "for a hare to cross your path, because witches were said to transform themselves into hares."[6] Indeed, the greatest of all northern wizards. Sir Michael Scott, was turned into a hare by the witch of Falsehope. Several curious hare stories will be found in Mr. Henderson's valuable notes on north-country lore.[7]
The spot which discovered witches to the world sometimes resembled a hare's foot in the experience of continental experts,[8] but it must be borne in mind "ce signe n'est pas toujours de même forme ou figure; tantôt c'est l'image d'un lièvre, tantôt une patte de crapaud, tantôt une orraignée, im petit chien, un loir."[9]
Having gathered together these few illustrations of the unhappy
- ↑ History of Buck-haven, in Fifeshire (Chapbook), Folk-Lore Record, vol. ii. p. 200. "The Claddagh fishermen, Galway, would not go out to fish if they saw a fox," &c. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 98.
- ↑ Gregor, Folk-Lore of N.E. of Scotland, pp. 128, 129.
- ↑ Hunt's Romances and Broils of the West of England, Second Series, p. 112.
- ↑ Choice Notes (Folk-Lore), p. 16.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 27. Gregor, p. 128.
- ↑ Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 386.
- ↑ Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, ed. 1879, pp. 201 et seq.
- ↑ Dalyell, p. 576.
- ↑ De la Démonialité, par le R. P. Sinistrari d'Ameuo, traduit des Latin par Isidore Liseux, 1876, § 23, pp. 23 et seq.
