Hay, another witch, for her awkwardness in choosing such an unpropitious moment.[1] In one respect alone this evil sisterhood were all in harmony. By charms and spells they revenged themselves terribly on their enemies, and inflicted malicious injuries on their friends. It was as easy for them to sink a ship in mid-ocean as to dry the milk in a cow's udder, or to make a strong man pine away while his waxen image was consumed inch by inch on the witch's smouldering hearth.
This instinctive belief in evil spells is the essence, not of witchcraft only, but of every form of superstition, from the days of Thessalian magic to the brutish rites of the Louisiana Voodoo. It has brought to the scaffold women of gentle blood, like Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, and to the stake visionary enthusiasts like Jeanne d'Arc. It confronts us from every page of history, it stares at us from the columns of the daily press. It has provided an outlet for fear, hope, love, and hatred, and a weapon for every passion that stirs the soul of man. It is equally at home in all parts of the
- ↑ Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. By Sir Walter Scott.
