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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



... For from every hut the Fans rushed out towards him, the men dressed in their filthiest rags, the women with their faces chalked and their heads shaved. They stopped, however, on seeing a white man, and Walker knew enough of their tongue to ascertain that they looked for the coming of the witch doctor. The chief, it appeared, had died a natural death, and, since the event is of sufficiently rare occurrence in the Fan country, it had promptly been attributed to witchcraft, and the witch ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... horses for the provender we gave them; and I daresay the coaches were not sorry to be cleaned and furbished up. Well, we went out and came in; going to see the sights, and returning. Amongst other things we saw was the burning mountain, and the tomb of a certain sorcerer called Virgilio, who made witch rhymes, by which he could raise the dead. Plenty of people came to see us, both English and Italians, and amongst the rest the priest. He did not come amongst the first, but allowed us to settle and become a little quiet before he ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Incarnation. But, on the other hand, those refined thinkers who worship the Devil, whether in the swamps of Jamaica or the salons of Paris, always insist upon the shapelessness, the wordlessness, the unutterable character of the abomination. They call him "horror of emptiness," as did the black witch in Stevenson's Dynamiter; they worship him as the unspeakable name; as the unbearable silence. They think of him as the void in the heart of the whirlwind; the cloud on the brain of the maniac; the toppling turrets of vertigo ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... Leicester School (about two thirds) was purely her own; as it was (to the same quantity) in the Shakspeare Tales which bear my name. I wrote only the Witch Aunt, the first going to Church, and the final Story about a little ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... 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," the tale subsequently ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various

... 'She's half a witch, I think,' said Arthur Gride, when he found himself again alone. 'But she's very frugal, and she's very deaf. Her living costs me next to nothing; and it's no use her listening at keyholes; for she can't hear. She's a charming woman—for the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... snap of the fingers does move us to pity, whereas the ordinary mediaeval is cut out of pasteboard, and does not affect us at all. The King is perhaps merely a stage figure; Ortrud is just one degree better than the average witch of a fairy story; but Frederic, savage and powerful, but so superstitious as to be at the mercy of his wife, is human enough to interest us. And Wagner has managed his story perfectly throughout, excepting at the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

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

... they said that the witch had got into the plantation and changed itself into a person and had gone about on the place talking with the people like others until those whom it wanted to bewitch went to bed, then it would change itself to a witch again. They claimed that the witches rode human beings like horses, and that ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer

... poor Pen or to me. I was in a rage. I tore up the will and replaced the envelop. To treat poor Pen that way—Pen of all people! There was a heap more will than testament, for all it was in the Bible. After that I thought it was right to punish the old witch, and so I took every note I could find. When I was through with this business, I put back the Bible under the mattress, and observing that I had been quite too long, I went downstairs with a keen desire to leave the town as early as possible. I ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell

... too damned good fer yore kin-folks, Samson South?" he shrilly demanded. "Hev ye done been follerin' atter this here puny witch-doctor twell ye can't keep a civil tongue in yer head fer yore elders? I'm in favor of runnin' this here furriner outen the country with tar an' feathers on him. Furthermore, I'm in favor of cleanin' out the Hollmans. I was jest a-sayin' ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... thinking, as I watched the flickering flame, that this was something like a witch's incantation. I smiled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... 'The auld witch hasna gotten a grup o' her again?' cried the shoemaker, starting half up in alarm. 'She cam here to me aboot the shune, but I reckon ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?" he demanded. "What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the room besides you? Have ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... now no longer fear the king, Since that the maid turned out to be a witch At Rheims, the devil aideth us no longer, And things have gone ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... trembling. "The giant has a witch for a godmother; I fear that she will revenge on me the insult offered to her godson. My art tells me, my dear Yvon, that if you quit me a single instant until you give me your name in the chapel of the Kervers I have everything ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... scene touched with a grace which reminds us of the creators of Sir Roger de Coverley or the Vicar of Wakefield. Occasionally there is a fragment of pure diablerie, as in the story of the lady who consults the witch in the hollow of the three hills; and more frequently he tries to work out one of those strange psychological problems which he afterwards treated with more fulness of power. The minister who, for an unexplained reason, puts on a black veil one morning in his youth, and wears it ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... a he-witch or something," chuckled Neil, as he propelled his steed toward the campus. "Maybe he will put a curse upon me and my right foot will wither up and I won't ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... Witch Cult in Western Europe, and Jules Garinet, Histoire de la Magie en France, p. ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... words were interpreted to the old witch, her mouth softened a little and, raising her eyes, she studied her visitor intently. At last she said: "Ay, he was a great chief, Sitting Bull. My cousin. I came to visit Shoshoni many moons ago. Never returned ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... you. See how harmless I am? No witch, I hope, you think I am. For shame that youth, who would be brave knight, should fear a lady and in especial one ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe

... to earth, and stamped with impatience, for he thought it shame to go afoot into the presence of the maid. Presently he remembered that his witch-mother had given him a magic potion which would enable a man to take the face and form of another at will. So he proposed that Sigurd should take his appearance and win Brunhild for him by proxy, for he knew that Greyfell would ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... every one who came only took one pailful. The cow came night and morning to be milked, and it made no difference what size the vessel was that was brought by each person, for she always gave enough milk to fill it, and all the other pails. At last, there came an old witch to Mitchell's Fold, and in spite and malice she brought a riddle and milked the cow into it; she milked and milked, and at last she milked her dry, and after that the cow was never seen. Folk say she was ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... used, and superstitiously regarded, in some parts of England; but the hazel is more generally supposed to be popular with the fairies, or whoever may be the mysterious spirits who guide the diviner's art. Hence perhaps the name, common in some parts, of witch-hazel, although, of course, philologists will have it that the true derivation is wych. In Germany the witch-hazel is the zauber-streuch, or the magic-tree, and it is probable that both witch and wych are from the ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... surprised because she knew his name, and he wondered why she remained so quiet. He thought she must be a witch; but hungry boys, no matter how high their station, are apt to forget danger when a good supper is set before them. After he had eaten and drunk all he wanted, he sat by the fire until she took him to a bedroom and told ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher

... latter exclaimed, with a deep drawn sigh of satisfaction. "Yon have genius. When you play you are like that creature in the 'Witch ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... evil that has come on you belongs to me. I will go away with it. I am a witch and bring evil on those who ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... dear," said March, in the discomfort he knew his wife must be feeling as well as himself. "How odd to have the lid lifted here, and see the same old problems seething and bubbling in the witch's caldron we call civilization as we left simmering away at home! And how hard to have our tariff reach out and snatch the bread from the mouths of those ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... down, but not convinced; and he seemed determined to spit out all his venom. Well, says he, at any rate you will not deny that the English have not got a language of their own, and that they came by it in a very odd way. Of this at least I am certain, for the whole history was related to me by a witch in Lapland, whilst I was bargaining for a wind. Here the company were all in unison ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... Cobham; because, saith he, one Witness can never condemn me. For Brook said unto sir Griffith Markham, 'Take heed how you do make my lord Cobham acquainted; for whatsoever he knoweth, Raleigh the witch will get it out of him.' As soon as Raleigh was examined on one point of Treason concerning my lord Cobham he wrote to him thus: 'I have been examined of you, and confessed nothing.' Further, you sent to him by your trusty Francis Kemish,[12] ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... Monday night is Hallowe'en, You big stiff." or "On Monday next comes All-Hallows-Even, My grandmother's maiden name was Stephens." or "On Hallowe'en you may see a witch If you don't look out, you funny fellow." or "Harry and I are giving a Hallowe'en party; Harry says you owe him four dollars; please be prompt. or "Monday night the ghosts do dance; Why didn't you enlist and ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart

... the witch-like old woman who had admitted her, "this young lady is to remain here. You will open a bedroom and sitting-room for her at the back of the house. Let her be properly cared for, and go out in the court behind, but ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of unboastful charms! whom white-robed Truth Right onward guiding through the maze of youth, Forbade the Circe Praise to witch thy soul, And dash'd to earth th' intoxicating bowl: Thee meek-eyed Pity, eloquently fair, 5 Clasp'd to her bosom with a mother's care; And, as she lov'd thy kindred form to trace, The slow smile wander'd o'er her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the troop, which our Duke saw sally Toward his castle from out of the valley, Men and women, like new-hatched spiders, Come out with the morning to greet our riders. 390 And up they wound till they reached the ditch, Whereat all stopped save one, a witch That I knew, as she hobbled from the group, By her gait directly and her stoop, I, whom Jacynth was used to importune 395 To let that same witch tell us our fortune. The oldest gypsy then above ground; And, sure as the autumn season came round, She paid us a visit for profit ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... witchcraft, during all the years we did these "inevitable" things, were defended in the same way, and those who resented all criticism of them pointed in triumph to the cannibal feast, the dead child, the maimed witness, the slain heretic, or the burned witch. But the fact did not prove the wisdom of those habits, still less their inevitability; for ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell

... the witch, "I know'd 'twas. You can't deceive Jupiter, me, nor any other planick. You may swim same as Leander did, but you can't deceive the planicks. Give me your hand! Times ain't so easy as they has been. So—so—but 'tis temp'ry. 'Twon't last long. Times will be easy soon. You may be tramped ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... work which even De Braose recoiled from, and he refused to burden his soul with Arthur's murder. A few years later John suddenly turned against him, and demanded his sons as hostages. His wife, Maud de St. Valerie, who lived long in the popular memory as a witch, sent back the answer: she would not entrust her children to a man who had murdered his nephew. The king chased Braose from his lands, caught his wife and eldest son, and starved them to death in Windsor Castle. The ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little

... he said slowly, "you are uncommonly like—you are that accursed witch of a hare which cost me my life. There are the white marks on your back, and there is the grey splotch on your ear. Oh! if only I had a gun—a ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... talked at once. They said old Gaffer Macklin was dying from stitches in his side where Jerry had put the trumpet—they called it the devil's ear-piece; and they said it left round red witch-marks on people's skins, and dried up their lights, and made 'em spit blood, and threw 'em into sweats. Terrible things they said. You never heard such a noise. I took ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... thole the thought of the Blessed Maid," said Allan Rutherford, "but would tell all that listened how she was a brain-sick wench, or a witch, and under her standard he would never fight. He even avowed to us that she had been a chamber-wench of an inn in Neufchateau, and there had learned to back a horse, and many a worse trick," which was ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... Fie on the sleights that men devise— (Heigho, silly sleights!) When simple maids they would entice. (Maids are young men's chief delights.) A. Nay, women they witch with their eyes— (Eyes like beams of burning sun!) And men once caught they do despise; ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... obliged to rise and open to the call, and immediately a second witch entered, having two horns on her forehead, and in her hand a wheel ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... then, on detached duty with British Intelligence, under crusty old Colonel Sir Cecil Haversham, who didn't believe a word of "all that mystic nonsense." Colonel Haversham had made the mistake of alienating one of the most powerful of the local witch doctors. ...
— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett

... so-called fairy-tale pictures by "stop-camera" work, or by simply stopping the character at a certain point just prior to the scheduled appearance of some supernatural visitant, having the other characters hold their positions while the witch or the fairy character walks into the scene and takes her proper position in it, and then starting the camera again, the result on the screen being that the supernatural figure stands, in the fraction ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... Venice, gay 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, I smile immortal, ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall

... that he had been absent from Brittany for over a year, and people had ceased to associate their names. The witnesses who made this statement were not of a very reputable sort. One was an old herb-gatherer suspected of witch-craft, another a drunken clerk from a neighbouring parish, the third a half-witted shepherd who could be made to say anything; and it was clear that the prosecution was not satisfied with its case, and would have liked to find more definite proof of Lanrivain's complicity than the ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... 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 man dauntless,—a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... along the limpid river, The blue-bird notes upon the soft breeze born, As high in air he carols, faintly quiver. The weeping birch like banners idly waving, Bends to the stream, its spicy branches laving, Beaded with dew, the witch elms' tassels shiver, The timid rabbit from the furze is peeping, And from the springing spray the squirrels ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... ship and went on shore, accompanied by none; none had the hardihood to offer to partake that perilous adventure with him, so much they dreaded the enchantments of the witch. Singly he pursued his journey till he came to the shining gates which stood before her mansion; but when he essayed to put his foot over her threshold, he was suddenly stopped by the apparition of a ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... mist, which shrouds them save from the right person; they appear and disappear at will. For the rest they have the mental and physical characteristics of the kings and queens they protect or persecute so capriciously. They can be seen by making a magic sign and looking through a witch's arm held akimbo. They are no good comates for men or women, and to meddle with a goddess or nymph or giantess was to ensure evil or death for a man. The god's loves were apparently not always so fatal, though there seems to be some ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... the Ober-Amtmann, with a feeling of sudden forbearance towards the wretched woman which surprised all present; for they could not but marvel at the slightest symptom of consideration toward such an abhorred outcast of humanity as a convicted witch; and as such the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... would even disguise herself as an old woman, that her young face might peep out the fresher from under the cap; and so utterly in this way did she confuse and mix together the actual and the fantastic, that people thought they were living with a sort of drawing-room witch. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... "'It is a witch, or some other dreadful being,' I said to myself. 'Nothing else could make a sound like that.' My teeth chattered. My legs shook so, I could hardly move. Somehow or other, I managed to keep on. It seemed as though hours passed before I saw the lights of ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade

... greater one, that she might not be able to convince us, seized her next and she made such an excited gesture that the shawl she wore over her head and shoulders fell away and her long hair came tumbling down like a witch's. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... a witch with single flaming eye, Was watching from beneath the hemlock tree; And fairies that our gaze might never see, Laughed at us as we, hand in hand, ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster

... the knight. "I can love this lady, be she a very Witch of Endor. Observe, what a thing it is to be a proper man, Bardolph! She hath marked me;—in public, perhaps; on the street, it may be;—and then, I warrant you, made such eyes! and sighed such sighs! and lain awake o' nights, thinking of a pleasing portly gentleman, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... leaves are shed In headlong troops and nightmare herds; And, like a witch who calls the dead, The hill-stream ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... years. When no other proof was brought, the charge was dismissed. In like manner sixty persons were charged with witchcraft. These were also acquitted; for, though they had confessed the offence, the confession had been drawn from them by torture. It was usual to tie up the supposed witch by the thumbs, and to whip her till she confessed; or to put the flame of a candle to the soles of the feet, between the toes, or to parts of the head, or to make the accused wear a shirt of hair steeped in vinegar &c.—See Whitelock, 543, 544, ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... quoth he, jerking grimy thumb at his companion, "will ye 'ark to this brimstone witch—been clackin' away all along from Sevenoaks, she 'ave! Gimme a tanner an' she's yourn—say thrippence—say a penny!" At this the woman started to berate him again ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... 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 her task ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... along the way, comes to a black water with a plank across it, and an old woman on the plank is cursing Robin Hood. He has been already reminded by Scarlett that he has a yeoman foe at Kirklees; but neither the banning of the witch, nor the weeping of others ('We,' 9.3), presumably women, deter him. The explanation of ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick

... he said in private to Berenger, to whom he had taken a great liking. 'I cannot blame you for not casting your lot into such a witch's caldron as this poor country. My friends think I dallied at court like Rinaldo in Armida's garden. They do not understand that when one hears the name of Bourbon one does not willingly make war with the Crown, still less that the good Calvin left a doctrine bitter to the taste and tough ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... No. 379, p. 47. Striga is used as the name of a witch. It is of the purest classic origin, (Horat. epod. v. 20. Petron. c. 134;) and from the words of Petronius, (quae striges comederunt nervos tuos?) it may be inferred that the prejudice was of Italian rather ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... to hells and stars, A witch beguiling, an enchantress strange; But ours the Heart remains and binds both life And love with the native ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... longer a dwarf, but a gallant knight. At that moment his memory came back to him, and he knew he was Conal, one of the Knights of the Red Branch, and he remembered now that the spell of dumbness and deformity had been cast upon him by the Witch of the Palace of ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... the instrumentes thereof, merits most severly to be punished: against the damnable opinions of two principally in our age, wherof the one called SCOT an Englishman, is not ashamed in publike print to deny, that ther can be such a thing as Witch-craft: and so mainteines the old error of the Sadducees, in denying of spirits. The other called VVIERVS, a German Phisition, sets out a publick apologie for al these craftes-folkes, whereby, procuring for their impunitie, he plainely bewrayes ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I

... Scylla and Charybdis between Italy and Sicily, where, in avoiding one mariners were often wrecked by the other; but the dangers in the Firth were from the "Merry Men of Mey," a dangerous expanse of sea, where the water was always boiling like a witch's cauldron at one end, and the dreaded "Swalchie Whirlpool" at the other. This was very dangerous for small boats, as they could sail over it safely in one state of the tide, but when it began to move it carried the boat round ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... our 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 four hundred yards wide and eight ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... one (however unobservant) had been the hollow moaning sound ever present in the air, morning, noon, and night-time, and especially at night, whether any wind were stirring, or whether it were a perfect calm. Our people said that it was a witch cursing all the country from the caverns by the sea, and that frost and snow would last until we could catch and drown her. But the land, being thoroughly blocked with snow, and the inshore parts of the sea with ice (floating in great fields along), Mother Melldrum (if she it were) ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... her, and we found her lying dead on the desert sward and thrown out to wild beasts. This be no kingly deed, and he who did this is requited with naught but what he merited. So do ye suspect none of having killed him, for no one slew him but the cunning witch, whose name is Zat al-Dawahi. And behold, I have taken the King's wife, Sophia, and have carried her to her father, Afridun King of Constantinople. Moreover, there is no help for it but that we wage war upon you and kill you and take your country from you, and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... leered at us pleasantly from where she lay, occasionally muttering something in her native tongue, that might have been a tribute to our charms of mind or person, but which sounded more like an incantation. I felt she was a veritable witch, and at any moment expected to find myself changed into some animal or other under the baleful light of her eyes. If she had said, "Rumpelstilzchen, rumpelstilzchen," or any other cabalistic thing the witches ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... but when it was made, what do you think? the foolish Welsh wouldn't put it on, saying that it was against their laws and statties and religion to use it, and talked about Devil's salves and the Witch of Endor, and the sin against the Holy Ghost, and such like nonsense. So to prevent a regular rebellion, the Duke gave up the salve, and the poor sheep pined away and died, till at last there ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... was the weekly excitement of the neighbourhood, and there was scarcely a household within the radius of a few miles that did not send at least one of its members to swell the number of chafferers and bargainers in the market. Jolly farmers, buxom maidens, old women in witch hats and scarlet scarves, pigs, sheep, horses, all followed each other in the ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... were no resources in him equal to the task. Louise Suveret became in his account what she had always remained in his imagination since Sandy's employers told him what was known of her story—a mere witch and devil, sent for his brother's perdition. All his resentment against his brother's fate had passed into his hatred of this creature whom he had never seen. Nay, he even held up the picture of her hideous death before her children with a kind of sinister ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and executed for notable villanies, by them committed both by land and water, with a strange and most true triall how to know whether a woman be a witch or not: with the plate. Extra rare, 4to. 3 ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... cases of the century had as its principal subject a woman accused of the power to cause sickness. In an age when weapon salve was wiped on the weapon and not the wound, and when astrology was intimately associated with the practice of medicine, it is not surprising to find, also, the witch and her power to cause disease. Goodwife Wright stood accused of such powers in the colony's general court on September ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... in this little tale should seem incredible, it may be mentioned that an instance of a child being deprived of speech for several days, at the bidding of a reputed witch, came under the author's immediate notice less than three years ago, in a village but three miles distant ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... The bandit! And the government never punished these wicked souls!... There were no other remedies than the old, true and tried ones,—the product of the experience of people who had lived years ago and thus knew much more. One of the neighbors went off to hunt up a certain witch, a miraculous doctor for dog-bites, serpent bites and scorpion-stings. Another brought a blind old goatherd, who could cure by the virtue of his mouth, simply by making some crosses of saliva over the ailing flesh. ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... contributed some shy remarks. But Harriet was beset with sudden fits of nervousness, and oppressed by a heavy sense of impending disaster. She said to herself that she wished heartily the weather would break and clear, she felt like "a witch." ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... Christmas eve a Christmas tale, Of wonder and of war—"Profane! What! leave the loftier Latian strain, Her stately prose, her verse's charms, To hear the clash of rusty arms: In Fairy Land or Limbo lost, To jostle conjuror and ghost, Goblin and witch!" Nay, Heber dear, Before you touch my charter, hear; Though Leyden aids, alas! no more, My cause with many-languaged lore, This may I say:- in realms of death Ulysses meets Alcides' WRAITH; AEneas, upon Thracia's shore, The ghost of ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... and pushed her down into the black mud beneath the water at the foot of the snag. When they had all stamped upon her, the bogle-bodies ran quickly and fetched a big black stone which they hurled on top of her to keep her down. Then the old witch called two will-o'-the-wisps from the darkest part of the marshes, and, when they came dancing and glancing above the pools and quicks, she bade them keep watch by the grave of the Moon, and, if she tried to get out, ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac

... him such property as she possessed. I fancy this windfall surprised him not a little, for the relations between the aunt and nephew had never been cordial, judging from Eugene's remarks touching the lady, who was, it seems, a more or less wicked and witch-like old person, with a penchant for black magic, at least such ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram

... be. Two years he governed here, then was transferred to Maryland, and then in seven years came back to the James. He had not been liked there, but while he was gone Virginia had endured in his stead Sir Edmund Andros. That had been swapping the witch for the devil. Virginia in 1698 seems to have welcomed ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... from those banks to-day; and if ever you tried to take a boat across the Bury currents, you would not only believe in miracles but pray for one, while your boat turned in mid-stream like a merry-go-round. So there's no doubt that the ferry-wife is a witch. But as for the Wishing-Pool, it is as lost as it was before the white hart led two lovers to discover it at separate times, and having brought them together passed with them and its secret out ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... black cat widdee yalla eyes Slink round like she atterah mouse, Den yo' bettah take keer yo'self en frien's, Kase deys sholy a witch en ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... last, "Phoebus, what a name!" adding affectedly, "yet it seems to me, on reflection, I have heard it before. He is a Yankee, of course! Now, do you earnestly believe a native of New England, by descent a legitimate witch-burner, you know, can be any thing better than a poll-parrot ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... obstruct the success of the childbirth, and to suck out the souls of children; and the people act thus in order to prevent them. He who does not wish to have this observed in public, through fear of punishment, removes his wife to another house for the parturition, if he thinks that the witch is in his. The procurer of this witch they say is the bird tictic, [352] and that this bird, by flying and singing, shows the witch or osuang the house where there is a parturition, and even guides him to work other misfortunes. Consequently, whenever they see or hear the tictic, they all ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and speaking incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the rest of the evening. 'Here's a wonderful adventure! Here's Mr Dombey's daughter lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old witch of a woman—found by me—brought home to our parlour to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... in her self-claimed emancipation only the wildness of a filly turned out to pasture without halter or hobble; the wildness of one who scorns respectability; for primitive morality is pathetically narrow. It may sing piously about the pyre of a burning witch, but it can hardly grasp the ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... the whole morning with that tiresome Bergenheim on my hands, and I verily believe he made me count every stick in his park and every frog in his pond. Tonight, when that old witch of Endor proposed her infernal game of whist, to which it seems I am to be condemned daily, you-excused yourself upon the pretext of ignorance, and yet you play as ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... if I recollect my discussion with you going down to Southampton. Very well, my dear Hal, and your appearance especially, which, in that witch's travelling-cap of yours, is so extremely agreeable to me that you recur to me in it constantly, and as often I execrate your bonnet. How much I do love beauty! How I delight in the beauty of any one that I love! ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... asked about Bridget Ruane and her brother said:—'Some people call her "Biddy Early" (after a famous witch-doctor). She has done a good many cures. Her brother was away for a while, and it is from him she got her knowledge. I believe it's before sunrise she gathers the herbs; any way no one ever saw her gathering them. She has saved many a woman ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... the Nevile and the maiden found themselves, unmolested and unpursued, in a deserted quarter of the ground; but still the scream of the timbrel-girls, as they hurried, wheeling and dancing, into the distance, was borne ominously to the young man's ear. "Ha, ha! the witch and her lover! Foul is fair! foul is fair! Shadow to goblin, goblin to shadow,—and the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... going to do about it, Beauty?" Leila asked almost sharply, when the affair had been thoroughly gone over from both standpoints. Dressed as Finestra, a Celtic witch woman, Leila made a striking figure in her white and green robes as she sat on the low wall bench, hands loosely clasped over one knee, her vivid features alive ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... to be found? Even in St. Petersburg, despite its grim and murky exterior, they exist. Yes, even though thirty degrees of keen, cracking frost may have bound the streets, and the family of the North Wind be wailing there, and the Snowstorm Witch have heaped high the pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and powdering beards and fur collars and the shaggy manes of horses—even THEN there will be shining hospitably through the swirling snowflakes a fourth-floor window where, in a cosy room, and by the light of modest candles, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... much curiosity, and I am a woman, so that will allow me to inquire into the mystery, for mystery it surely is. Why should I be so strangely affected when visiting that spot? Why these sudden head pains, and dizziness as though I were about to fall to the ground? Can it be that some witch or evil spirit dwells there and is displeased with my coming? Does it belong to them any more than to me? Have I not the right to come and sit beside the little stream as often as I choose? I will inquire into the matter ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... "Ethiopiques," containing the amours of Theagenes and Chariclea. He was so fond of this production, that, the option being proposed to him by a synod, he rather chose to resign his bishopric than destroy his work. There occurs a scene of incantation in this romance. The story of Lucan's witch occurs in the sixth ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... Wakefield. Robinson Crusoe. Arabian Nights. Decameron. Wilhelm Meister. Vathek. Corinne. Minister's Wooing. Undine. Sintram. Thisdolf. Peter Schlemihl. Sense and Sensibility. Pride and Prejudice. Anastasius. Amber Witch. Mary Powell. Household of Sir T. More. Cruise of the Midge. Guy Mannering. Antiquary. Bride of Lammermoor. Legend of Montrose. Rob Roy. Woodstock. Ivanhoe. Talisman. Fortunes of Nigel. Old Mortality. Quentin Durward. Heart of Midlothian. ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley

... makes you visit that old hermit?" said Eliza Ray, her schoolmate, one morning. "Bridget, our hired girl, says she is sure such a looking old hag must be a witch." ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various

... eyne wherein were blent All ardors of the Orient; She spake—all magics of the South Were compassed in the witch's mouth;— He thought the scarlet lips of her More precious than En Gedi's myrrh, The lips of ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis

... him, but they, fearing the djinns who haunt the mountain and have power at night, refused, and begged him to come away lest he be struck by a terrible death. The legend was that Queen Candace, the queen who ordered the making of the tomb—had been a witch. When she died, by her magic arts learned from the lost Book of Thoth, she had turned all those aware of the tomb's existence, into djinns, to guard the secret dwelling of her soul. Even the great men of the court who by her wish hid in the mountain her body and jewels and ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... the years that are gone," he said; "The spirits the words of the witch fulfill; For I saw the ghost of my father dead, By the moon's dim light on the misty hill. He shook the plumes on his withered head, And the wind through his pale form whistled shrill. And a low, sad voice on the hill I heard. Like the mournful wail of a widowed bird." Then lo, as he looked from ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... college he wrote some stories which he called "Seven Tales of my Native Land." The motto which he chose for the title-page was "We are Seven," from Wordsworth. My informant read the tales in manuscript, and says some of them were very striking, particularly one or two Witch Stories. As soon as the little book was well prepared for the press he deliberately threw it into the fire, and sat by ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... beat it level with the ground, if needful—And, hold—summon Randal hither instantly.—Randal, here is a foul and evil chance befallen—send off a boat instantly to Kinross, the Chamberlain Luke Lundin is said to have skill—Fetch off, too, that foul witch Nicneven; she shall first counteract her own spell, and then be burned to ashes in the island of Saint Serf. Away, away—Tell them to hoist sail and ply oar, as ever they would have good ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... strange story of Ralph Kenzie, the English castaway, and of how he was found by our daughter Suzanne. Many have heard also the still stranger story of how this child of ours, Suzanne, in her need, was sheltered by savages, and for more than two years lived with Sihamba, the little witch doctoress and ruler of the Tribe of the Mountains, till Ralph, her husband, who loved her, sought her out and rescued her, that by the mercy of the Lord during all this time had suffered neither harm nor violence. Yes, many have heard of these things, for in bygone years ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... from the famous Rapunzel, whose story is no doubt familiar to you.... No? Well, her father was a poor cottager who was caught by an old witch stealing radishes from her garden. She let him off on condition that he gave up to her the child his wife was expecting. Rapunzel was the child, and in due time was claimed by the witch, who shut her up in a lofty tower. However, she ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... hair, Gerda thought less and less about Kay, for the old woman was a witch, but not a wicked witch, for she only enchanted now and then to amuse herself, and she did want to keep ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various

... especially single folks, will take on dreadful at the fadin' of their roses, and their frettin' only seems to make the thorns look sharper. Our minister used to say to sister Sall (and when she was young she was a real witch, a'most an everlastin' sweet girl), 'Sally,' he used to say, 'now's the time to larn when you are young; store your mind well, dear, and the fragrance will remain long arter the rose has shed its leaves. The otter of roses is stronger than the ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... not, 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 it in every direction, a clap of wind and foliage ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... acquired the information, and to have followed the advice of the good Capuchin who really believed me to be in deadly peril. He had doubtless heard of it in the confessional from the woman who had carried the blood to the witch. Auricular confession often works miracles ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... friend Jehan! You know that I made an appointment with that little girl at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel, and I can only take her to the Falourdel's, the old crone of the bridge, and that I must pay for a chamber. The old witch with a white moustache would not trust me. Jehan! for pity's sake! Have we drunk up the whole of the cure's purse? Have you not ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... my Doues are back returnd, Who warne me of such daunger prest at hand, To harme my sweete Ascanius louely life. Iuno, my mortall foe, what make you here? Auaunt old witch and trouble ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe

... of her wounded friend. But her way was barred by the squire, who, sword in hand, 'stood like a bulwark' between his lord and the serpent. Duessa, full of wrath at being foiled, turned the serpent on him, but not one foot would the squire move till, beside herself with anger, the witch drew out her cup and sprinkled him with the poisonous water. Then the strength went out of his arms and the courage from his heart, and he sank helpless on the ground before the snake, who fain would have trampled the life out of him, and it would have fared ill ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... rode out to the race-course, and saw Pelham, who is in training to run a mile with Hard-heart. Pelham is a handsome little chestnut, with a perfectly thorough-bred air, and gallops like a witch. ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... him his little witch must soon be shut out! She turns the heads of all our brethren," said Sir Robert, smiling. "Wild work she makes ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... stage of an intermittent, and the path to the town lay through a wet valley, I declined going. Kolimbota, who knows their customs best, urged me to go; but, independent of sickness, I hated words of the night and deeds of darkness. "I was neither a hyaena nor a witch." Kolimbota thought that we ought to conform to their wishes in every thing: I thought we ought to have some choice in the matter as well, which put him into high dudgeon. However, at ten next morning we went, and were led into the courts of Shinte, the walls of which were woven ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... WITCH ON BROOM.—You will be reproved by some of your friends who consider that your interest in psychic matters is dangerous, but later on you will be able to prove to their satisfaction that no harm has come ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... on we sailed through the waters dark, Where the damp fog clung like a witch's veil, And hid from the faces of watchers pale, The dangers that crowded around our bark, In this, the birth-place of the snow and mist. Icebergs by the low clouds covered and kissed, Clustered round ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke

... about him in an instant, tremulous as brilliant butterflies hovering around a royal rose: Faustina, with the proud face of a Roman marble; Messalinda, with the fair hair of some witch-woman of the North; Yolande, the exquisite French girl with the brown hair and the brown eyes—Yolande so envied of all the others, as being, as it seemed, the latest in the King's favor, the nearest in the King's grace. Robert caught Faustina and Messalinda ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... the Hebrew had relaxed his hold for a second, a vile heretic points out to the visitor (Exodus XXII, 18): "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!" and explains the witchcraft delusion ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... in his sketches, for it was dear to him because it was the resting-place of his father, and there he himself might some day lay his bones. To induce Grose to do this, Burns told him that Alloway kirk was the scene of many witch stories and weird sights. The antiquary replied, "Write you a poem on the scene, and I'll put in the verses with an engraving of the ruin." Burns having found a fitting day and hour, when "his barmy noddle was working ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... arts of divination, and an accredited power over the elements are the prerogatives of certain witches and wizards. Thus, when a murrain among the cattle, or the death of an important individual has taken place, the blame is laid upon some unfortunate victim whom the witch or wizard points out. And the ordeal to which he must submit, is equal in cruelty to those of the Gold Coast. He is beaten with sticks, and then pegged down to the ground. Whilst thus helpless, a nest of venomous bush-ants is broken over his racked ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham

... was proposed to treat. The memoirs of the South-Sea madness and the Mississippi delusion are more complete and copious than are to be found elsewhere; and the same may be said of the history of the Witch Mania, which contains an account of its terrific progress in Germany, a part of the subject which has been left comparatively untouched by Sir Walter Scott in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, the most important that have yet appeared on this fearful ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... her from him so suddenly that she sprawled upon the steps. The Indians grinned unsympathetically at her, for Hagar was not the most popular member of the tribe by any means. Scrambling up, she shook her witch locks from her face, wrapped herself in her dingy blanket, and scuttled away, muttering maledictions under her breath. The watching group turned and followed her, and in a few seconds the gate was heard to slam shut behind them. ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... as I looked at that old witch in the glass that had reflected my magnificent youth, seemed to me unendurable. I had lived a virtuous and upright life. I knew damned well she hadn't. I had done my duty by the race and my own and my husband's people, and I had brought up my sons to be honorable and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... a bent old hag whose witch-eyes were searching the place keenly! With a curiously lithe step, for all her age, she descended, and standing behind Ah-Fang-Fu tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the outer door. He stood up and shuffled across, went up the four steps ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... swelling), wheel. weald, wield, wheeled. while, wile. whine, wine, white, wight. whether, weather. whither, wither. whig, wig. whit, wit. what, wot. whet, wet. whirr, were wer'. whin, win. whist, wist. which, witch, wych (elm). ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... friends (the Souls) discussed which would go farthest, George Curzon, George Wyndham or Harry Cust, so in those days people were asking the same question about Chamberlain and Dilke. To my mind it wanted no witch to predict that Chamberlain would beat not only Dilke but other men; and Gladstone made a profound mistake in not making him a Secretary of State in ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... heart dreaded and fainted sore, he cried for to have counsel of our Lord. And our Lord answered him not, ne by swevens ne by priests, ne by prophets. Then said Saul to his servants: Fetch to me a woman having a phiton, otherwise called a phitoness or a witch. And they said that there was such a woman in Endor. Saul then changed his habit and clothing, and did on other clothing, and went, and two men with him, and came to the woman by night, and made her by her craft to raise Samuel. And Samuel said to Saul: Why hast thou put me from my rest, for ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... a witch; the Gallegos call them so in their jargon, of which I can scarcely understand a word. So I consented, and they sent for the meiga. Och! what a weib is that meiga! I never saw such a woman; she is as large as myself, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... a minute 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 glared, open-mouthed, at the strangers for ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... reach speech bleach screech leech breach beech coach roach poach broach preach fetch stretch itch botch notch blotch catch sketch crutch pitch latch batch snatch ditch match hatch patch hutch twitch clutch switch witch stitch ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... small things, been one of the favourite resources of poor mortals in their difficulties. Such charms (for all analogous practices may be so called) are, in point of fact, sacrifices made on the principle so widely adopted,—qui facit per alium facit per se. The common witch-charm of melting an image of wax stuck full of pins before a slow fire, is a familiar instance. Everybody knows that the party imaged by the wax continues to suffer all the tortures of pin-pricking ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 32, June 8, 1850 • Various

... little witch! Uncle Harry heard what you said, and not only is he going to have his fortune told, but he's going to make every one of you little girls have ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks

... "That's her—the Pied Witch! Do her twelve knots; you wouldn't think it! Well! good-evening! You'd better come. A word to me at any time. I'm ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... when Bernice looked over her Baked Apple she saw nothing in this wide World except Kenneth, still reeking of Witch Hazel and spotted with Talcum Powder, and not very long ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade



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



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