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Witch   Listen
noun
Witch  n.  A cone of paper which is placed in a vessel of lard or other fat, and used as a taper. (Prov. Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Witch" Quotes from Famous Books



... was more free of intrigue, ambition and falsehood, than that of any one about the court at that time; but the Florentines, encouraged by Francis's brother Ferdinand I, who succeeded him, made up their minds that she was a witch, and few things in the way of disaster happened that were not laid to her charge. Call a woman a witch and everything is possible. Ferdinand not only detested Bianca in life and deplored her fascination ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... the imps quickly, as some children do their impressions, but strove to model them this morning, making round snow bodies, carrot horns, corncob legs, and funny celery tails; the result being positively startling and "overmuch like witch brats," as ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... the fire was still felt to be an obstacle to the complete success of the locomotive engine. Mr. Stephenson endeavoured to overcome this by lengthening the boilers and increasing the surface presented by the flue-tubes. The "Lancashire Witch," which he built for the Bolton and Leigh Railway, and used in forming the Liverpool and Manchester Railway embankments, was constructed with a double tube, each of which contained a fire and passed longitudinally ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... the room, "Momma" had placed an enormous tin dish-pan piled high with dirty dishes, over which she was pouring the contents of the kettle. Steam rose in clouds, half-veiling her big, fierce face which, seen through holes in the vapor, was like that of a handsome, vulgar witch. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... the greatest. Don't fancy that your bonds are in Miriam's hands. They have been transferred months ago. Your real creditors may be in Carthage, or Rome, or Byzantium, and they will attack you from thence; while all that you would find if you seized the old witch's property, would be papers, useless to you, belonging to Jews all over the empire, who would rise as one man in defence of their money. I assure you, it is a net without a bound. If you touch one you touch all.... And besides, my diligence, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... central figure would have continued to stick pins into it, till the result would have been no living figure, but a record of personal judgments, perhaps even, as sometimes happens, of personal pettiness, a witch's waxen figure plentifully pricked before the consuming flame. Miss Mayor keeps on the side of justice, with the real creators, to whom there is nothing simple and no one unmixed, and in this way gets beauty, and through beauty the ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor

... pretty 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 ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... his advantage to destroy, and left the more popular and older idolatry undisturbed. Obedience has to be 'all in all, or not at all.' We may not 'compound for sins we are inclined to, by' zeal against those 'we have no mind to.' Our consciences are apt to have insensitive spots in them, like witch-marks. We often think it enough to remove the grosser evils, and leave the less, but white ants will eat up a carcass faster than a lion. Putting away Baal is of little use if we keep the calves at Dan and Beth-el. Nothing but walking in the law of the Lord 'with all the heart' will secure our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... 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 to be an honest ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... the scholar, her friends. Neither has E.,—wandering in Europe with hope of meeting you,—yet met. This contumacy of mine I shall regret as long as I live. How palsy creeps over us, with gossamer first, and ropes afterwards! and the witch has the prisoner when once she has put her eye on him, as securely as after the bolts are drawn.—Yet I and all my little company watch every token from you, and coax Mrs. H. to read us letters. I learned with satisfaction that you did not like ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... never was a calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded circumstances. It rests upon no positive testimony, and it has a weight of contradicting testimony to stem.... What else but her meek, saintly demeanor won, from the enemies that till now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Ten thousand men," says M. Michelet himself, "ten thousand men wept; and of these ten thousand the majority were political enemies knitted together by cords of superstition." ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... principal incident 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 from ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... you have had me wed Abi the hog, the murderer of my father, and of your lord? Again, was it I who but now showed this barbarian chief a shadow in the water, or was it Asti the witch, Asti the prophetess of Amen? Lastly, will the man die, if die he must, because he loves me, which, being a woman I can forgive him, or because he laid the hands of violence upon me to force me to be his queen or mistress, which I forgive him not? Oh! Asti, you know well I am not as other ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... an improvised roof made by pinning Bagdad couch-covers together. All along the sides of the gymnasium hall there were little curtained booths, while the four corners of the gallery were turned respectively into a gypsy tent, a witch's den, the grotesque abode of an Egyptian sorceress, and the businesslike offices of a dapper little French medium, just over ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... by a Mademoiselle Hermans, seven feet high. She was in black, with a nosegay of black (for on the French stage they pique themselves on propriety,) and without powder: whenever you are a widow, are in distress, or are a witch, you are to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... this is mysterious, and that you must be a witch, or something uncanny. I know all mamma's friends, and I am positive not one of them ever lived ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... or Church law had become quite engrafted upon the civil law, did the full persecutions for witchcraft arise. A witch was held to be a woman who had deliberately sold her soul to the Evil One, who delighted in injuring others, and who chose the Sabbath day for the enactment of her impious rites, and who was especially connected with black animals; the black cat being held ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... England!' screamed the young man, like a witch in the air; then Burgundy began his grumble ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... Ho! What woman! Who but that scullery-wench, that onion-monger, That slatternly, pale bakress, that foul witch, The coroneted Fish-Wife of ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... she were a spy, and I changed my first mind to avoid her, determined to get to the bottom of her motives. I soon made up my mind that she was in love with you, and then I began to tremble, for she is not only a very witch of fascination, but she has about forty times more power of loving, or whatever she chooses to call it, than most women, and every mental attraction and fastidious refinement, besides. There is not a good woman in the country that could hold her own ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... you see? Her being a witch did not alter his word. He did not give it because she was or was not a witch—but because he himself wanted to at the time, I ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... theme of Forgiveness. On a remote mountainside in Wales there dwells a broken-down old woman, whom the local children believe to be a witch. As such she will live for ever, and cannot be hurt, so they amuse themselves by going to her hut, taunting her, and throwing stones at the hut. One evening one of these stones knocks a burning stick from the fire, and sets fire to the old woman, but by chance a ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston

... his indignation upon Henry, with all the energetic freedom of the 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 squires attempted ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... beheld everything in my vision turn to a living devil. Chairs, stand, bed, and my very clothes, took shape and form, and lived; and every one of them cursed me. Then in one corner of my room, a form, larger and more hideous than all the others, appeared. Its look was that of a witch, or hag, or rather like descriptions that I had read of them. It marched right up to me, with a face and look that will haunt me to my grave. It began to talk to me, saying that it would thrust its fingers through my ribs, and drink ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 'Used by Betty Edgecombe, white witch of Malborough ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... the ever-memorable scene in the Merry Wives of Windsor, when Jack Falstaff, disguised as the fat woman of Brentford, is escaping from Ford's house, he is cuffed and mauled by Ford, who exclaims, "Hang her, witch!" on which the honest Cambrian Sir Hugh Evans sapiently remarks: "Py yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a 'oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under her muffler!" (Act iv, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... to be pleasant. It is the haunt of the river swell and his overdressed female companion. It is the town of showy hotels, patronised chiefly by dudes and ballet girls. It is the witch's kitchen from which go forth those demons of the river - steam- launches. The LONDON JOURNAL duke always has his "little place" at Maidenhead; and the heroine of the three-volume novel always dines there when she goes out on the ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... Weldon![36]—whither have thy unlucky familiars carried thee? Hast thou bestridden the enchanted horse, or wert thou bidden to a witch-feast?" ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... have you got with the "Loreley"?—Only take hold of the witch with tender force.—Geibel has lately brought out his opera-text to the "Loreley," and several composers are already setting to work on it (or under it). In the present state of things there is not much to be expected from effusions ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... STRANGER. The green witch's dress, that laid a spell on me one Sunday afternoon, between the inn and the church door! ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... "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 me a profession to masquerade under. I must, of course, for ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... are gaunt and sinewy devils, eager to do violence to Eurydice. Pluto himself drives his jarring car-wheels up through the lava-blocks and flames of Etna with a fury and a vehemence we seek in vain upon antique sarcophagi. Ceres, wandering through Sicily in search of her lost daughter, is a gaunt witch with dishevelled hair, raising frantic hands to tear her cheeks; while the snakes that draw her chariot are no grave symbols of the germinating corn, but greedy serpents ready to spit fire against the ravishers of Proserpine. Thus ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... lived on his ground this twa hundred years; and when he keepit my puir Jamie at school and college, and even at the Ha'-house, till he gaed to a better place; and when he saved me frae being ta'en to Perth as a witch—lord forgi'e them that would touch sic a puir silly auld body!—and has maintained puir Davie at heck and manger ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... tread on. You will no be 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 ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

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

... hope of the too fair impossible. Ah, it is she, she, Columbine: again I see her, and I woo her, and in vain. She lures me with her beckoning finger-tip; How her eyes shine for me, and how her lips Bloom for me, roses, roses, red and rich! She waves to me the white arms of a witch Over the world: I follow, I forget All, but she'll love me ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons

... lifts up her head and looks at him. Grey and bald she is, a head standing up on a long, scraggy neck—ugly as a witch, as an ogress out of a story. And Axel starts at the sight, and fumbles with a hand behind his back for the latch of ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... his mate, "that is speaking no true water language. For double fare we are bound to row a witch in her eggshell if she bid us; and so pull away, Jack, and let us ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... "we understand now. She is his wife, and has a right to him. If she were not his wife she would not be in his waggon. It is plain that she speaks the truth, though how she came here we do not know, unless, as we think, she is a witch," and he smiled ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... was charmed with the sound, and Sleipner and his rider went onward in safety. And they passed the dark halls of the pale-faced queen, and came to the east gate of the valley. There stood the low hut of a witch who lived in darkness, and, like the Norns, spun the thread of ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... thou hast prophesied, thou crazy witch, thou!" thundered old Benjamin, and he fired his gun at ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... take an eye iv a witch to see that Dan'l O'Connell was a bor-rn idjet. They was no rale harm in th' poor la-ad, on'y he was lazy an' foolish an' sort iv tired like. To make a long story short, Hinnissy, his father thried ivrything f'r him, an' got ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne

... positive that Samuel is not the writer of them; for they relate things that did not happen till several years after the death of Samuel. Samuel died before Saul; for i Samuel, xxviii. tells, that Saul and the witch of Endor conjured Samuel up after he was dead; yet the history of matters contained in those books is extended through the remaining part of Saul's life, and to the latter end of the life of David, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... have too," said Captain Wicks, "and a beauty. Schooner yacht Dream—got lines you never saw the beat of, and a witch to go. She passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two knots to my one and lying a point and a half better, and the Grace Darling was a ship that I was proud of. I took and tore my hair. The Dream's been my dream ever since. That ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... saying to me, when first I saw him after the discovery of "Evelina"...... I see what it is you can do, you little witch—it is, that you can hang us all up for laughing- stocks; but hear me this one thing—don't meddle with me. I see what they are, your powers; but remember, when you provoke an Italian you run a dagger into ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... cave Gnipa, where Garm was chained, and which yawned over Niflheim. "The world weeps," they said one to another by way of encouragement, for here the road was so dreadful; but just as they were about to pass through the mouth of Gnipa they came upon a haggard witch named Thaukt, who sat in the entrance with her back to them, and her face toward the abyss. "Baldur is dead! Weep, weep!" said the messenger maidens, as they tried to pass ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... superstition. You will be led from one to the other, puzzled but, I dare conjecture, highly entertained. I think you may take it, too, that a certain healthy sort of children will like to have these queer stories read aloud. The villainies of the Baba Yaga, an old witch of terrific resourcefulness, and the oddly inconsequent animal stories should make particular appeal. But you will be hard put to it to answer the questions which will be thrust at you; and (by the way) perhaps you will discreetly have to leave out a phrase or two for prudence' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various

... "Looked just like 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 be ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... think she will shrivel up," said the old witch, with much content. "You are a great wizard, ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... woman came to the house while grandma was out this afternoon," Peace began. "She looked as if she might be a witch or old Grandmother, Tipsy-toe—I never did like ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... prove false, I will stab him to the heart, with my own hand, though he be my father's brother's grandson, and the best warrior of our tribe; but no, no, Phadraig, the boy is young, and his blood is hot and fiery; and the charms of that witch might well move a colder spirit—but he is true as steel, and wise and wary for one so young. He may sun himself in her smiles, or revel on her lips, but trust me, Eachin of the iron hand, will never ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... fierce dog! But perhaps she keeps a boat, too. She must keep a boat," cheerfully, "because she lives right by the water and I know she fishes. If she would only let us have the boat! But I warn you she may refuse. She is like the witch in 'Hansel and Gretel.' ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... do to keep them here?" they whispered among themselves. "If they go back to the clouds, perhaps the others will not come. Oh, if the old Wind Witch would only come along she ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker

... commanded all those to be destroyed who used the false abominable superstition of this ungracious witchcraft and necromancy. And yet fell he to such folly afterwards himself, that ere he went to battle he sought unto a witch and besought her to raise up a dead man to tell him how he should fare. Now God had showed him by Samuel before that he should come to naught, and he went about no amendment, but waxed worse and worse, so that God would not look to him. And when he sought by the prophet to have ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... could not have dated later than the year 1687. I have known many who remembered the abolition of the hereditary jurisdictions; and have listened to stories of executions which took place on the gallows-hills of burghs and sheriffdoms, and of witch-burnings perpetrated on town Links and baronial Laws. And I have felt a strange interest in these glimpses of a past so unlike the present, when thus presented to the mind as personal reminiscences, or as well-attested traditions, removed from the original witnesses by but a single ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... are one large, husky—witch," calmly remarked the hungry man as he finished disposing of the last half of one of the thin bread and butters. "Here I sit enchanted by—by a butter-paddle, when you and I both know that not two ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... having been erected in 1660. In the Caesar house the peculiar section of the roof recalls the Hazard house at Newport, although the latter clearly belongs to the intermediate stage between the second and third periods. The Witch house at Salem, 1690, recalls the Sueton Grant house at Newport, notably in the overhanging of the front at the line of the second floor. The Baptist Church at Providence, erected in 1774, and the Congregational Church, erected in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... What do you want Ala feta matume Ash-bright Sit down Siduma Jils Get up Ounilee Node Sour Akkumula Hamd Sweet Timiata Helluh True Aituliala Hack False Funiala Kadube Good Abatee Miliah Bad Minbatee Kubiah A witch Bua Sahar A lion Jatta Sebaa 375 An elephant Samma El fel A hyaena Salua Dubbah A wild boar Siwa El kunjer A water horse Mali Aoud d'Elma A horse Suhuwa Aoud A camel Kumaniun Jimmel A dog Wallee Killeb Hel el Killeb Hel Wallee Hel El ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... it is whispered that his Majesty hath cast the eyes of his gracious affection upon another) behold three thousand courtiers are at the feet of the new divinity.—"O divine Athenais! what blockheads have we been to worship any but you.—THAT a goddess?—a pretty goddess forsooth;—a witch, rather, who, for a while, kept our gracious monarch blind! Look at her: the woman limps as she walks; and, by sacred Venus, her mouth stretches almost to her diamond ear-rings?"* The same tale may be told of many more deserted mistresses; ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... this respect, however, was not without alloy; for my son Thomas, from some cause unknown to me, from the time he was a small lad, always called his brother John, a witch, which was the cause, as they grew towards manhood, of frequent and severe quarrels between them, and gave me much trouble and anxiety for their safety. After Thomas and John arrived to manhood, in addition to the ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... Freya, entreating her aid. The goddess graciously heard his prayer, and appearing before him, she changed him into a boar, and rode off upon his back to the dwelling of the sorceress Hyndla, a most renowned witch. By threats and entreaties, Freya compelled the old woman to trace Ottar's genealogy back to Odin, and to name every individual in turn, with a synopsis of his achievements. Then, fearing lest her votary's memory should be unable ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... had—ho! ho! ho! I say; do you know, you couldn't convince the Bishop and Henrietta, if you'd talk till doomsday, that that red coat and hat we advertised weren't taken by a little girl that was daffy. Fact; I swear it! They admit you took the coat, you little witch, but it was when you were out of your mind—of course—of course! 'The very fact that she left the coat behind her and took nothing else from the house shows a mind diseased,' insisted Henrietta. Of course—of course! 'And her coming for no reason at ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... does the girl mean? I am glad that witch gets off at Queenstown. I believe it is she who has mixed everything up. I wish I knew what ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr

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

... ter Beaver Crick wuz feared er her. She could wuk de mos' powerfulles' kin' er goopher,—could make people hab fits, er rheumatiz, er make 'em des dwinel away en die; en dey say she went out ridin' de niggers at night, fer she wuz a witch 'sides bein' a cunjuh 'oman. Mars Dugal' hearn 'bout Aun' Peggy's doin's, en begun ter 'flect whe'r er no he could n' git her ter he'p him keep de niggers off'n de grapevimes. One day in de spring er de ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... rigidity of the upright attitude with one arm extended along the back of the sofa, the white gleam of the big eyeballs setting off the black, fathomless stare of the enlarged pupils, impressed Razumov more than anything he had seen since his hasty and secret departure from St. Petersburg. A witch in Parisian clothes, he thought. A portent! He actually hesitated in his advance, and did not even comprehend, at first, what ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... by Peneleo, the Araucanian chief; for these Indians, struck by her aspect, the deathly pallor of her face, which no exposure to the weather seemed to affect, and her calm indifference under fire, looked upon her as a supernatural being, or at least as a witch. By this superstition the prestige and authority of Gaspar Ruiz amongst these ignorant people were greatly augmented. She must have savoured her vengeance to the full on that day when she buckled on the sword of Don Antonio de Leyva. It never left her side, unless she ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... with us from the old Amazon, we was pretty well off. We mustered a good strong crew too—twenty-nine altogether, counting the Lascars—so, as the brig was a beautiful model, and, we soon found, sailed like a witch, our skipper decided to set up for ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... a witch who desired to know everything. But the wiser a witch is, the harder she knocks her head against the wall when she comes to it. Her name was Watho, and she had a wolf in her mind. She cared for nothing in itself—only for knowing ...
— Harper's Young People, December 2, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... apply salt water (one-half ounce to the quart), extract of witch-hazel, a weak solution of oak bark, or camphorated spirit. If the surface is raw use bland powders, such as oxid of zinc, lycopodium, starch, or smear the surface with vaseline, or with 1 ounce of vaseline ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... What was she doing at home when she ought to have been at school? and without her hat, too! Beth had no explanation to offer, and was hustled off to the nursery, and there shut up for the rest of the day. She stood in the window most of the time, a captive princess in the witch's palace, waiting for the fairy-prince to release her, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... purchase Crowns, To buy thy Smiles—to buy a gentle Look; And when thou didst repay me—blest the Giver? Oh, Abdelazer, more than this I've done— This very Hour, the last the King can live, Urg'd by thy Witch-craft, I his Life betray'd; And is it thus my Bounties are repaid? Whate'er a Crime so great deserves from Heav'n, By Abdelazer might have been forgiven: [Weeps. But I will be reveng'd by penitence, And e'er the King dies, own my black Offence— And ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... were without medical assistance of any sort, and fell into the hands of native quacks who were little, if at all, better than witch doctors. ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... Christian.' 'And would you burn me?' says she. 'God forbid!' replied the priest, 'except for the good of the Church!' Now, this priest must be descended from some of those who attempted to blow up a river with gunpowder, in order to drown a city. Or he must have taken her for a witch, whereas, by his own confession, she 'was no heretic.' A gentleman whom I know declared to me, upon his honor, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat, in a sermon preached by him in the city of Cork, the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' Eve— Yet men will murder upon holy days: Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, 120 And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays, To venture so: it fills me with amaze To see thee, Porphyro!—St. Agnes' Eve! God's help! my lady fair the conjuror plays This very night: good angels her deceive! But let me laugh awhile, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... she caught sight of an old woman moving about in among the trees. It was Finne-Marit, she who was famed as a witch. "How dreadful that that wicked old woman is still alive," thought Gertrude, "and that I should come upon her here in the forest!" She tried to slip along very cautiously, so as not to be seen by the witch. But before Gertrude ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... looked a little puzzled at this suggestion, as if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he computed his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr-burning and witch-hanging;—but time will show,—time will show, as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... said a brisk old gentleman, with a face like a peculiarly wicked monkey. He abandoned Mrs. Townley with enthusiasm in order to say to his hostess, 'Show me the witch who ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... guess it—he knew it—Virginia Huff was the witch who had mixed the hell-broth that had raised up all this treachery against him. She had poisoned his men's minds and incited them to vandalism, but it would not happen again. He had been a fool to endure ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... of a New England country 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 ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... bottle of witch hazel as I rose. Impulsively, I drank off half the contents. It sent a warmth through me. I straightened ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... mountain streams plunged over a rock nine hundred feet high into a romantic gorge, where their waters met in a seething caldron called "Nanny's Pot." Into this, as the negroes believed, the black witch Nanny could, by her sorcery, cast the white soldiers who pursued them. As for old Cudjoe himself, the English declared that he must be in league with the devil, whom he resembled closely enough to be his brother. And they were not ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... and hundreds of the men of Drenthe gathered together. They were armed with horseshoes, and with witch-hazel and other plants, which are like poison to the sooty elves. They had also bits of parchment covered with runes, a strange kind of writing, and various charms which are supposed to be harmful to goblins. It was agreed to move together in a circle towards the centre, ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... to surprise them with the idea that teaching is work, and that the teacher is tired and must go play or rest or eat: possibilities always concealed by that infamous humbug the current schoolmaster, who achieves a spurious divinity and a witch doctor's authority by persuading children that he is not human, just as ladies persuade them that they have ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... were several ugly old women crouching, witch-like, round a hearth, and chattering and nodding, after the manner of the monkeys. 'All well here? And enough to eat?' A general chattering and chuckling; at last an answer from a volunteer. 'Oh yes, gentleman! Bless you, gentleman! Lord bless the Parish of St. So-and-So! ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... go on doubting this true and loving subjective intelligence that is constantly wooing for entrance into the soul and is ever vigilant in warning the material life of approaching evils. They prefer the Witch of Endor, and the Black Magicians of ancient Egypt to the higher, or Christ self, that has been seen and heard by the sages and saints of all ages, assuming appropriate symbols, as in the case of the vision of "F,'' where the angel of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... music, the drives about, and she was learning to ride on a pillion; and Patty knew so many stories about everything, merry and sad and awesome, for her grandmother's sister had been thrust into prison at Salem for being a witch. And Patty also knew some fairy stories, chief among them a version of "Cinderella," and that fascinating "Little Red ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... father fight his battles over again, dear witch," he told Damaris, pacing the terrace walk topping the sea-wall beside her, one evening in the early November dusk. "His record is a very brilliant one and he ought to get more comfort out of the remembrance of it. Let's conspire, you and I, to make him sun himself in the achievements and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... 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 had the most wonderful hair, so long that when she ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... any more than you can help," Jack remarked, making a wry face, as he caressed the protuberance on his forehead; "it feels as big as a walnut, let me tell you, and hurts like fun. The sooner I'm back in camp, so I can slap some witch hazel on that lump, the better it'll ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... buildings of the town shone out in a reflected light which gave the city an air of enchantment; and, truly, it is an enchanted spot. New York City is the most fatally fascinating thing in America. She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country, showing her alluring white face and hiding her crooked hands and feet under the folds of her wide garments—constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... The old witch shook her head. "It will be a hard thing to rescue her," she said. "Koshchei is very powerful. Only in one way can you overcome him. Not far from here stands a tree. It is as hard as rock, so that no ax can dent it, and so smooth that none can ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle

... at length concerning witchcraft and charms. He said that his mother had had to undergo infinite annoyance from one of her neighbors, who was a witch and whom she was fain to conciliate with all sorts of attention, for this witch could throw a charm upon children which made them cry themselves to death. A pastor having punished her for some knavery, she ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... son; go down there if you like and fetch out your Witch of Endor, but as for me, I'm going to throw myself the other side of Collinson's lights. They're good enough for me, and a blamed sight ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... (WITCH-HAZEL.) The only species; 10 to 30 ft. high; rarely grows with a single trunk, but usually forms a slender, crooked-branched shrub. Flowers sessile, in small clusters of 3 to 4, in an involucre in ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar

... once said to Rabbi Abhu, "Ye say that the souls of the righteous are treasured up under the throne of glory; how then had the Witch of Endor power to bring up the prophet Samuel by necromancy?" The Rabbi replied, "Because that occurred within twelve months after his death; for we are taught that during twelve months after death the body is preserved and the soul soars up and down, but that after twelve ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... needful: praising: polishing of words: defending sin: shouting with laughter: making grimaces at any man: to sing secular songs and to love them: to praise ill-deeds: to sing more for the glory of men than of GOD. The sins of deed are these: gluttony: lechery: drunkenness: simony: witch-craft: breaking of the holy-days: sacrilege: to receive GOD'S Body in deadly sin: breaking of vows: apostacy: dissipation in GOD'S service: to set example of ill deeds: to hurt any man in his body, or in his goods, or in his fame: theft: rapine: usury: deceit: selling of righteousness: ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole

... as they journeyed on, ever joined by fresh contingents from all the country round. In the van pressed forward the folk of Saint Philbert, warm from the utter destruction of the house of the witch woman, La Meffraye, so that not one stone was left upon another. Guided by these the Duke and his party made their way easily through the forest, even in the darkness of the night. And as they passed hamlet or cottage ever and anon some frenzied ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... out, she ate a few juniper berries, and people said that was 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 to persons she hated, and that she ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... 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

... help her. He himself ran back into his cabin to get the box which held the ship's papers and cash. But Johann Fabula was not thinking of helping Timea; he flew into a rage when he saw the girl. "Didn't I say this milk-face, this witch with the meeting eyebrows, would bring us all to destruction? We ought to ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... belief still linger. In Devonshire folks speak shyly and with bated breath of the "good people;" and even in the year of grace 1879 a Warwickshire laborer was had up before the magistrates for having with a pitchfork half killed a poor old woman whom he declared to be a witch. But be that as it may, in the reign of James I. no one doubted the existence of the spirit-world about us, and on St. John's Eve all its denizens, good and bad, were supposed to wander freely where they would. One only thing they feared, and that was the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... don't. You 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 ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... man then drew a pistol from his pocket, exclaiming: "You old witch, I'll force you to ...
— The Queen Of Spades - 1901 • Alexander Sergeievitch Poushkin

... which was bewitching, indeed, but by no means witch-like,—a frank, open smile with just a touch of natural feminine triumph in it. "No, not witchcraft," she answered, helping herself with her dainty fingers to a burnt almond from the Venetian glass dish,—"not witchcraft,—memory; ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen



Words linked to "Witch" :   witch-hunt, glamour, beldam, witchery, charm, old witch grass, pythoness, imaginary being, imaginary creature, witch-hunter, witch broom, enchant, witch's brew, Wiccan, hex, enchantress, pagan, crone, jinx, beldame, voodoo, witch-hazel family, occultist, vernal witch hazel, bewitch, hag, water witch, witch grass, witch hazel, witch doctor, coven, becharm, warlock, witch hazel plant



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