Witches.
Vervain and Dill
Hinder witches from their will.
The following refers to rowan or mountain-ash wood, which is supposed to be a charm against witchcraft:—
If your whipstick’s made of rowan
You can ride your nag thro’ any town.
Much about a pitch,
Quoth the devil to the witch.
A hairy man’s a geary man,
But a hairy wife’s a witch.
Woe to the lad
Without a rowan-tree god.
A witch-wife and an evil
Is three-halfpence worse than the devil.
Hey-how for Hallow-e’en!
When all the witches are to be seen,
Some in black and some in green,
Hey-how for Hallow-e’en!
Thout! tout! a tout, tout!
Throughout and about.
Cummer goe ye before, cummer goe ye,
Gif ye will not goe before, cummer let me!
“These lines are said to have been sung by witches at North Berwick in Lothian, accompanied by the music of a Jew’s harp or trump, which was played by Geilles Duncan, a servant girl, before two hundred witches, who joined hands in a short daunce or reel, singing (also) these lines with one voice:—
“ ‘Witchy, witchy, I defy thee,
Four fingers round my thumb,
Let me go quietly by thee.’
“It will be seen that this is a phallic sign, and as such dreaded by witches. It is difficult to understand why these verses with the sign should have been given by witches.”
“The anti-witch rhyme used in Tweedesdale some sixty or seventy years ago was:—
“ ‘Black-luggie, lammer bead,
Rowan-tree and reed thread,
Put the witches to their speed.’
“The meaning of ‘black-luggie’ I know not. ‘Lammer bead’ is a corruption of ‘amber-bead.’ They are still worn by a few old people in Scotland as a preservative against a variety of diseases, especially asthma, dropsy, and toothache. They also preserve the wearer from the effects of witchcraft, as stated in the text. I have seen a twig of rowan-tree, witch-wood, quick-bane, wild ash, wicken-tree, wicky, wiggy, witchen, witch-bane, royne-tree, mountain-ash, whitty, wiggin, witch-hazel, roden-quicken, roden-quicken-royan, roun, or ran-tree, which had been gathered on the second of May (observe this), wound round with some dozens of yards of red thread, placed visible in the window to act as a charm in keeping witches and Boggle-boes from the house. So also we have—
“ ‘Rowan-ash and reed thread
Keep the devils from their speed.’ ”
Ye brade o’ witches, ye can do no good to yourself.
Fair they came,
Fair they go,
And always their heels behind them.
Neither so sinful as to sink, nor so godly as to swim.
Falser than Waghorn, and he was nineteen times falser than the devil.
Ingratitude is worse than witchcraft.
Ye’re as mitch
As half a witch.
To milk the tether (i.e., the cow-tie).
This refers to a belief that witches can carry off the milk from any one’s cow by milking at the end of the tether.
Go in God’s name—so you ride no witches.
“Rynt, you witch!” quoth Bess Lockit to her mother.
Rynt, according to Skeat, is the original Cumberland word for “aroint,” i.e., “aroint thee, get thee gone.” Icelandic ryma—“to make room, to clear the way”—given, however, only as a guess. It seems to have been specially applied to witches.
“ ‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cried.”
(“Macbeth”).
Halliwell gives the word as rynt, and devotes a column to it, without coming to any satisfactory conclusion. I think it is simply the old word rynt or wrynt, another form of writhe, meaning to twist or strangle, as if one should say, “Be thou strangled!” which was indeed a frequent malediction. Halliwell himself gives “wreint” as meaning “awry,” and “wreith destordre”—“to wring or wreith” (“Hollyband’s Dictionarie,” 1593). The commonest curse of English gypsies at the present day is “Beng tasser tute!” “May the devil strangle you”—literally twist, which is an exact translation of wrinthe or rynt.
“The gode man to hys cage can goo
And wrythed the pye’s neck yn to.”
(“MS. Cantab.” ap. H.)
Rynt may mean twist away, i.e., begone, as they say in America, “he wriggled away.”
They that burn you for a witch lose all their coals.
Never talk of witches on a Friday.
Ye’re ower aude ffarand to be fraid o’ witches.
Witches are most apt to confess on a Friday.
Friday is the witches’ Sabbath.
To hug one as the devil hugs a witch.
| As black |  | as a witch. |
| As cross | ||
| As ugly | ||
| As sinful |
Four fingers and a thumb—witch, I defy thee.
In Italy the signs are made differently. In Naples the gettatura consists of throwing out the fore and middle fingers, so as to imitate horns, with the thumb and fingers closed. Some say the thumb should be within the middle and third fingers. In Florence the anti-witch gesture is to fare la fica, or stick the thumb out between the fore and middle fingers.
You’re like a witch, you say your prayers backward.
Witch-wood (i.e., the mountain ash).
You’re half a witch—i.e., very cunning.
Buzz! buzz! buzz!
“In the middle of the sixteenth century if a person waved his hat or bonnet in the air and cried ‘Buzz!’ three times, under the belief that by this act he could take the life of another, the old law and law-makers considered the person so saying and acting to be worthy of death, he being a murderer in intent, and having dealings with witches” (“Denham Tract”). Very doubtful, and probably founded on a well known old story.
“I wish I was as far from God as my nails are free from dirt!”
Said to have been a witch’s prayer whilst she was in the act of cleaning her nails. In logical accuracy this recalls the black boy in America, who on being asked if he knew the way to a certain place, replied, “I only wish I had as many dollars as I know my way there.”
A witch is afraid of her own blood.
A Pendle forest witch.
A Lancashire witch.
A witch cannot greet (i.e., weep).
To be hog, or witch-ridden.