Mr. T. T. Wilkinson relates a curious anecdote, which he had, a few years ago, from a respectable gentleman, in the neighbourhood of Burnley, about "killing a witch." His informant was one of the farmers engaged in the mystical ceremony, the object of which was the destruction of a wizard who had wrought sad havoc amongst his neighbours' cattle. He says:—"They met at the house of one of their number, whose cattle were then supposed to be under the influence of the wizard; and, having procured a live cock chicken, they stuck him full of pins and burnt him alive, whilst repeating some magical incantation.... The wind suddenly rose to a tempest, and threatened the destruction of the house. Dreadful moanings, as of some one in intense agony, were heard from without, whilst a sense of horror seized upon all within. At the moment when the storm was at the wildest, the wizard knocked at the door, and, in piteous tones, desired admittance. They had previously been warned, by the 'wise man' they had consulted, that such would be the case, and had been charged not to yield to their feelings of humanity by allowing him to enter." The violent death of the cock, it appears, was necessary to raise the storm. The sequel of the story informs us that exposure to its violence killed the presumed wizard in the course of a week.

There is a superstition in Cornwall that the crowing of a cock at midnight indicates that the angel of death is passing over the house. Mr. Hunt relates the following anecdote, from which it appears that chanticleer is largely credited in that district with supernatural attributes:—

"A farmer in Towednack having been robbed of some property of no great value, was resolved, nevertheless, to employ a test which he had heard the 'old people' resorted to for the purpose of catching a thief. He invited all his neighbours into his cottage, and when they were assembled, he placed a cock under the 'brandice' (an iron vessel formerly much employed by the peasantry in baking, when this process was carried out on the hearth, the fuel being furze and ferns). Every one was directed to touch the brandice with his, or her third finger, and say, 'In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, speak.' Every one did as they were directed, and no sound came from beneath the brandice. The last person was a woman, who occasionally laboured for the farmer in his fields. She hung back, hoping to pass unobserved amidst the crowd. But her very anxiety made her a suspected person. She was forced forward, and most unwillingly she touched the brandice, when, before she could utter the words prescribed, the cock crew. The woman fell faint on the floor, and, when she recovered, she confessed herself to be the thief, restored the stolen property, and became, it is said, 'a changed character from that day.'"

Shakspere appears to have been fully aware of the prevalence of a superstition which attributed to ghosts and wandering spirits a wholesome dread of the sonorous tones of chanticleer's early morning song. In the first scene in Hamlet, on the departure of the ghost, Bernardo says:—

It was about to speak when the cock crew.

Horatio answers:—

And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock that is the trumpet of the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat,
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

To which Marcellus adds:—

It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad.
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

And again, Puck, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, referring to the morning star or early dawn, which awakeneth chanticleer, says:—