German witches said (in High Dutch:)
“Up and away!
Hi! Up aloft, and nowhere stay!”
Scotch witches had modes of working destruction to the persons or property of those to whom they meant evil, which were strikingly like the negro obeah or mandinga. One of these was, to make a hash of the flesh of an unbaptised child, with that of dogs and sheep, and to put this goodly dish in the house of the victim, reciting the following rhyme:
“We put this untill this hame
In our Lord the Devil’s name;
The first hands that handle thee.
Burned and scalded may they be!
We will destroy houses and hald,
With the sheep and nolt (i. e. cattle) into the fauld;
And little shall come to the fore (i. e. remain,)
Of all the rest of the little store.”
Another, used to destroy the sons of a certain gentleman named Gordon was, to make images for the boys, of clay and paste, and put them in a fire, saying:
“We put this water among this meal
For long pining and ill heal,
We put it into the fire
To burn them up stock and stour (i. e. stack and band.)
That they be burned with our will,
Like any stikkle (stubble) in a kiln.”
In case any lady reader finds herself changed into a hare, let her remember how the witch Isobel Gowdie changed herself from hare back to woman. It was by repeating:
“Hare, hare, God send thee care!
I am in a hare’s likeness now;
But I shall be woman even now—
Hare, hare, God send thee care!”
About the year 1600 there was both hanged and burned at Amsterdam a poor demented Dutch girl, who alleged that she could make cattle sterile, and bewitch pigs and poultry by saying to them “Turius und Shurius Inturius.” I recommend to say this first to an old hen, and if found useful it might then be tried on a pig.
Not far from the same time a woman was executed as a witch at Bamberg, having, as was often the case, been forced by torture to make a confession. She said that the devil had given her power to send diseases upon those she hated, by saying complimentary things about them, as “What a strong man!” “what a beautiful woman!” “what a sweet child!” It is my own impression that this species of cursing may safely be tried where it does not include a falsehood.