With sorrow, sich, and mickle care;
And I sall go in the devil’s name,
Aye while I come home again.’
‘I was one morning,’ says Isobel, ‘about the break of day, going to Auldearn in the shape of ane hare, and Patrick Papley’s servants, going to their labour, his hounds being with them, ran after me. I ran very long, but was forced, being weary, at last to take my own house. The door being left open, I ran in behind a chest, and the hounds followed in; but they went to the other side of the chest, and I was forced to run forth again, and wan into ane other house, and there took leisure to say:
“Hare, hare, God send thee care!
I am in a hare’s likeness now,
But I sall be a woman even now!
Hare, hare, God send thee care!”
1662.
And so I returned to my own shape again. The dogs,’ she added, ‘will sometimes get bits of us, but will not get us killed. When we turn to our own shape, we will have the bits, and rives, and scarts in our bodies.’