He hoped the mention of that blessed name would rob the witch’s eyes of their power, but that desire was vain. Forth ran Gerda and the girls, but the latter shrank back into the hut a-shivering. Gerda was of bolder stuff. She tried to brave out Martha’s gaze, to parley, question, and refuse to give the prisoner; for even she was not bold enough to deny that they held the maid. But her shrill tongue tripped, her proud front fell, and she grew chill also at the witch’s new singing:—
“Woman bold, I see them flutter,
Now they menace, now they mutter,—
Elf and goblin round thy head!
Witless wight, thine eyes are holden,
Thou see’st not the silk-spells moulden,
Woven with the shuttles golden,
By which captive thou’lt be led.”
Then Witch Martha went on to sing of other awful things right on the edge of happening, if Dame Gerda stopped to bicker longer. And the goodwife whimpered out that—
“They were poor folks, had meant no ill, and had found the little lady in the forest. Let the good mother take her, with their blessing, and unloose the spell.”