dark, and squat among the whins on a bank at Oenthorpe, about a mile from her dwelling, for what purpose or in what form the narrator sayeth not. This being her custom, the young men of the neighbourhood took up the practice of collecting the five or six hounds kept in that part of the parish, with any other dogs they could get hold of, to hunt, as they said, “Auld Nan Hardwick.” When they found her, as they usually did, a loud clatter was heard along the “causey,” or ancient horse-road leading to Oenthorpe in the direction of the witch’s residence, all the dogs following in full cry.[1]
One evening, a little before the usual hour of the hunt, a young man, who was generally foremost in the sport, happened to be on the “causey” in question, and to see Nan Hardwick on the way to her place of evening resort. “She was all black that night,” said the narrator (one William Agur, a parishioner of Danby), “for ye ken she wur not alla’s the same to look at;” and the young man (T. P. by name) determined that she should not pass him on the “causey.” So he drew himself up, set
- ↑ It is curious to compare this account with that Ben Jonson gives in his “Sad Shepherd” of “the sport of witch-hunting, or starting of a hag”:
Within a gloomy dingle she doth dwell,
Down in a pit o’ergrown with brakes and briars,
Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey,
Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground,
’Mongst graves and grots, near an old charnelhouse.
***** All this I know, and I will find her for you,
And show you her sitting in her form. I’ll lay
My hand upon her; make her throw her scut
Along her back, when she doth start before us.
But you must give her law, and you shall see her
Make twenty leaps and doubles, cross the paths,
And then squat down before us.
John.Crafty Groan,
I long to be at the sport and to report it.
Scarlet.We’ll make this hunting of the witch as famous
As any other blast of venery.
