hound turn the hare and drive it directly towards him. The hare made a spring as if to clear his horse’s neck, but the laird dexterously caught hold of one of her forepaws, drew out his hunting-knife, and cut it off; after which the hares, which had been so numerous, all disappeared. Next morning Laird Harry heard that a woman of Maxton had lost her arm in some unaccountable manner; so he went straight to her house, pulled out the hare’s foot (which had changed in his pocket to a woman’s hand and arm), and applied it to the stump. It fitted exactly. She confessed her crime, and was drowned for witchcraft the same day in the well by the young men of Maxton.”[1]
Mrs. Bray, Southey’s correspondent, tells of a similar legend in Devonshire. The grandson of a witch at Tavistock was accustomed to get sixpences from a neighbouring huntsman by pointing out where he would find a hare, which hare was never caught. At last, measures were taken for a very vigorous chase; the hare was hard pressed, and the boy was heard crying out, “Run, granny run for your life!” She did so, and just gained her cottage, where her pursuers found her panting and bleeding. The culprits were let off that time with a whipping, but the old woman is said to have ended her days at the stake, a convicted witch.[2]
Through the Dales of Yorkshire we find hares still in the same mysterious relationship with witches. The Rev. J. C. Atkinson informs me, that, a new plantation having been made near Eskdale, great havoc was committed among the freshly-planted trees by hares. Many of these depredators were shot, but one hare seemed to bid defiance to shot and snare alike, and returned to the charge night after night. By the advice of a Wise-man (I believe of the Wise-man of Stokesley, of whom more
- ↑ Nyauld (De la Lycanthropie, Paris, 1615) relates (p. 52) that in a village of Switzerland, near Lucerne, a peasant was once attacked by a wolf while he was hewing timber. He defended himself, and smote off the foreleg of the beast. The moment that the blood began to flow the creature’s foot changed, and he recognised in his enemy a woman of his acquaintance without her arm. She was burnt alive.—S. B. G.
- ↑ Traditions of Devon, vol. ii. p. 277.
