"Out in the north tow'rds Greenland far away,
There was a witch (as ancient stories say)
As in those parts there many witches be;
Yet in her craft above all others she
Was most expert, dwelling in an isle
Which was in compass scarce an English mile;
Which by her cunning she could make to float[1]
Whither she list as though it were a boat;
And where again she meant to have it stay,
There could she fix it in the deepest sea.
She could sell winds to any one that would
Buy them for money, forcing them to hold
What time she listed, tie them in a thread,
Which ever as the seafarer undid.
They rose or scantled, as his sails would drive,
To the same port whereas [at?] he would arrive.
She by her spells could make the moon to stay,[2]
And from the east she could keep back the day.
Raise mists and fogs that could eclipse the night.
And with the noonsted she could mix the night."
Even in these days of scientific meteorology there are spots where such heterodoxy still lingers. "I did hear of a witch in the Lewes fifteen years agone," said an old gillie to the author of "In Assynt," a paper published in the Cornhill Magazine, July, 1879. "She lived at Stornaway, and did sell winds to sailors. One of our Loch Inver boats did not get away that autumn for weeks. The wind was always dead against them. Well, they did go to her, and what they paid her I did not hear, but she gave them a black string tied with three knots, and said, 'Ye'll be getting aw a' to-morrow. Now, if the wind is not strong enough loose one knot, if even then it is not enough loose the second, but on your life! on your life! dinna loose the third.' Well,
- ↑ Drayton believed the assertion of Giraldus, cited by Camden (Brit. vol. ii. p. 795), that on the summits of the Snowdon range are two lakes, on one of which floats, Delos-like, an island, whilst the other abounds in one-eyed fish, eels, trout, and perch (Pol. ix. [iii. 830, note, 840] ). Marshland also is said to float, and to rise and fall with the floods of the Don, &c. (Pol. xxviii. [iii. 1193]).
- ↑ Like tales were told of the Druids; see post.
fall out so that it do you no good, if you catch no harm by it." I suppose the name is used as a by-word for a credulous "old woman," masculine or feminine. Lyly had a play, Mother Bombie, in which, as I am told, the heroine, "the cunning woman of Rochester," was more knave than fool. Perhaps she was the original Mother Bumby.
