A Witch In The Form Of A Hare In A Churn
:
STORIES OF SATAN, GHOSTS, ETC.
:
Welsh Folk-lore
In the Spectator, No. 117, are these words:--
If the dairy-maid does not make her butter come so soon as she would
have it, Moll White (a supposed witch) is at the bottom of the
churn.
Until very lately I had thought that the milk only was considered
bewitched if it could not be churned, and not that the witch herself was
at the bottom of the churn. But I have been disabused of
his false
notion, for the Rector of Llanycil told me the following story, which was
told him by his servant girl, who figures in the tale. When this girl
was servant at Drws-y-nant, near Dolgelley, one day, the milk would not
churn. They worked a long time at it to no purpose. The girl thought
that she heard something knocking up and down in the churn, and splashing
about. She told her master there was something in the churn, but he
would not believe her; however, they removed the lid, and out jumped a
large hare, and ran away through the open door, and this explained all
difficulties, and proved that the milk was bewitched, and that the witch
herself was in the churn in the shape of a hare.
This girl affirmed that she had seen the hare with her own eyes.
As the hare was thought to be a form assumed by witches it was impossible
for ordinary beings to know whether they saw a hare, or a witch in the
form of a hare, when the latter animal appeared and ran before them along
the road, consequently the hare, as well as the witch, augured evil. An
instance of this confusion of ideas was related to the writer lately by
Mr. Richard Jones, Tyn-y-wern, Bryneglwys.