Half a century ago nearly every neighborhood in New England was favored
with one or more reputed dealers in magic. Twenty years later there
were two poor old sisters who used to frighten school urchins and
"children of a larger growth" as they rode down from New Hampshire on
their gaunt skeleton horses, strung over with baskets for the
Newburyport market. They were aware of the popular notion concerning
them, and not unfrequently took advantage of it to levy a sort of black
mail upon their credulous neighbors. An attendant at the funeral of one
of these sisters, who when living was about as unsubstantial as Ossian's
ghost, through which the stars were visible, told me that her coffin was
so heavy that four stout men could barely lift it.
One, of my earliest recollections is that of an old woman, residing
about two miles from the place of my nativity, who for many years had
borne the unenviable reputation of a witch. She certainly had the look
of one,--a combination of form, voice, and features which would have
made the fortune of an English witch finder in the days of Matthew Paris
or the Sir John Podgers of Dickens, and insured her speedy conviction in
King James's High Court of Justiciary. She was accused of divers ill-
doings,--such as preventing the cream in her neighbor's churn from
becoming butter, and snuffing out candles at huskings and quilting-
parties.
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