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And this rich old woman, her rheumatic fingers loaded with jewels, had transformed the daughter of the juge d'instruction of the Canton of Vaud into a singing wonder that made every human creature see again the dreams of his youth before him leading into the Elysian Fields. And to the girl herself this transformation also seemed the wonder of witch-work.
Thou hast been cast away here on my isle of Straumey." "And Skallagrim where is Skallagrim?" "Skallagrim lives fear not!" "And my comrades, how went it with them?" "But ill, Eric. Ran has them all. Now sleep!" Eric groaned aloud. "I had rather died also than live to hear such heavy tidings," he said. "Witch-work! witch-work! and that fair witch-face wrought it."
These might be kept benevolent by appropriate fetish ceremonies; they might be used for evil by persons having specially great powers over them. The proper course for common-place persons at ordinary times was to follow routine fetish observances; but when beset by witch-work the only escape lay in the services of witch-doctors or priests.
And in aftertimes, Parson Evans, the Welshman, was treated most ungenteelly by an enraged spirit, solely because he had forgotten a fumigation in his witch-work.
Harrison, harrowing at the back of his farm and feeling some of the spring witch-work even in his sober, middle-aged blood, saw four girls, basket laden, tripping across the end of his field where it joined a fringing woodland of birch and fir. Their blithe voices and laughter echoed down to him. "It's so easy to be happy on a day like this, isn't it?"
"Now I am afeared," said Eric to Skallagrim, as they stood in darkness upon the ship: "the gale blows from behind us, and yet the mist drives fast in our faces. What comes now?" "This is witch-work, lord," answered Skallagrim, "and in such things no counsel can avail. Hold the tiller straight and drive on, say I. Methinks the gale lessens more and more."
There was a wide hearth and always plenty of wood, and here after supper the children would gather, with Jennie and Uncle Ned, and the latter would tell hair-lifting tales of "ha'nts," and lonely roads, and witch-work that would make his hearers shiver with terror and delight, and look furtively over their shoulders toward the dark window-panes and the hovering shadows on the walls.
Ever she swore she loved me; now she is surely come in love to save us and all our comrades. Say, shall I put about? Look: once more she waves her arms and points," and as he spoke he gripped the helm. "I have no rede, lord," said Skallagrim, "and I love not witch-work. We can die but once, and death is all around; be it as thou wilt." Eric put down the helm with all his might.
Swanhild mocked her! what if this was a plot of Swanhild's? Had not Swanhild plotted aforetime, and could a wolf cease from ravening or a witch from witch-work? Nay, she had seen Eric's hair that he had sworn none save she should touch! Perchance he had been drugged, and the hair shorn from him in his sleep? Too late to think!
For my gracious Prince, who had grown quite weak ever since this horrible witch-work, which had been raging for some weeks so that Pomerania never had seen the like became daily worse, and not even the fine Falernian wine from Italy, which used to cure him, helped him now.
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