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 this 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.

_A Hare crossing the Road_.

Mr. Jones said that when he was a lad, he and his mother went to Caerwys
fair from the Vale of Clwyd, intending to sell a cow at the fair. They
had not gone far on their way before a large hare crossed the road,
hopping and halting and looking around. His mother was vexed at the
sight, and she said--"We may as well go home, Dick, for no good will come
of our journey since that old witch crosses our path." They went on,
though, and reached Caerwys in safety, but they got no bid for the cow,
although they stayed there all day long.

_A Witch in the form of a Hare hunted by a Black Greyhound_.

The writer has heard variants of the following tale in several parts of
Wales:--

An old woman, credited to be a witch, lived on the confines of the hills
in a small hut in south Carnarvonshire. Her grandson, a sharp
intelligent lad, lived with