Web
and Book design,
Copyright, Kellscraft Studio 1999-2021 (Return to Web Text-ures) |
(HOME)
|
The Horned Women rich woman sat up late one night carding and preparing wool, while all the family and servants were asleep. Suddenly a knock was given at the door, and a voice called, "Open! open!" "Who
is there?" said the woman of the house. "I
am the Witch of one Horn," was answered. The
mistress,
supposing that one of her neighbours had called and required
assistance, opened
the door, and a woman entered, having in her hand a pair of
wool-carders, and bearing
a horn on her forehead, as if growing there. She sat down by the fire
in silence,
and began to card the wool with violent haste. Suddenly she paused, and
said aloud:
"Where are the women? they delay too long." Then a
second knock came to the door, and a voice called as before, "Open!
open!" The mistress
felt herself obliged to rise and open to the call, and immediately a
second witch
entered, having two horns on her forehead, and in her hand a wheel for
spinning
wool. "Give
me place," she said; "I am the Witch of the two Horns," and she began
to spin as quick as lightning. And so
the knocks went on, and the call was heard, and the witches entered,
until at last
twelve women sat round the fire — the first with one horn, the last
with twelve
horns. And they
carded the thread, and turned their spinning-wheels, and wound and
wove, all singing
together an ancient rhyme, but no word did they speak to the mistress
of the house.
Strange to hear, and frightful to look upon, were these twelve women,
with their
horns and their wheels; and the mistress felt near to death, and she
tried to rise
that she might call for help, but she could not move, nor could she
utter a word
or a cry, for the spell of the witches was upon her. Then one
of them called to her in Irish, and said, "Rise, woman, and make us a
cake." Then the
mistress searched for a vessel to bring water from the well that she
might mix the
meal and make the cake, but she could find none. And they
said to her, "Take a sieve and bring water in it." And she
took the sieve and went to the well; but the water poured from it, and
she could
fetch none for the cake, and she sat down by the well and wept. Then a
voice came by her and said, "Take yellow clay and moss, and bind them
together,
and plaster the sieve so that it will hold." This she
did, and the sieve held the water for the cake; and the voice said
again: "Return,
and when thou comest to the north angle of the house, cry aloud three
times and
say, 'The mountain of the Fenian women and the sky over it is all on
fire.'" And she
did so. When the
witches inside heard the call, a great and terrible cry broke from
their lips, and
they rushed forth with wild lamentations and shrieks, and fled away to
Slievenamon,
where was their chief abode. But the Spirit of the Well bade the
mistress of the
house to enter and prepare her home against the enchantments of the
witches if they
returned again. And first,
to break their spells, she sprinkled the water in which she had washed
her child's
feet, the feet-water, outside the door on the threshold; secondly, she
took the
cake which in her absence the witches had made of meal mixed with the
blood drawn
from the sleeping family, and she broke the cake in bits, and placed a
bit in the
mouth of each sleeper, and they were restored; and she took the cloth
they had woven,
and placed it half in and half out of the chest with the padlock; and
lastly, she
secured the door with a great crossbeam fastened in the jambs, so that
the witches
could not enter, and having done these things she waited. Not long
were the witches in coming back, and they raged and called for
vengeance. "Open!
open!" they screamed; "open, feet-water!" "I
cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my
path
is down to the Lough." "Open,
open, wood and trees and beam!" they cried to the door. "I
cannot," said the door, "for the beam is fixed in the jambs and I have
no power to move." "Open,
open, cake that we have made and mingled with blood!" they cried again. "I
cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood is
on the lips of the sleeping children." Then the
witches rushed through the air with great cries, and fled back to
Slievenamon, uttering
strange curses on the Spirit of the Well, who had wished their ruin;
but the woman
and the house were left in peace, and a mantle dropped by one of the
witches in
her flight was kept hung up by the mistress in memory of that night;
and this mantle
was kept by the same family from generation to generation for five
hundred years
after. |