CHAPTER XII 



WITCHES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 



" From the deep mine rush wildly out 

 The troop of Gnomes in hellish rout; 

 Forth to the Witches' club they fly;| 

 The Griffins watch as they go by. 

 The horn of Satan grimly sounds; 

 On Blocksberg*s flanks strange din resounds, 

 And Spectres crowd its summits high." 



Hecate, the Grecian goddess of the infernal regions, 

 presided over magic and enchantment, and may 

 well be styled the goddess, queen, and patroness 

 of all witches and sorcerers. She was acquainted 

 with the properties of every herb, and imparted this 

 knowledge to her daughters, Medea and Circe. 



The following is an old derivation of the word 

 " witch " : "A witch is a wise woman, one who can 

 see spirits, and in virtue of her supernatural gaze 

 can enchant or bewitch or fascinate those on whom 

 she may fix her eye." 



Mr. Conway, in his treatise on " Mystic Trees 

 and Flowers," says: "The common name of the 

 witch, hag, is the same as haw, the hawthorn being 

 the hedgethorn. This coincidence may not, how- 

 ever, be due to the magical craft of the witch, but 

 only to the habit of those, presumed to be such, of 

 sitting under the hedges." 



Witches have been divided into three kinds: 

 black, white, and grey. The black, or bad, witch 



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