THE DARK AGES 35 



toiling to market with his basket of eggs, was met by 

 a Troll from Brb no, who sang out to him lustily : 



&quot; Hor du, riat, 



Siig til din Kat 

 At Knurremurre er dod.&quot; 



(&quot; Hark you, Plat, 



Tell your cat 

 That Knurremurre is dead. ) 



In no way enlightened by this message, the peasant 

 went home and repeated it to his wife ; whereupon 

 his cat leaped from the hearth, cried joyously, 

 &quot;Then I am the Master Troll,&quot; and overturned the 

 pot of soup in his haste to scramble up the chimney, 

 and be gone. 



In Sternberg s &quot; Legends of Northamptonshire,&quot; 

 we have the story of a woodman whose dinner was 

 stolen from him daily by a cat. After many vain 

 attempts, he succeeded in waylaying the creature 

 and cutting off one of its paws, only to find, when 

 he reached home, that his wife had lost her hand. 

 The curious deviltry which provoked witches to 

 plague their husbands, in preference to other men, 

 is one of the interesting points in the annals of 

 sorcery. Those were wild times, when strength 

 ruled the world roughly ; and the witch wife 

 once innocent and weak had doubtless a long 

 score of insults to avenge before she took to burn 

 ing her husband s mill, or stealing his daily bread. 



