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ePaper created 2014-04-08, 18:05:31 | version 1.29.01
59 John S. Crone, ‘Witchcraft in Antrim’ in, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Second Series, 14/1 (February 1908): 35-7. ‘CARMONEY WITCHES: … Printed in memory of witch-craft 1808 … A humorous modern Song, founded on fact, by F.B.—, Cumber, Granshaw. Tune—“Lovely Molly has an air—” In Carrick town a wife did dwell, Who does pretend to conjure witches Auld Barbara Goats and lucky Bell, Ye’ll no lang to come through her clutches; A waefu’ trick this wife did play, On simple Sawney39 , our poor tailor, She’s mittimiss’d40 the other day To lie in limbo with the Jailor: This simple Sawney had a Cow Was aye as sleekit as an otter It happen’d for a month or two, Aye when they churn’d they got nae butter; Roun-tree tied in the Cow’s tail, And vervain glean’d about the ditches; These freets41 and charms did not prevail, They cou’d not banish the auld witches: The neighbour wives a’ gather’d in In number near about a dozen, Elspie Dough and Mary Linn, An’ Keat M’Cart the tailor’s cousin, Aye they churn’d an’ aye they swat, Their aprons loos’d and coost their mutches42 But yet nae butter they could get, 39 ‘Sawney’ is a Lowland Scots diminutive of the first name Alexander. 40 A legal term for a warrant authorising the detention of a person in prison. 41 ‘Freet’ refers to butter-stealing witches. See ‘freet’, Dictionary of the Scots Language, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/. 42 Mutches were linen caps worn in Scotland by women and children.