One for folklore quibblers. All you have to do is Believe these stories, you don’t actually have to believe them.
The author is talking to an old lady of his acquaintance.
“Why,” said I, “when you were a girl there would be witches, or was that before your time?”
“No,” said she, “that it is not. There was one Dolly Makin; I once saw her myself, but she will be dead now, for she was over a hundred then; but my aunt once had a strange bout with her.”
“And where did Dolly live?” I asked, for I had years before heard of this same Dolly Makin.
“Nay, that’s mair ‘an Ah can tell ya,” said she.
“And what did she do to your aunt?” I inquired.
“Nothing; she only tried to. It was like this. There was one Tom Pickles wanted to keep company with my aunt, but he found out that she had a liking for one William Purkis. It was always thought, that when Tommy found this out, that he went to the witch and gave her something to work a spell on my aunt. Anyhow, one night when she had just finished milking, a fortune-teller came up and took hold of her hand, and told her a long story about the carryings-on of William Purkis and another lass, and she advised my aunt to take up with Tommy, telling her that things looked very black for her if she did anything else.
“But my aunt said that she would wed who she liked, and it would not be Tommy. At that the fortune-teller struck the cow with her stick; the cow lashed out and knocked the milk-pail over; my aunt flung the milk-stool at the fortune-teller’s head, but she ducked, and it missed her, and next moment they were one grappling with the other like all that. My aunt, however, was a well-built, strong lass, and after they had fought for a long time, neither gaining an advantage, the fortune-teller screamed out that my aunt had something about her that belonged to the unburied dead, or otherwise she would have mastered her, and had her in her power for ever. ‘But,’ said she, as she walked away, ‘I have not done with you yet;’ and then my aunt saw it was the old witch.
“My aunt did not know what the witch meant by saying she had something about her that belonged to the unburied dead; but news came next morning that her uncle had died the day before, and it happened that a brooch she was wearing had a bit of his hair in it. It was that which had saved her.
“It would have been useless trying to overtake the witch when she left her, even on horseback, for she once went from the top of Ingleborough to the top of Whernside at one stride.”
“But,” I ventured to say, “it is a long way, that.” I was not quite sure of the distance, but I knew I was within bounds when I added, “It will be quite nine miles.”
For a moment the old lady hesitated; even to her, after making all allowance for the witch’s marvellous power, it did seem a prodigious stride. “Well,” she said, with a sigh of relief, as an idea struck her, “maybe I am wrong; it would be a leap;” (or, as she put it, ‘mebbe Ah’s wrang; sha wad loup it.’) Again I pointed out that it was an enormous leap. “Deean’t ya want her ti ‘a’e deean’t?” (i.e. ‘Don’t you want her to have done it?’) she questioned, losing her temper. And then I had to smooth her ruffled feelings.
From ‘Wit, character, folklore and customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire’, by Richard Blakeborough (1898).