The Hag ~ Robert Herrick (1648)

The Hag is astride,

This night for to ride;

The Devill and shee together:

Through thick, and through thin,

Now out, and then in,

Though ne’r so foule be the weather.

A Thorn or a Burr

She takes for a Spurre:

With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,

Through Brakes and through Bryars,

O’re Ditches, and Mires,

She followes the Spirit that guides now.

No Beast, for his food,

Dares now range the wood;

But husht in his laire he lies lurking:

While mischiefs, by these,

On Land and on Seas,

At noone of Night are working,

The storme will arise,

And trouble the skies;

This night, and more for the wonder,

The ghost from the Tomb

Affrighted shall come,

Cal’d out by the clap of the Thunder.

Illustration: Albrecht Dürer’s ‘shrieking siren’ of a witch riding backwards on a goat, c1500, with Dürer’s AD monogram reversed. Photograph: © Trustees of the British Museum