Witch Stories

In the village of Mohulpahari there was a youth named Jerba. He was

servant to Bepin Teli of Tempa and often had to come home in the dark

after his day's work. One night he was coming back very late and,

before he saw where he was, suddenly came upon a crowd of witches

standing under a hollow mowah tree at the foot of the field that

the dhobie has taken. Just as he caught sight of them they seized

hold of him and flung him down and did something which he could not

remember--for he lost his senses when they threw him down. When he

came to himself he managed to struggle free and run off. The witches

pursued but failed to overtake him and he reached his home in a state

of terror. The witches however had not finished with him for two or

three days after they caused him to fall from a tree and break his

arm. Ojhas were called in but their medicines did him no good. The

arm mortified and maggots formed and in a few days Jerba himself told

them that he would not recover; he told them how the witches chased

him and that he had recognised them as women of his own village and

shortly afterwards he became speechless and died.

My own brother-in-law lived at Mubundi. One night he and several other

men were sitting up on the threshing-floor watching their rice. In

the middle of the night they saw lights shining and flickering in

the courtyard of my brother-in-law's house and he went to see what

was the matter. When he got near, the lights went into the house:

he went up quietly and as he looked in found the house full of women

who extinguished the light directly they saw him and rushed out of

the house. Then he asked my sister what the light was; but she could

only stammer out "What light? I saw no light," so he struck her a blow

and went back to the threshing-floor and told the others what he had

seen. That night he would not tell them the names of the women he had

seen; and before morning his right arm swelled and became very painful;

the swelling quickly increased and by noon he lost consciousness and

a few hours later he died.