You would have thought that such innocent creatures as owls and mannikins could have had no enemies, but must have been on good terms with all their fellow-creatures of every description. True, they sometimes made themselves disagreeable in the way of taking new-laid eggs from farmyards which were within temptingly easy reach of their own abode, and now and then they were shrewdly suspected of having milked a cow with which they had no business, and stolen cream when the dairymaid had been careless enough to leave the dairy-door unlocked. In these particulars, though, they were, after all, no worse than mortals have frequently been, and in fact not half so bad, inasmuch as they made what return they could to the country people who might have now and then suffered from their depredations, sometimes going out in the moonlight nights and making their hay for them or finishing the cutting of a cornfield, and even condescending so far, on more than one occasion, as to sweep a chimney and thoroughly dust a kitchen floor. For they were very active little fellows, those mannikins, and could turn their hands to almost anything if they saw fit to do so. They {184}had some enemies no doubt, in wild and evil-disposed animals, for they loved to warn the lamb when the wolf was lying in wait for him, and often saved the poultry by a timely notice that the fox was coming, whereby they incurred the wrath and hatred of these midnight marauders. But the chief and principal of their enemies were the witches, who have during all ages been a plague to this otherwise favoured land. I say advisedly, in all ages, because this is indeed the truth, although in their form and shape, as well as in their method of doing mischief, persons of this class have wonderfully changed. In old times they were generally of repulsive appearance, oftentimes clad in a red cloak, generally with a stick in one hand, and almost invariably humpbacked or misshapen in some way, and attended by a familiar in the shape of a cat. They were consulted only on serious affairs, or when somebody wanted to be revenged upon somebody else; they were malicious in their words and actions; hated everything good, respectable, and handsome; and, if possible, transformed it as soon as they could into something quite the reverse. Nowadays, our English witches are entirely different: their shape is usually beautiful, their figure perfect, their eyes bright and full of expression, and their dress made in admirable good taste and after an exceedingly becoming fashion. They have no familiar spirit, and the best of them allow no one to be too familiar with them; neither do they change the form and shape of mankind into those of hideous creatures, but, on the contrary, rather prefer that men should be handsome and well shaped; but they still exercise over them an almost resistless sway, which, however, is far more {185}willingly obeyed than was the power of the witches of the old times; and they are now