Note 435 — INDEX TO THE NOTES.

434. meagre hag, lean witch. Hag is from A.S. haegtesse, a prophetess or witch. Comp. Par. Lost, ii. 662; M. W. of W. iv. 2. 188, “Come down, you witch, you hag.” unlaid ghost, unpacified or wandering spirit. It was a superstition that ghosts left the world of spirits and wandered on the earth from the hour of curfew (see Temp. v. 1. 40; King Lear, iii. 4. 120, “This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet; he begins at curfew,” etc.) until “the first cock his matin rings” (L’Alleg. 14). ‘Curfew’ (Fr. couvre-feu = fire-cover), the bell that was rung at eight or nine o’clock in the evening as a signal that all fires and lights were to be extinguished.