Hunt tells the tale of an old woman at Treva, a hamlet in Zennor, deeply skilled in necromancy and the terror of her neighbourhood. Her husband did not believe in her powers and said so. One day he came home hungry to find no dinner and no meat in the house, and his wife told him she could not get meat out of the stones. He told her that if she did not produce a cooked meal within half an hour he would be the death of her, and that if she did he would believe her boasts and be submissive for ever.
St Ives, the nearest market town, was five miles off. The witch put on her bonnet and cloak and started. Her husband watched her from the cottage door down the hill, and at the bottom he saw her sit on the ground and disappear. In her place a fine hare ran off at full speed. Within the half hour she walked in with flesh and potatoes ready for eating, and the husband lived in fear of her for the rest of her life.
Hunt says that at her death the room was said to be full of evil spirits and her screams were awful to hear, and a black cloud rested over the house while the sky stayed clear. Six aged men carried her under hand towards the church. About half way a hare started from the roadside and leaped over the coffin, and the terrified bearers dropped it and ran. A second set of bearers had the hare sit on the coffin. The parson then led the third attempt, reciting the Lord's Prayer without stopping. At the church stile, as he began the burial service with the words about resurrection, the hare gave a diabolical howl, changed into a black unshapen creature and disappeared.
A witch that takes the form of a hare is a widespread British belief. Hunt gives no date and no name, and the story is a traditional tale rather than a recorded event. The pin is set at Treva hamlet in Zennor.
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