Crone

Usage examples of beldame.

He thought back to that hideous beldame at Bellwood, that hag who had laughed at the memory of Nicholas Stafford.

Prince of Conde, dropping on to the balcony opposite, met a screeching beldame, bald as an egg, the ollave ripped the cloth free and flung it into the street.

The boldest thinker may have his moments of languor and discouragement, when he feels as if he could willingly exchange faiths with the old beldame crossing herself at the cathedral-door,-- nay, that, if he could drop all coherent thought, and lie in the flowery meadow with the brown-eyed solemnly unthinking cattle, looking up to the sky, and all their simple consciousness staining itself blue, then down to the grass, and life turning to a mere greenness, blended with confused scents of herbs,--no individual mind-movement such as men are teased with, but the great calm cattlesense of all time and all places that know the milky smell of herds, --if he could be like these, he would be content to be driven home by the cow-boy, and share the grassy banquet of the king of ancient Babylon.

Where is that beldame of the ancient legends who plays with magic, who is said to have gathered the most powerful tools of the Vanished Ones?

In less time than it takes to tell, the blacksmith and the beldame had set up a long board-and-sawhorse trestle, covering it with a white cloth.

Between two games of boston, or out walking in the Jardin Turc, the old beldames with whom the widow gossiped all day had succeeded in rousing in their friend's stony heart some scruples as to her former life, some visions of the future, some fears of hell, and some hopes of forgiveness if she should return in sincerity to a religious life.

What with one thing and another, it is such an exceptionally good wicket for beldames.