Midnight hags.
By force of potent spells, of bloody characters,
And conjurations, horrible to hear,
Call fiends and spectres from the yawning deep,
And set the ministers of hell at work. [ Rowe ]

What are these,
So withered, and so wild in their attire;
That look not like the inhabitants of the earth,
And yet are on it. [ Shakespeare ]

Civil wars of France made a million of atheists, and thirty thousand witches. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

In former days various superstitious rites were used to exorcise evil spirits, but in our times the same object is attained, and beyond comparison more effectually, by the press; before this talisman, ghosts, vampires, witches, and all their kindred tribes are driven from the land, never to return again; the touch of holy water is not so intolerable to them as the smell of printing ink. [ J. Bentham ]