beldame

But once Alex talks to UBA's beldame, whose grandfather founded the network and simply wants all of it to go away, she realizes the right interviewer isn't her.

He stakes out Pendle Hill, a landscape of moors and mists, mossy baptismal pools and forests, ready to accost beldames on their broomsticks.

"Get you gone, old beldame!" cried the other man, thrusting her back.

The beldame took me through a cabbage-garden, and drove off a donkey who was feeding on an artichoke that grew on the very spot.

I lay still in my blanket, counting the strokes which rang out in thin, peevish monotony, like the cracked voice of a beldame repeating her petty woes.