The Science of Fairy Tales Part 5

Lib." (Manners and Customs), p. 230.

[50] Liebrecht, p. 104.

[51] Burton, "Nights," vol. ix. p. 255; Burton, "Supp. Nights," vol.

iii. p. 570 (Appendix by Mr. W. A. Clouston). Kurroglu flourished in the second half of the seventeenth century.

[52] This story is edited by Julg in Mongolian and German (Innsbruck, 1867). Miss Busk gives a free adaptation rather than a translation of the German version, "Sagas," p. 315. Prof. De Gubernatis, "Zool. Myth."

vol. i. p. 138, of course interprets it as a sun-myth--an interpretation to which the names Suns.h.i.+ne and Moon, and the date of the adventure (the fifteenth of the month), lend themselves.

[53] Von Hahn, vol. ii. p. 225; "Tour du Monde," vol. xxi. p. 342, quoted by Liebrecht, p. 105.

[54] "Panjab N. and Q." vol. iii. pp. 41, 115; "Journal Ethnol. Soc.

London," N. S., vol. i. p. 98.

[55] The information relating to the Bona Dea has been collected by Preller, "Rom. Myth." vol. i. p. 398; and see the authorities he has cited.

[56] Ellis, p. 226; Pliny, "Nat. Hist." l. xxii. c. 1. For the information as to the procession at Southam I am indebted to Mr. W. G.

Fretton, who formerly lived there.

[57] "Germania," c. 40; _cf._ c. 9.

[58] Nicholson, p. 32.

[59] I am indebted to Mr. Samuel Timmins, F.S.A., and to Mr. W. G.

Fretton, F.S.A., for a great amount of local information and other a.s.sistance which they have spared no pains to render me, and to the Town Clerk of Coventry for permission to inspect the invaluable local ma.n.u.scripts belonging to the Corporation.

CHAPTER V.

CHANGELINGS.

The belief in changelings--Precautions against changing--Motives a.s.signed for changing--Attempts frustrated--How changelings may be known--Their physical characteristics--Devices to lead them to betray themselves--Their subsequent treatment--Journey to Fairyland to fetch back the true child--Adult changelings.

A new-born babe, of all human beings the most helpless, has always roused compa.s.sion and care. Nor is it a matter for wonder if its helplessness against physical dangers have led to the a.s.sumption that it is exposed to spiritual or supernatural evils more than its elders. At all events it seems a widespread superst.i.tion that a babe, when first it makes its appearance in this world, must be protected not merely against the natural perils of its condition, but also against enemies of an even more subtle and fearful description. The shape taken by this superst.i.tion in north-western Europe is the belief in Changelings--a belief which I propose to examine in the present chapter.[60]

By the belief in changelings I mean a belief that fairies and other imaginary beings are on the watch for young children, or (as we shall see hereafter) sometimes even for adults, that they may, if they can find them unguarded, seize and carry them off, leaving in their place one of themselves, or a block of wood animated by their enchantments and made to resemble the stolen person. Wise mothers take precautions against such thefts. These precautions are tolerably simple, and for the most part display the same general character. First and foremost among them is the rite of baptism, whereby the little one is admitted into the Christian Church. Faith in the efficacy of baptism as a protection from the powers hostile to man is not less strong among communities nominally Protestant than among Roman Catholics, and has doubtless operated to bring many children within the pale of the visible Church who might otherwise have been long in reaching that sacred enclosure. Examples of the belief in the power of baptism against the depredations of fairies could easily be cited from all Protestant countries. Without doing this, we may just pause to note that baptism was also reckoned a remedy for disease. This is doubtless a relic of the old creed which refers all human ailments to witchcraft and other spiritualistic origins. Mr.

Henderson, speaking of the notion prevalent in the north of England that sickly infants never thrive until they are christened, relates a story communicated to him by a clergyman, within whose personal knowledge it had happened. He says: "The infant child of a chimney-sweeper at Thorne, in the West Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, was in a very weak state of health, and appeared to be pining away. A neighbour looked in, and inquired if the child had been baptized. On an answer being given in the negative, she gravely said, 'I would try having it christened.' The counsel was taken, and I believe with success." The same belief is found both in North and South Wales. It is also testified to by a Scottish clergyman, who moreover adduces the following conversation as ill.u.s.trative of it and of "an undefinable sort of awe about unbaptized infants, as well as an idea of uncanniness in having them without baptism in the house," which is entertained among the labouring cla.s.ses in the north-east of Scotland.

"Oh, sir," said the wife of a working man to the minister, on asking him to baptize her child along with others, whose mothers were present, "this registration's the warst thing the queentry ever saw; it sud be deen awa' wee athegeethir!" "Why?" asked the minister, in astonishment at the woman's words and earnestness of manner. "It'll pit oot kirsnin athegeethir. Ye see the craitirs gets their names, an we jist think that aneuch, an' we're in nae hurry sennin for you." How far, as this anecdote dimly suggests, it was the giving of a name which was supposed to protect a child, I cannot say: more probably it was the dedication to G.o.d involved in baptism. This is countenanced by the precaution said to have been observed in Nithsdale when a pretty child was born to consecrate it to G.o.d, and sue for its protection by "taking the Beuk"

and other acts of prayer and devotion.[61]

Putting aside such ceremonies as these which may be supposed distinctly Christian, there were other charms looked upon as efficacious. Thus in Scotland it was deemed highly judicious to keep an open Bible always near a child, and even to place the holy volume beneath the head of a woman in labour. In some parts of Germany it is enough to lay a single leaf out of a Bible or prayer-book in the cradle, until by the baptism of the infant the danger of robbery pa.s.ses away; and a prayer-book is also placed under the pillow of the newly-made mother, who is at that time specially liable to fall under the power of the underground folk.

Indeed a prayer-book, or the mere repet.i.tion of a Paternoster, is equally valuable with a Bible for these purposes; and if, by the neglect of any of these precautions, an opportunity be given to the foe, the child may yet be saved by the utterance of the name of Jesus Christ at the moment when the change is being effected. Holy water and the sign of the cross, in Ireland, or a rosary blessed by a priest, in Picardy, enjoy a similar reputation.[62]

All these means of prevention are veneered with some sort of Christianity; but there are others which display Heathenism naked and unblus.h.i.+ng. While a child in Mecklenburg remains unbaptized it is necessary to burn a light in the chamber. Nor is the superst.i.tion confined to one district: it is common all over Germany and Denmark; it was once common in England; it is found in Ireland; it is found among the Lithuanians on the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic; it was practised by the ancient Romans, and appears to be a relic of the sacred character anciently imputed to fire. In the island of Lewis fire used to be carried round women before they were churched and children before they were christened, both night and morning; and this was held effectual to preserve both mother and infant from evil spirits, and (in the case of the infant) from being changed. The Sad Dar, one of the sacred books of the Pa.r.s.ees, contains directions to keep a continual fire in the house during a woman's pregnancy, and after the child is born to burn a lamp for three nights and days--a fire, indeed, is declared to be better--"so that the demons and fiends may not be able to do any damage and harm."

By way of enforcing this precept we are told that when Zoroaster was born, a demon came at the head of a hundred and fifty other demons, every night for three nights, to slay him, but they were put to flight by seeing the fire, and were consequently unable to hurt him.[63]

Iron or steel, in the shape of needles, a key, a knife, a pair of tongs, an open pair of scissors, or in any other shape, if placed in the cradle, secured the desired end. In Bulgaria a reaping-hook is placed in a corner of the room for the same purpose. I shall not stay now to discuss the reason why supernatural beings dread and dislike iron. The open pair of scissors, however, it should be observed, has double power; for it is not only of the abhorred metal,--it is also in form a cross.

The use of the cross in baptism was probably one of the reasons for the efficacy of that rite against felonious fairies. At all events, over a very wide area the cross is thought a potent protection; nor is the belief by any means confined to Christian lands. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l-Innes tells us that the fear of changelings exists in China. "To avert the calamity of nursing a demon, dried banana-skin is burnt to ashes, which are then mixed with water. Into this the mother dips her finger and paints a cross upon the sleeping babe's forehead. In a short time the demon soul returns--for the soul wanders from the body during sleep and is free--but, failing to recognize the body thus disguised, flies off.

The true soul, which has been waiting for an opportunity, now approaches the dormant body, and, if the mark has been washed off in time, takes possession of it; but if not, it, like the demon, failing to recognize the body, departs, and the child dies in its sleep."[64] How to hit the exact moment between the flight of the demon and the advent of the true soul doubtless puzzles many a Chinese mother fully as much as the cross puzzles the two competing souls. But when she is successful she baffles the evil spirit by deceit, of which the cross is made the instrument; though we may well believe that the child is not disguised in this way without reference to the cross's inherent sanct.i.ty; for it is a religious symbol among nations who never heard the gospel of the Crucified.

Spirits whose baleful influences are feared by man are happily easily tricked. To this guilelessness on their part must be attributed another strange method of defeating their evil designs on children. It appears to be enough to lay over the infant, or on the bed beside the mother, a portion of the father's clothes. A shepherd's wife living near Selkirk was lying in bed one day with her new-born boy at her side, when she heard a sound of talking and laughter in the room. Suspecting what turned out to be the case, she seized in great alarm her husband's waistcoat, which was lying at the foot of the bed, and flung it over herself and the child. The fairies, for it was they who were the cause of the noise, set up a loud scream, crying out: "Auld Luckie has cheated us o' our bairnie!" Soon afterwards the woman heard something fall down the chimney, and looking out she saw a waxen effigy of her baby, stuck full of pins, lying on the hearth. The would-be thieves had meant to subst.i.tute this for the child. When her husband came home he made up a large fire and threw the doll upon it; but, instead of burning, the thing flew up the chimney amid shouts of laughter from the unseen visitors. The suggestion seems to be that the sight of the father's clothes leads "the good people" to think that he himself is present watching over his offspring. Some articles of clothing, however, seem to have special virtue, such as a right s.h.i.+rt-sleeve or a left stocking, though wherefore is not very clear; and in China, about Canton, a fisherman's net is employed with as little apparent reason. In Sweden the babe is wrapped in red cloth, which we may be allowed to conjecture is intended to cozen the fairies by simulating fire.[65]

Moreover, certain plants are credited with a similar gift. In Germany orant (whatever that may be), blue marjoram, and black c.u.min; and in Denmark garlic--nasty enough surely to keep any beings off--and bread are used. The Danes, too, place salt in the cradle or over the door. The Italians fear not only fairies who rob them of their children, but also witches who tear the faces of unbaptized infants. These are both old superst.i.tions, dating in one form or other from cla.s.sic times. To baulk the witches of their prey it is in some places customary to keep a light burning in the chamber at night, and to affix at the door of the house the image of a saint, hanging to it a rosary and an unravelled napkin; while behind the door are put a jar full of salt and a brush. A twofold defence is thus built up; for the witch, beholding the image of the saint and the rosary, will straightway retire; or if these fail to warn her off, she will on entering be compelled to count the grains of salt, the broken threads of the napkin, and the twigs of the brush--a task that will keep her occupied from midnight, when at the earliest she can dare appear, until dawn, when she must slink away without having been able to attain her object. Among the Greeks witches are believed to have great power. They seek new-born babes to suck their blood or to p.r.i.c.k them to death with sharp instruments. Often they inflict such injuries that a child remains for ever a cripple or an invalid. The Nereids of the fountains and springs are also on the watch "to exchange one of their own fractious offspring for a mortal babe." Constant watchfulness, and baptism as soon as the Church permits it, are therefore necessary.

In England it seems to have been held in former days that witches stole children from their cradles before baptism to make an oil or unguent by boiling them to a jelly. A part of this jelly they used to drink, and with the remainder they rubbed their bodies. This was the orthodox means of acquiring magical powers. It is a Sicilian belief that the hands of unbaptized children are used by witches in their sorceries.[66]

As we might expect, the reason why unbaptized babes are held to be so liable to these attacks is that until the initiatory rite has been performed they are looked upon as heathen, and therefore peculiarly under the dominion of evil spirits. In Sicily and in Spain an infant until baptism is called by the opprobrious epithets of _Pagan_, _Turk_, _Moor_, _Jew_. Even women will not kiss it, for to kiss a Moor, at all events in Spain, is sin; though, on the other hand, to kiss an unbaptized child, if no one else have kissed it, is sovereign against toothache. By the Greeks these little innocents are regarded not merely as not Christians, but as really less human than demoniac in their nature. This is said, indeed, to be the teaching of the Church. The lower cla.s.ses, at least (and, presumably therefore, not long ago the upper cla.s.ses) believe it firmly; so that an unbaptized babe is called _Drakos_ (feminine, _Drakoula_), that is to say, serpent or dragon. This is the same opprobrious t.i.tle that we found Gervase of Tilbury applying to the evil spirits infesting the waters of the Rhone; and we cannot doubt that it is intended to convey an imputation of Satanic nature.[67]

The extent of this superst.i.tion would form an interesting subject of inquiry. If it could be established as existing now or formerly among other Christian nations (and the superst.i.tions of Sicily and Spain just cited point to this) it would help to clear up much of the difficulty surrounding the subject of changelings, especially the motives actuating both fairies and witches in their depredations. And, as infant baptism is by no means exclusively a Christian rite, research among heathen nations would be equally pertinent.

Meanwhile the motive usually a.s.signed to fairies in northern stories is that of preserving and improving their race, on the one hand by carrying off human children to be brought up among the elves and to become united with them, and on the other hand by obtaining the milk and fostering care of human mothers for their own offspring. Doubts have been expressed by the German poet and mythologist, Karl Simrock, whether this was the primitive motive. He suggests that originally these spirits were looked upon as wholly beneficent, and even the theft of children was dictated by their care for the best interests of mankind. Nor does he hesitate to lay it down that the selfish designs just mentioned were first attributed to them when with growing enlightenment the feeling manifested itself that the kindly beings were falling into decay.[68]

It might be sufficient to reply that no spiritual existences imagined by men in a state of civilization such as surrounded our Celtic and Teutonic forefathers were ever regarded as unswervingly benevolent: caprice and vindictiveness, if not cruelty, are always elements of their character. Beyond this general consideration, however, there is a further and conclusive answer in the fact that there is no warrant in tradition for the supposition that could we penetrate to the oldest strata of mythical belief we should not discover selfish designs imputed to "the good people." The distinguished commentator himself is bound to admit that the belief in their need of human help is entwined in the very roots of the Teutonic myths. It is, indeed, nothing but the mediaeval and Teutonic form of tenets common to all the nations upon earth. The changeling superst.i.tion and the cla.s.sic stories of children and adults beloved by G.o.ds of high and low degree are consistent with this belief, and inseparable from it. The motive is so far comprehensible: what is wanted is to know whether any special relations, such as are pointed at by the Greek epithet _Drakos_, were held to exist between the mysterious world and newly-born babes which would render the latter more obnoxious to attack than elder children or adults; or whether, as I have put it at the beginning of this chapter, their helplessness alone suggested their exceeding danger. To solve the riddle we must wait for a larger acc.u.mulation of doc.u.ments.[69]

But in the best regulated families it is not always possible to prevent the abduction from being attempted, and sometimes accomplished, in spite of every precaution. One night a Welsh woman, waking in a fright in her husband's absence, missed her baby. She sought for it and caught it upon the boards above the bed: the fairies had not succeeded in bearing it any further away. Another felt her boy being taken from her arms; whereupon she screamed and held him tightly, and, according to her own expression, "G.o.d and me were too hard for them." The child grew up to become a famous preacher. A peasant woman in Mecklenburg who ventured to sleep without a light was attacked by an elf-woman. The stranger seized the child, but was baffled by the woman's determination; for she struggled and shrieked for her husband, and when he hurried in with a light the fairy vanished.[70]

Nor is it always the mother who arrests the theft. A trick frequently played by the dwarfs in Northern Germany on the birth of a child was to pinch a cow's ear; and when the animal bellowed and everybody ran out to know why, a dwarf would slip indoors and effect the change. On one such occasion the father saw his infant being dragged out of the room. In the nick of time he grasped it and drew it towards himself. The changeling left in its place was found in the bed; and this he kept too, defying the efforts of the underground folk to regain it. At a place in North Jutland it happened many years ago in a lying-in room that the mother could get no sleep while the lights were burning. So her husband resolved to take the child in his arm, in order to keep strict watch over it so long as it was dark. But, unfortunately, he fell asleep; and on being awakened by a shake of the arm, he saw a tall woman standing by the bed, and found that he had an infant in each arm. The woman instantly vanished; and as he had forgotten in which arm he had held his child, there he lay without knowing which of the two children was his own. A boy, who was watching his younger sister while his parents were both from home, saw a small man and woman come from behind the oven.

They told him to give them the little one; and when he refused they stepped to the cradle and endeavoured to take the babe by force. The boy, however, was strong and bold, and laid about him with such determination that the robbers at length took to flight. On the Lithuanian coast of the Baltic substantially the same tale is told with more humour. There a farmer's boy sleeping in the living-room of the house is awakened by the proceedings of two _laumes_, or elves. They stealthily fetch out of the bedroom the new-born babe and swathe it in swaddling clothes of their own, while they wrap in its clothes the oven-broom. Then they began to quarrel which of them should carry the broom thus rolled up into the bedroom; and as they were unable to agree they resolved to carry it together. No sooner had they disappeared into the inner apartment than the boy leaped out of bed, picked up his mistress' child and took it into his own bed. When the _laumes_ returned the infant was not to be found. They were both very angry and began to scold one another: "It's your fault." "No, it's your fault; didn't I say, You carry it, while I stay here and keep watch? I said it would be stolen!" While they wrangled thus, kakary ku! crew the c.o.c.k, and, foiled and enraged, they had to make off. The boy had great difficulty in wakening his mistress, who was in a deep sleep, dreaming a horrible dream that a stock of wood had been placed on her breast so that she could hardly breathe. He told her what had happened, but she would not believe it until she saw that she had _two_ children--one to which she had given birth, the other fas.h.i.+oned out of the oven-broom.[71]

Prayer and the utterance of a holy name are to the full as effectual as physical strength. A fisherwoman in the north-east of Scotland was once left alone in bed with her baby, when in came a little man dressed in green, and proceeded to lay hold of the child. The woman knew at once with whom she had to do, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: "G.o.d be atween you an' me!" Out rushed the fairy in a moment, and mother and babe were left without further molestation. A curious tale is told of two Strathspey smugglers who were one night laying in a stock of whiskey at Glenlivat when they heard the child in the cradle give a piercing cry, just as if it had been shot. The mother, of course, blessed it; and the Strathspey lads took no further notice, and soon afterwards went their way with their goods. Before they had gone far they found a fine healthy child lying all alone on the roadside, and recognized it as their friend's. They saw at once how the affair stood. The fairies had taken away the real infant and left a stock; but owing to the pious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of the mother, they had been forced to drop it. As the urgency of their business did not admit of their return they took the child with them, and kept it until they went to Glenlivat again. On their arrival here they said nothing about the child, which they kept concealed. In the course of conversation the woman remarked that the disease which had attacked the little one the last time they were there had never left it, and she had now scarce any hope of its recovery. As if to confirm her statement, it continued uttering most piercing cries. The smugglers thereupon produced the real babe healthy and hearty, and told her how they had found it.

The mother was, of course, pleased to recover it; and the next thing was to dispose of the changeling. For this purpose the Strathspey lads got an old creel to put him in and some straw to light under it. Seeing the serious turn matters were likely to take he resolved not to await the trial, but flew up the smoke-hole and cried out from the top that but for the guests events would have gone very differently.[72]

Two pixies of Dartmoor, in the shape of large bundles of rags, led away one of two children who were following their mother homeward. It was eventually found, on a search being made by the neighbours with lanterns, under a certain large oak tree known to be pixy-haunted. This is hardly a changeling story, as no attempt was made to foist a false child on the parent. A tale from the Isle of Man contains two similar incidents of attempted robbery without replacing the stolen child by one of superhuman birth. The fairies there adopted artifices like those of the North German dwarfs above mentioned. A few nights after a woman had been delivered of her first child a cry of fire was raised, and every one ran out of the house to see whence it proceeded, leaving the helpless mother alone with her babe. On returning they found the infant lying on the threshold of the house. The following year, when another little stranger had presented itself, a noise was heard in an out-house among the cattle. Again everybody that was stirring, including the nurse, hurried forth to learn what was the matter, believing that the cattle had got loose. But finding all safe, they came back, only to discover that the new-born babe had been taken out of bed, as the former had been, and on their coming dropped in the middle of the entry. It might have been supposed that these two warnings would have been enough; but a third time the trick was played, and then more successfully.

Forgetting what had previously happened, all who were in the house ran out one night on hearing a noise in the cow-house--all, that is, except the mother, who could not move, and the nurse, who was sleeping off the effects of alcohol. The former was lying broad awake and saw her child lifted from the bed by invisible hands and carried clean away. She shrieked at once to the nurse, but failed to arouse her; and when her husband returned, an infant was indeed lying beside her, but a poor, lean, withered, deformed creature, very different from her own. It lay quite naked, though the clothes of the true child had been considerately left for it by the ravishers.[73]

One of the difficulties experienced by the fairies on two of the three occasions here narrated in making off with the little one occurred at the door of the house. That they should have tried, repeatedly at all events, to pa.s.s out that way is almost as remarkable as that they should have been permitted more than once to attempt the theft. For the threshold is a part of the dwelling which from of old has been held sacred, and is generally avoided by uncanny beings. Wiser, though still doomed to failure, were those Irish elves who lifted up a window and handed the infant out. For it happened that a neighbour who was coming to pay a visit that moment stopped before the house, and exclaimed: "G.o.d keep all here from harm!" No sooner had she uttered the words than she saw the child put forth, how, or by whom, she did not know; and without hesitation she went up and took it away home with her. The next morning when she called to see how her friend fared great was the moan made to her over the behaviour of the child--so different from what it had ever been before--crying all the night and keeping awake its mother, who could not quiet it by any means. "I'll tell you what you'll do with the brat," she replied; "whip it well first, and then bring it to the cross-roads, and leave the fairy in the ditch there for any one to take that pleases; for I have your child at home safe and sound as he was handed out of the window last night to me." When the mother heard this, she just stepped out to get a rod; but before she returned the changeling had vanished, and no one either saw or heard of it again.[74]

Fairies, however, when bent upon mischief, are not always baulked so easily. They effect the exchange, sometimes in the house, and sometimes when the parent is at work in the fields and incautiously puts her offspring down the while. In these circ.u.mstances, grievous as may be the suspicion arising from the changed conduct of the nursling, it is not always easy to be sure of what has taken place. Tests, therefore, have to be applied. Often the appearance is enough. A "mighty big head," or an abnormally thick head and neck, is in Germany deemed sufficient credentials from Fairyland; while in a case from Lapland, where the hand and foot grew so rapidly as to become speedily nearly half an ell in length and the child was unable to learn to speak, whereas she readily understood what was said to her, these deviations from the course of nature were looked upon as conclusive evidence.[75] A reputed changeling shown to Waldron in the Isle of Man early in the last century is thus described: "Nothing under heaven could have a more beautiful face; but though between five and six years old, and seemingly healthy, he was so far from being able to walk, or stand, that he could not so much as move any one joint; his limbs were vastly long for his age, but smaller than an infant's of six months; his complexion was perfectly delicate, and he had the finest hair in the world; he never spoke, nor cried, eat scarce anything, and was very seldom seen to smile, but if any one called him a fairy-elf, he would frown and fix his eyes so earnestly on those who said it, as if he would look them through. His mother, or at least his supposed mother, being very poor, frequently went out a-charing, and left him a whole day together. The neighbours, out of curiosity, have often looked in at the window to see how he behaved when alone, which, whenever they did, they were sure to find him laughing and in the utmost delight. This made them judge that he was not without company more pleasing to him than any mortal's could be; and what made this conjecture seem the more reasonable was, that if he were left ever so dirty, the woman at her return saw him with a clean face, and his hair combed with the utmost exactness and nicety."[76] Luther tells us that he saw and touched at Dessau a changed child which was twelve years of age. The account he gives of the child is that "he had his eyes and all members like another child; he did nothing but feed, and would eat as much as two clowns or threshers were able to eat. When one touched it, then it cried out. When any evil happened in the house, then it laughed and was joyful; but when all went well, then it cried and was very sad."

So much for the Reformer's testimony of what he saw and was told. His theories and generalizations are in their way not less interesting than his testimony: as might have been expected, they are an adaptation of the ordinary superst.i.tions to his own grim scheme of things. "Such changelings and killcrops," he goes on to say, "_supponit Satan in loc.u.m verorum filiorum_; for the devil hath this power, that he changeth children, and instead thereof layeth devils in the cradles, which thrive not, only they feed and suck: but such changelings live not above eighteen or nineteen years. It sometimes falleth out that the children of women in child-bed are thus changed, and Devils laid in their stead, one of which more fouleth itself than ten other children do, so that the parents are much therewith disquieted; and the mothers in such sort are sucked out, that afterwards they are able to give suck no more."[77]

Making allowance for the influence of imagination, there can be no doubt, on comparison of these pa.s.sages, that the children to whom the character of changelings was ascribed were invariably deformed or diseased. The delightful author of the "Popular Romances of the West of England" says that some thirty or forty years before the date of writing he had seen several reputed changelings. And his evidence is express that "in every case they have been sad examples of the influence of mesenteric disease." After describing their external symptoms, he adds: "The wasted frame, with sometimes strumous swellings, and the unnatural abdominal enlargement which accompanies disease of mesenteric glands, gives a very sad, and often a most unnatural, appearance to the sufferer." Professor Rhys' description of a reputed changeling, one Ellis Bach, of Nant Gwrtheyrn, in Carnarvons.h.i.+re, is instructive as showing the kind of being accredited among the Welsh with fairy nature.

The professor is repeating the account given to him of this poor creature, who died nearly half a century ago. He tells us: "His father was a farmer, whose children, both boys and girls, were like ordinary folks, excepting Ellis, who was deformed, his legs being so short that his body seemed only a few inches from the ground when he walked. His voice was also small and squeaky. However, he was very sharp, and could find his way among the rocks pretty well when he went in quest of his father's sheep and goats, of which there used to be plenty there formerly. Everybody believed Ellis to have been a changeling, and one saying of his is well known in that part of the country. When strangers visited Nant Gwrtheyrn, a thing which did not frequently happen, and when his parents asked them to their table, and pressed them to eat, he would squeak out drily: _'B'yta 'nynna b'yta'r cwbwl_,' that is to say--'Eating--that means eating all.'" A changeling in Monmouths.h.i.+re, described by an eye-witness at the beginning of the present century, was simply an idiot of a forbidding aspect, a dark, tawny complexion, and much addicted to screaming.[78]

But a changeling was to be known in other ways than by his physical defects; under careful management he might be led to betray himself in speech or action. A Kirkcudbrights.h.i.+re tale represents a child as once left in charge of a tailor, who "commenced a discourse" with him.

"'Will, hae ye your pipes?' says the tailor. 'They're below my head,'

says the tenant of the cradle. 'Play me a spring,' says the tailor. Like thought, the little man, jumping from the cradle, played round the room with great glee. A curious noise was heard meantime outside; and the tailor asked what it meant. The little elf called out: 'It's my folk wanting me,' and away he fled up the chimney, leaving the tailor more dead than alive." In the neighbouring county of Dumfries the story is told with more gusto. The gudewife goes to the hump-backed tailor, and says: "Wullie, I maun awa' to Dunse about my wab, and I dinna ken what to do wi' the bairn till I come back: ye ken it's but a whingin', screechin', skirlin' wallidreg--but we maun bear wi' dispensations. I wad wuss ye,' quoth she, 'to tak tent till't till I come hame--ye sall hae a roosin' ingle, and a blast o' the goodman's tobacco-pipe forbye.'

Wullie was naething laith, and back they gaed the-gither. Wullie sits down at the fire, and awa' wi' her yarn gaes the wife; but scarce had she steekit the door, and wan half-way down the close, when the bairn c.o.c.ks up on its doup in the cradle, and rounds in Wullie's lug: 'Wullie Tylor, an' ye winna tell my mither when she comes back, I'se play ye a bonny spring on the bagpipes.' I wat Wullie's heart was like to loup the hool--for tylors, ye ken, are aye timorsome--but he thinks to himsel': 'Fair fas.h.i.+ons are still best,' an' 'It's better to fleetch fules than to flyte wi' them'; so he rounds again in the bairn's lug: 'Play up, my doo, an' I'se tell naebody.' Wi' that the fairy ripes amang the cradle strae, and pu's oot a pair o' pipes, sic as tylor Wullie ne'er had seen in a' his days--munt.i.t wi' ivory, and gold, and silver, and dymonts, and what not. I dinna ken what spring the fairy played, but this I ken weel, that Wullie had nae great goo o' his performance; so he sits thinkin' to himsel': 'This maun be a deil's get, Auld Waughorn himsel' may come to rock his son's cradle, and play me some foul prank;' so he catches the bairn by the cuff o' the neck, and whupt him into the fire, bagpipes and a'!"[79]

In Nithsdale the elf-child displays a superhuman power of work. The mother left it on one occasion in the charge of a servant-girl, who sat bemoaning herself. "Wer't nae for thy girning face I would knock the big, winnow the corn, and grun the meal!" "Lowse the cradle band," cried the child, "and tent the neighbours, an' I'll work yere wark." With that he started up, the wind arose, the corn was winnowed, the outlyers were foddered, the hand-mill moved around as by instinct, and the knocking mell did its work with amazing rapidity. The la.s.s and the elf meanwhile took their ease, until, on the mistress's return, he was restored to the cradle and began to yell anew.[80]

Most of the stories of changelings, in fact, a.s.sume that, though the outward characteristics might justify vehement suspicion, yet they were not absolutely decisive, and that to arrive at certainty the elf must be brought to betray himself. No great subtlety, however, was needful; for the stratagem employed varies but little, as the following examples will show. The child of a married couple in Mecklenburg at two years of age was no longer than a shoe, but had a mighty big head, and, withal, was unable to learn to speak. Its parents were led by an old man to suspect that it had been changed, and their adviser told them: "If you wish to become certain, take an empty egg-sh.e.l.l, and in the child's presence pour in new beer and cause it to ferment by means of yeast. If then the child speak, my conjecture is right." His counsel was followed, and scarcely had the beer fermented when the child cried out from the cradle:

"I am as old As Bohemian gold, Yet for the first time now I see Beer in an egg-sh.e.l.l brew'd to be."

The parents determined to fling the babe into the river the following night; but when at midnight they rose for the purpose they found in the cradle a strong, blooming child. In a Welsh tale from Radnors.h.i.+re the egg-sh.e.l.l is boiled full of pottage in the children's sight (there are twins in this case) and taken out as a dinner for the reapers who happened to be cutting the rye and oats. In Glamorgans.h.i.+re the woman declares she is mixing a pasty for the reapers. An Icelandic legend makes a woman set a pot containing food to cook on the fire and fasten twigs end to end in continuation of the handle of a spoon until the topmost one appears above the chimney, when she puts the bowl in the pot. Another woman in a Danish tale engaged to drive a changeling out of the house he troubled; and this is how she set about it. In his temporary absence she killed a pig and made a black pudding of it, hide, hair and all. On his return she set it before him, for he was a prodigious eater. He began gobbling it up as usual; but as he ate his efforts gradually slackened, and at last he sat quite still, eyeing it thoughtfully. Then he exclaimed: "A pudding with hide! and a pudding with hair! a pudding with eyes! and a pudding with bones in it! Thrice have I seen a young wood spring upon Tiis Lake, but never yet did I see such a pudding! The devil will stay here no longer!" And so saying he ran off and never returned.[81]

Of these devices, however, the normal one is that of the egg-sh.e.l.ls.

Sometimes one egg-sh.e.l.l only is employed, sometimes two--a dozen--or an indefinite number. At seaside places, like Normandy and the Channel Islands, egg-sh.e.l.ls are sometimes replaced by sh.e.l.ls of sh.e.l.l-fish.[82]