FAIRIES AND GIANTS OF CORNWALL, 147 
himself in some way, and if so to cram a red hot poker down his 
throat. When Mrs. Sullivan was in the midst of her cookery, 
the child asks, with the voice of an old man, “ What are you doing, 
Mama.” “Brewing a vick,” says Mrs. Sullivan. “What are you 
brewing, Mama?” “ Ege-shells a vick.” “Oh”! shrieked the imp, 
starting up, ‘‘I’m fifteen hundred years in the world, and I never 
saw a brewery of ege-shells before.” Up ran Mrs. Sullivan with 
the poker, but in her hurry fell, and on her recovery found her 
own child sleeping quietly in the cradle. In a legend of Bretagne, 
the mother, under the advice of the Virgin Mary, pretends to be 
preparing something im an ege-shell, when the changeling asks 
what she is doing; she answers that she is preparing dinner 
in an egg-shell for ten laborers. “Ah,” says he, “I have seen a 
great many curious things, but never saw the dinner for ten laborers 
contained in an ege-shell.” The mother proceeds to give him a 
sound beating, when some of his people come in to fetch him, and 
restore the real child.’ In one case a black pudding was the test. 
The adviser here was a sharp girl, and the changeling was an 
enormous eater. She killed a pig, and made of it, hide, hair, and 
all, a huge black pudding, and set it before him. He began to eat 
voraciously, but after a time relaxed, as most people would have 
done in a similar case, and remarked, “ A pudding with hide ! and 
a pudding with hair! a pudding with eyes! and a pudding with 
legs in it! Well, three times have I seen a young wood grow up, 
but never did see such a pudding as this! the devil himself may 
stay now for me.” So saying he ran off. 
Sometimes the nurse was taken to the abode of the fairy, and 
they were generally intrusted with an ointment to rub the child’s 
eye with, but emphatically warned against using it themselves. 
As amatter of course they did so, and at first were much delighted 
to find that they were enabled to see fairy dwellings and fairy 
matters, and on their return home, after their labours were finished, 
to recognize fairies, when unseen by other people. This advantage 
however did not last long, for when the trick was discovered, the 
offender was generally punished with the loss of an eye or perhaps 
of both. Hunt gives several of these nursing stories, and they 
are to be found in Keightley’s interesting Fairy Mythology, and in 
numerous works relating to Legends and Traditions, as far back as 
Gervase of Tilbury of the 12th century. The usual finish is, that 
G 
