57^ [p roc< B.N.F.C., 



helmets and red coats gleam in the moonlight, while the battle 

 rages. 



No opinion was more prevalent among country people, than 

 that relating to the carrying away of people by the elfin tribe. 

 Young and lovely children were the special objects of desire, 

 and often, when these had been carried away from the parents' 

 home, old, ugly, and starved fairies were left in their stead. 

 These latter are called changelings. To guard against such 

 accidents, nurses were accustomed to give a small spoonful of 

 whisky mixed with earth to newly-born infants as their first 

 food. This was supposed to protect them from some spell. 

 Young children should be carefully watched until after their 

 christening is over, lest they should be carried away or changed. 

 To sneeze was very dangerous, and was supposed to put a child 

 at the mercy of the fairies, to harm or carry away, unless some 

 one present at once said " bless him " or " God bless him." 



Lovely children were in greater danger than plainer ones. 

 But children were not the only persons who were sometimes 

 carried away to fairy-land ; young mothers were carried off to 

 nurse fairy-born children, or mortal children that had been 

 stolen ; and doctors, male and female, were sent for at midnight, 

 and borne off by a mysterious messenger, who came in a coach 

 drawn by coal-black horses, to take charge of some urgent case 

 in the country underground. After receiving a handful of 

 guineas as a fee, the doctor was driven back to his home, and 

 the guineas, put safely into a drawer, were found to have turned 

 to withered leaves when daylight came. Fairy changelings 

 could be known by their spiteful, tricky nature, and by their 

 constant complaining and crying for food. The changeling, if 

 he could, would get a set of bag-pipes, and would then sit up 

 in the cradle and play a variety of fine airs with great enjoy- 

 ment and many strange grimaces. When he plays reels, jigs, 

 and other lively airs the people in the cottage feel themselves 

 forced to dance till they sink with fatigue. For a long time the 

 mother cannot believe that her baby has been really carried 

 away, and she will not consent to do the hard and cruel things 



