1892-93] S79 



that the neighbours say should be done to prove the chilJ a 

 changeling. One plan was to throw the child across the hearth 

 fire, when he would vanish up the chimney with shrieks, calling 

 out all sorts of bad wishes against the family that had harboured 

 him so unwillingly. Another plan was to carry the changeling 

 on a shovel from the cottage to the dunghill, and leave him 

 upon the top of it. This operation was under the charge of a 

 so-called fairy-man or fairy- woman, who, after performing a 

 number of charms with the help of the family, got the mother 

 to repeat a rhyming address to the fairies. 



Fairies sometimes take a fancy to famous pipers or fiddlers, 

 and carry them off to their underground houses : if these un- 

 fortunates eat or drink of the good things offered to them , they 

 never return to their homes on earth. When the friends of a 

 person who has been carried away venture into the country 

 underground to try to bring back their friend they must bring 

 with them a bible and a dagger ; the latter is stuck in the 

 threshold of the door — this prevents the fairies from pursuing 

 the rescue party when they have found and borne off their 

 friend. It is said that the splendid halls, the grand feasts, and 

 the lovely appearance of the finely dressed little people are 

 mere illusions. There is a story of a nurse who was carried 

 away to wash and dress a newly-born fairy child ; she was given 

 a box of fairy ointment with which to anoint the infant, and, 

 without intending it, she touched one of her eyes with her 

 finger on which some of the ointment remained. In a moment 

 she saw everything with this eye as it really was ; all the 

 splendour gone, dull earthen floors and halls, squalid food and 

 furniture, and the fine lords and ladies had become wizened 

 and deformed imps. When she shut that eye all was fairy-land 

 again. This same woman some time after attended a fair, when 

 she saw the fairy-man who had brought her to dress the baby, 

 she addressed him and asked him how the baby was doing. 

 11 Which eye do you see me with ? '' he asked her. " This one," 

 she replied, pointing to the one which had been touched with 

 the ointment. " Then take that," he cried out, and struck her 

 eye with his switch, blinding her for life in that eye. 



