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 The Witch. 297 "J muscles round her mouth showed that she was not satisfied w|th the statement of the fell-maker. 45 Folks will talk so much about things they don't understand, my dear Marit," she said; "they talk fast and loose, and, as for the fell maker, he may understand sheep's skin well enough, but sickness and changelings he knows nothing about, I say and maintain !— I should think I ought to know something about changelings, for I have seen enough of them. That changeling he spoke about must have been Brit's from Froen, for I recollect she had a changeling ; she got it soon after she was married,—she had a very good and nice child, but it was changed for a troll's brat as ill-tempered and unruly as if it belonged to the fiend himself. He would never speak a word, — only eat and cry, and she hadn't the heart to strike it or illtreat the youngster either ; but somebody taught her a charm to make him speak, and then she found out what kind of a brat he really was. She got hold of him one day and began to thrash him soundly and called him all sorts of names, when suddenly the door flew open and somebody, — whom of course she couldn't see, — rushed into the room, tore the changeling away from her, and threw her own child on to the floor with such violence that it began to cry. — Or perhaps it was the changeling that Siri Stromhugget had ? That was an old-fashioned, dried-up youngster, and I don't think he had any joints at all, — but he was no more like your child here than this old cap of mine ! I recollect her youngster well enough too. I served at the parish clerk's at that time, when I saw it more than once, and I also recollect how she got rid of it. There was a great deal of talk about it at the time, for Siri, as you know, came from this parish. When she was quite young, she served at Kvam ; after that she moved to Stromhugget, where she was married to Ola,— the son there. Soon after her first child was born, a strange woman came into the room and took the child from the bed and put another in its place. Siri, who was ill in bed, tried to get up and get her child back, — she struggled with all her might, but she could not move from the spot, — she was spell-bound and quite powerless. She was going to call her aunt, who was in the next room, but she could not open ljpr