Page:Christmas Fireside Stories.djvu/310

 2ss The Witch. " "-* 1—i—- • .. . - 1— —>*—• - moiith, and she was just as frightened as if they had been going to take her life. It was easy enough to see that the child was a '.changeling, for it wasn't like other children at all—it screamed and cried, as if a knife stuck in it, and it wheezed and hit about with its arms like a huldre-cat, and was as ugly as sin. It was always eating, and poor Siri didn't for the life of her know how to get rid of it. But at last she heard of a woman who knew something about these things, and she told her to take the youngster and flog him with a proper rod three Thursday eveningt in succession. — Yes, she did so, and the third Thursday evening a woman came flying over the barn-roof, and threw a child away from her and took up the changeling. But as she rushed off she struck Siri across the fingers; and she carries the marks to this day, and I have seen them with my own eyes," added Gubjor, as a further proof of the truth of her story. " No, this child is no more a changeling than I am ; and how could it happen, that they could change yours after all the trouble you have tåken to prevent it ? she asked. "Well, no! that's what I cannot make out either," said the mother quite innocently, "for Fve had castor in the cradle, — I have crossed him, and I put a silver brooch in his shirt, and I stuck a knife in the beam over the door, so I don't know how they could have managed to change him." " Well then, they can't have had any power over him either. I know all about that, I should think," began Gubjor again, " for in a parish close to Christiania I once knew a woman who had a child, which she was so very careful about, — she made crosses over it and used castor and everything else she had heard of, for there was plenty of witchcraft thereabout, I can tell you ; but one night, as she layin bed, with the child by her side near the edge of the bed, her husband, who was lying near the wall, awoke suddenly and saw such a red glare all over the room, just like when one stirs the fire, — 'and sure enough, there was some one stirring the fire too, for when he looked towards the fireplace, he saw an old man sitting there raking the fire together. He was an ugly brute, — uglier than I can describe,— and he had a long grey beard. When he had got the