Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/139

 Fairies. 127 do with the changeling (as one and all agreed that it was). One recommended her to dip it on the three first Wednesdays in May in Chapel Uny Well,* which advice was twice faithfully carried out in the prescribed manner. The third Wednesday was very wet and windy, but Jenny determined to persevere in this treatment of her ugly bantling, and holding the brat (who seemed to enjoy the storm) firmly on her shoulders, she trudged off. When they got about half-way, a shrill voice from behind some rocks was heard to say, "Tredrill! Tredrill! Thy wife and children greet thee well." Not seeing anyone, the woman was of course alarmed, and her fright increased when the imp made answer in a similar voice, " What care I for wife or child. When I ride on Dowdy's back to the Chapel Well, And have got pap my fill ? " After this adventure, she took the advice of another neighbour, who told her the best way to get rid of the spriggan and have her own child returned was "to put the small body upon the ashes' pile, and beat it well with a broom ; then lay it naked under a church stile ; there leave it and keep out of sight and hearing till the turn of night ; when nine times out of ten the thing will be taken away and the stolen child returned." This was finally done ; all the women of the village after it had been put upon a con- venient pile "belabouring it with their brooms," upon which it naturally set up a frightful roar. After dark it was laid under the stile, and there next morning the woman "found her own 'dear cheeld ' sleeping on some dry straw," most beautifully clean and wrapped in a piece of chintz. " Jenny nursed her recovered child with great care, but there was always something queer about it, as there always is about one that has been in the fairies' power — if only for a few days." There are many other tales of changelings, but they resemble each other so much that they are not worth relating. In the one » See ante, " Cornish Feasts and Feasten Customs."