Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/466

 444 Miscellanea.

sgifk dhiof" (I am seven times tired of you). To her amazement the supposed infant repHed : " J/a ta, ars easan, na'n deanadh tu rim maith ormsa, bheirmise faochadh dhuit, agiis dheanadh greis dannsa dhiiit" (Well, said he, if you would keep it a secret, I would give you some relief and would dance for you for a while.) She promised that she would. It set to it, in the likeness of a bodach beag sgiobalta (a little, smart old man). When it was tired with dancing, it returned to her lap, just in all respects as it was before. She told her friends what had happened. They advised her to put on a good fire, and to coax it to dance again, and when it was at it, to watch it, and to take the first opportunity that pre- sented itself to throw it into the fire. She, as was directed, threw it into the fire, and it screaming ran out of the house. No sooner did it do so than her own child was at once imperceptibly restored.

In days long gone by, it was believed that the fairies could infect infants with various and strange diseases. The Hives, a malady incident to infants, is still called in some districts A Bhreac- S/ufh, the Fairy-pox.i

Unbaptized Children. — In the Lewis, when the baptism of children was delayed, through parental neglect, beyond the ordi- nary period, the male child was called Maoldoniiich (Ludovic), i.e., a devotee of St. Dominic ; and the female, Creudach, i.e., a child of the Creed ; originally to indicate that though unbaptized they were nevertheless under the protection of the Church. But when these names were sneeringly applied as nicknames by their neigh- bours, the careless parents were frequently compelled by the entreaties of their children to bring them to baptism that they might be freed from such taunts.

In some parts of the Southern Highlands (Argyllshire), almost within living memory, when a child died unbaptized, its funeral was delayed till after sunset. It was then brought to the church- yard and buried, as it was considered improper to bury it in full daylight. A young clerical friend, from Ross-shire, mformed me quite lately, that he himself saw the above custom observed in his native district, about twelve years ago ; and said that, for anything he knows to the contrary, the same custom may still be in vogue.

Leechcraft {Baptismal Water used in). — Baptismal water,

" Hives, Hyves, s. pi. Any eruption in the skin, proceeding from an

internal cause. S[cottish] Hives is used to denote both the red and

yellow guui. Loth[ian]." Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, 1818. — Ed.