Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/192

 184 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 I 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 convenient 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 above quoted from Mr. Bottrell he gives a third charm for getting a child restored as follows, "Make by night a smoky fire, with green ferns and dry. When the chimney and house are full of smoke as one can bear, throw the changeling on the hearthstone; go out of the house, turn three times round; when one enters the right child will be restored." Spriggans too guard the vast treasures that are supposed to be buried beneath our immense cams and in our cliff castles. No matter if the work be carried on by night or by day, they are sure to punish the rash person who ventures to dig in hopes of securing them. When he has got some way down, he finds himself surrounded by hundreds of ugly beings, in some cases almost as tall as he, who scare the unhappy man until he loses all control over himself, throws down his tools, and rushes off as fast as he can possibly go. The fright often makes him so ill that he has to lie for days in bed. Should he ever »ummon up courage to return to the spot, he will find the pit refilled, and no traces to show that the ground had been disturbed.

Knockers (pronounced knackers) are mine fairies, popularly supposed to be (as related elsewhere) the souls of the Jews who crucified Christ, sent by the Romans to work as slaves in the tin