Page:The Science of Fairy Tales.djvu/132

 The changeling began to scream, but the mother was prevented by a man who had been a witness to the transaction from picking it up; and when the fairy found that no notice was taken the true child was brought back. In the island of Lewis the custom was to dig a grave in the fields on Quarter Day and lay the goblin in it until the next morning, by which time it was believed the human babe would be returned. In the north of Germany one is advised not to touch the changeling with the hands, but to overturn the cradle so that the child falls on the floor. The elf must then be swept out of the door with an old broom, when the dwarfs will come and bring back the stolen child. Putting it on the dunghill and leaving it there to cry has been practised successfully in England; but in Ireland this is only one part of a long and serious ceremony directed by a wizard or "fairy-man." In dealing with these stories we must always remember that not merely are we concerned with sagas of something long past, but with a yet living superstition, and that the practices I am about to mention—even the most cruel and the most ridiculous of them—so far respond to the actual beliefs of the people that instances of their occurrence are quite recent and well authenticated, as we shall presently see. An anonymous but well-informed writer describes, as if it were by no means an unusual ceremony, that just referred to; and Kennedy gives the same in the shape of a legend. It seems to consist in taking a clean shovel and seating the changeling on its broad iron blade, and thus conveying the creature to the manure heap. The assistants would then join hands and circle about the heap thrice while the fairy-man chanted an incantation in the Irish language. At its conclusion all present would withdraw into the house, leaving the child where it had been placed, to howl and cry as it pleased. Says Mr. Kennedy: "They soon felt the air around them sweep this way and that, as if it was stirred by the motion of wings, but they