Page:The Science of Fairy Tales.djvu/138

 There is an oft-quoted passage in Luther's "Table Talk," in which he relates that he told the Pince of Anhalt that if he were prince he would venture homicidium upon a certain changeling with which he had been brought into contact, and throw it into the river Moldaw. The great Reformer was only on a level with his countrymen in their superstitions in reference to changelings, or Killcrops, as they were then called. I have already quoted his opinion of them as devils; and the test of their true nature, which he seems to have thought infallible, was their inordinate appetite; nor did he attach any value to baptism as a means of exorcism. One excellent tale he tells on the subject concerns a peasant who lived near Halberstadt, in Saxony. This good man, in accordance with advice, was taking the child to Halberstadt to be rocked at the shrine of the Virgin Mary, when in crossing a river another devil that was below in the river called out "Killcrop! Killcrop!" Then, says Luther, the child in the basket, that had never before spoken one word, answered "Ho, ho!" The devil in the water asked, "Whither art thou going?" and the child replied, "I am going to Halberstadt to our Loving Mother, to be rocked." In his fright the man threw the basket containing the child over the bridge into the water, whereupon the two devils flew away together and cried "Ho, ho, ha!" tumbling themselves one over another, and so vanished. This may be taken as a type of many a story current in North Germany and the neighbouring Slavonic lands. It is not, however, unknown in this country. Mr. Hunt has versified a Cornish tale in which the mother took her brat to the chapel well to plunge it at dawn and pass it round slowly