There were, however, effectual means for protecting children from their machinations. The mother’s presence, the tongs placed cross-ways on the cradle, the early
baptism of the child, were all preventives. In the Western Isles of Scotland fire carried round a woman before she was churched, and round the child until he was christened, daily, night and morning, preserved both from the evil designs of the Fairies. (Brand, vol. ii, p. 486.) And it will be shortly shewn that even after an exchange had been accomplished there were means of forcing the Fairies to restore the stolen child.
It can well be believed that mothers who had sickly or idiotic babies would, in uncivilized places, gladly embrace the idea that the child she nursed was a changeling, and then, naturally enough, she would endeavour to recover her own again. The plan adopted for this purpose was extremely dangerous. I will in the following tales show what steps were taken to reclaim the lost child.
Pennant records how a woman who had a peevish child acted to regain from the Fairies her own offspring. His words are:—“Above this is a spreading oak of great antiquity, size, and extent of branches; it has got the name of Fairy Oak. In this very century (the eighteenth) a poor cottager, who lived near the spot, had a child who grew uncommonly peevish; the parents attributed this to the Fairies, and imagined that it was a changeling. They took the child, put it into a cradle, and left it all night beneath the tree, in hopes that the Tylwyth Têg, or Fairy Family, or the Fairy folk, would restore their own before the morning. When morning came, they found the child perfectly quiet, so went away with it, quite confirmed in their belief.”—History of Whiteford, pp. 5, 6.
These people by exposing their infant for a night to the elements ran a risk of losing it altogether; but they acted in agreement with the popular opinion, which was that the Fairies had such affection for their own children that they
would not allow them to be in any danger of losing their life, and that if the elfin child were thus exposed the Fairies would rescue it, and restore the exchanged child to its parents. The following tale exhibits another phase of this belief.
The story is to be found in the Cambrian Magazine, vol. ii., pp. 86, 87.
1. “The Egg Shell Pottage.”
“In the parish of Treveglwys, near Llanidloes, in the county of Montgomery, there is a little shepherd’s cot, that is commonly called Twt y Cwmrws (the place of strife) on account of the extraordinary strife that has been there. The inhabitants of the cottage were a man and his wife, and they had born to them twins, whom the woman nursed with great care and tenderness. Some months afterwards indispensable business called the wife to the house of one of her nearest neighbours; yet, notwithstanding she had not far to go, she did not like to leave her children by themselves in their cradle, even for a minute, as her house was solitary, and there were many tales of goblins or the ‘Tylwyth Têg’ (the Fair Family or the Fairies) haunting the neighbourhood. However, she went, and returned as soon as she could; but on coming back she felt herself not a little terrified on seeing, though it was mid-day, some of ‘the old elves of the blue petticoat,’ as they are usually called; however, when she got back to her house she was rejoiced to find everything in the state she had left it.
But after some time had passed by, the good people began to wonder that the twins did not grow at all, but still continued little dwarfs. The man would have it that they were not his children; the woman said that they must be their children, and about this arose the great strife between them that gave name to the place. One evening when the woman