“Oh, that it could be proved
That some night tripping fairy had exchanged,
In cradle-clothes, our children as they lay;
And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.”[25]
[25] Shakespeare, 1. Henry IV. [Back]
Spenser also refers to this belief in the following lines:—
“And her base elfin breed there for thee left,
Such men do changelings call, so changed by fairie’s theft.”
In some parts of the country, it is, or perhaps we should more correctly say was, customary to protect a child against fairy influences by tying a red thread round its throat or by letting its head hang down for awhile in the early morning. One does not of course see why either of these remedies should be efficacious against fairies or against anything else; but any one who has had occasion to talk matters over with rustics will have found that all their remedies, whether for ills spiritual or material, are of the most inconsequent character, and that the gift of faith in them is one of the most necessary accompaniments. This belief in fairy changelings is of great antiquity, for we read in Holingshead’s “Chronicles” that the common people, on the death of King Arthur, held that he was not really dead at all, “but carried away by fairies into some place, where he would remain for a time and then return again and reign in as great authority as ever.” It was also an old belief that people who had once lived with the fairies never again looked quite like other people, an ingenious way of accounting for any peculiarity in any one. Sir Walter Scott, in speaking of elf-possession, says that even “full-grown persons, especially such as in an unlucky hour were doomed to the execration of parents or of masters, or those who were found asleep after sunset under a rock or on a green hill belonging to the fairies, or finally those who unwarily joined their orgies, were believed to be subject to their power. The accounts they gave of their situation differ in some particulars. Sometimes they were represented as living a life of constant restlessness and wandering by moonlight. According to others, they inhabited a pleasant region, where, however, their situation was rendered horrible by the sacrifice of one or more individuals to the devil every seventh year. This is the popular reason assigned for the desire of the fairies to abstract young children as substitutes for themselves in this dreadful tribute.”
Persons, as we have seen, could occasionally be recovered from the fairies, and if changelings were taken before dark to a place where three rivers met, the stolen child would be brought back in the night and the fairy youngster would return whence it came. A poor woman who once had twins had them adroitly carried away soon after birth, and two of these elf-changelings substituted. For some months the change was not suspected, but as the mother began to perceive that the children never increased in size her suspicions were aroused, and she consulted one of the wise men of the district. This friend in need amply confirmed her suspicions, and in answer to her appeal for help and counsel, told her that she must get two eggshells, fill them with wort and hops, place them where these dubious infants could see them, and then secretly observe what came next. After a few minutes of watching the children began to stir, and these sweet little innocents, who were supposed to be unable to either walk or talk, crept up to the table, and after studying the matter awhile, one said to the other, “We were born before the acorn which produced the oak of which these cottage beams are made, but this is the first time we ever saw anybody brewing in an egg-shell!” The secret was now fairly out, and the woman was so exasperated at the trick played on her, that she fell on the changelings with the greatest fury, and only desisted when she got a solemn promise that her own dear children should at once be returned to her. One egg-shell story leads to another, and in an old book we came across the following:—
“My mother lived in the immediate neighbourhood of a farm-house that was positively infested by fairies. It was one of those old-fashioned houses among the hills of Cambria, constructed after the manner of ancient days, when farmers considered the safety and comfort of their cattle as much us that of their children and domestics, and the kitchen and cow-house were on the same floor adjoining each other, with a half-door over, so that the good man could see the animals from his chimney-corner without moving. My mother and the farmer’s wife were intimate friends, and she used often to complain to her that the fairies annoyed her and her family to that degree that they had no peace;—that whenever the family dined, or supped, or ate any meal, or were together, these mischievous little beings would assemble in the next apartment. For instance, when they were sitting in the kitchen, they were at high gambols in the dairy, or when they were yoking the cows, they would see the fairies in the kitchen, dancing and laughing, and provokingly merry. One day, as there was a great number of reapers partaking of a harvest-dinner, which was prepared with great care and nicety by the housewife, they heard music and dancing and laughing above, and a great shower of dust fell down, and covered all the victuals which were upon the table. The pudding in particular was completely spoiled, and the keen appetites of the party were most grievously disappointed. Just at this moment of trouble and despair an old woman entered, who saw the confusion and heard the whole affair explained. ‘Well,’ said she in a whisper to the farmer’s wife, ‘I’ll tell you how to get rid of the fairies. To-morrow morning ask six of the reapers to dinner, and be sure that you let the fairies hear you ask them. Then make no more pudding than will go into an egg-shell, and put it down to boil. It may be a scanty meal for six hungry reapers, but it will be quite sufficient to banish the fairies; and if you follow these directions you will not be troubled with them any more.’ She did accordingly, and when the fairies heard that a pudding for six reapers was boiling in an egg-shell there was a great noise in the next apartment and an angry voice called out, ‘We have lived long in this world. We were born just after the earth was made, and before an acorn was planted, and yet we never saw a harvest dinner prepared in an egg-shell. Something must be wrong in this house, and we will no longer stop under its roof.’ From that time the disturbances ceased, and the fairies were never seen or heard there any more.”
Some authorities on the subject—and there are no greater authorities on it than the most superstitious old crones one can lay hold of—have averred that if any persons find themselves unwillingly in the company of the fairies they can cause their instantaneous departure by drawing out their knives. This acts not as a threat, for these puny immortals have no need to fear the weapons of carnal warfare, but from some inherent property in the cold bright steel.
Many of the fairies are such kindly, genial little souls that one is rather grieved to find that they are entirely antagonistic to any religious influence. Many stories illustrate this unfortunate peculiarity, but to give one only will suffice. As a village fiddler was returning home one evening from some festivities that had doubtless owed much of their success to his enlivening strains, he was met in the darkness by a stranger. This stranger wished to make a somewhat curious arrangement with him, to the effect that on the following night at midnight he should bring his fiddle to a certain wild spot on the moorland, while he promised him ample reward for so doing. Though the fiddler presently agreed to do so, the more he thought it over the less he liked the bargain, and he would have gladly thrown it up had he dared. In his strait he bethought him of the minister of the parish, and determined to lay the whole matter before him and take his advice upon it. His clerical adviser liked the look of the affair no better than he did, but he advised him to keep to his bargain, while he strongly cautioned him to play nothing but psalm tunes. The fiddler kept his appointment, but no sooner had the sacred strains arisen than a great shriek rent the air and he was thrown violently down, and after receiving no slight castigation from invisible adversaries he returned home sore and stiff in the early morning. Unbelievers will no doubt say that the germ of truth in the story will be found in the fact, that if the jovial musician so far yielded to the charms of the revels as to be unable to steer a straight course home within reasonable hours, the early morning would probably find him stiff and sore with rheumatism.
The spirits of the mine were as firmly believed in amongst the miners as the woodland and meadow sprites were by the dwellers on the country side. They were generally called knockers, and any sound heard in the stillness of the earth, that was evidently not the work of a fellow-toiler, was at once attributed to supernatural agency. The miners assert that these fairies may be frequently heard assiduously at work in the remoter parts, and that by their knocking they draw the attention of the workmen to the richest veins of ore. In the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for 1754 we found a curious letter from a mine-owner, and the extract we give shows that the belief in such beings was not by any means confined to the rude and uncultivated miners, men a great part of whose lives were spent in the bowels of the earth, far removed from the cheering light of day, and who were in an especial degree under the influence of superstition:—