Mr. George Waldron, who in 1726 wrote an entertaining Description of the Isle of Man, recorded it that he once went to see a baby supposed to be a changeling; that it seemed to be four or five years old, but smaller than an infant of six months, pale, and silky-haired, and (what was unusual) with the fairest face under heaven; that it was not able to walk nor to move a joint, seldom smiled, ate scarcely anything, and never spoke nor cried; but that if you called it a fairy-elf, it fixed its gaze on you as if it would look you through. If it were left alone, it was overheard laughing and frolicking, and when it was taken up after, limp as cloth, its hair was found prettily combed, and there were signs that it had been washed and dressed by its unseen playfellows.
The main point to put the family mind at rest on the matter, was to make the changeling "own up," force him to do something which no tender mortal in socks and bibs ever was able to do, such as dance, prophesy, or manage a musical instrument. There was an Irish changeling, the youngest of five sons, who, being teased, snatched a bagpipe from a visitor, and played upon it in the most accomplished and melting manner, sitting up in his wooden chair, his big goggle-eyes fixed on the company. And when he knew he was found out, he sprang, bagpipe and all, into the river; which leads one to suspect that he was a sort of stray Strömkarl.
THERE WAS AN IRISH CHANGELING.
The Welsh fairies had good taste, and admired wholesome and handsome children. They stole such often, and left for substitute the plentyn-newid (the change-child) who at first was exactly like the absent nursling, but soon grew ugly, shrivelled, biting, wailing, cunning and ill-tempered. In the hope of proving whether it were a fairy-waif or not, people put the little creature to such hard tests, that sometimes it nearly died of acquaintance with a rod, or an oven, or a well.
"THE ACORN BEFORE THE OAK HAVE I SEEN."
If the bereaved parent did some very astonishing thing in plain view of the wonder-chick, that would generally entrap it into betraying its secrets. A French changeling was once moved unawares to sing out that it was nine hundred years old, at least! In Wales, and also in Brittainy (which are sister-countries of one race) the following story is current: A mother whose infant had been spirited away, and who was much perplexed over what she took to be a changeling, was advised to cook a meal for ten farm-servants in one egg-shell. When the queer little creature, burning with curiosity, asked her from his high-chair what she was about, she could hardly answer, so excited was she to hear him speak. At that he cried louder: "A meal for ten, dear mother, in one egg-shell? The acorn before the oak have I seen, and the wilderness before the lawn, but never did I behold anything like that!" and so gave damaging evidence of his age and his unlucky wisdom. And the woman replied: "You have seen altogether too much, my son, and you shall have a beating!" And thereupon she began to thrash him, until he screeched, and a fairy appeared hurriedly to rescue him, and in the crib lay the round, rosy, real child, who had been missing a long while.
Now the "gentry" of modern Greece had an eye also to clever children; but they almost always brought them back, laden with gifts, lovelier in person than when they were taken from home. And if they appointed a changeling in the meantime (which they were not very apt to do) it never showed its elfin nature until it was quite grown up! unlike the uncanny goblins who were all too ready from the first to give autobiographies on the slightest hint.