In the Highlands of Scotland, instead of using salt as an amulet for the protection of young babies, it was customary for watchers to remain constantly by the cradle until the christening. For it was believed that spiteful fairies were wont to carry off healthy infants, leaving in their stead puny specimens of their own elfish offspring; and infants thus kidnapped were sometimes kept in fairyland for seven years. This well-known popular belief gave rise to the word “changeling,” which signifies a “strange, stupid, ugly child left by the fairies in place of a beautiful or charming child that they have stolen away.”[295] And inasmuch as baby elves were invariably stunted and of feeble intellect, all idiotic and dwarfish children were thought to be changelings.[296]
From thence a faery the unweeting reft,
There as thou slepst in tender swadling band,
And her base elfin brood there for the left:
Such men do chaungelinges call, so chaunged by fairies’ theft.[297]
VIII. SALT AS A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE
The natives of Morocco regard salt as a talisman against evil, and a common amulet among the Neapolitan poor is a bit of rock-salt suspended from the neck.[298] The peasants of the Hartz Mountain region in Germany believe that three grains of salt in a milk-pot will keep witches away from the milk;[299] and to preserve butter from their uncanny influences, it was a custom in the county of Aberdeen, Scotland, some years ago, to put salt on the lid of a churn.[300] In Normandy, also, the peasants are wont to throw a little salt into a vessel containing milk, in order to protect the cow who gave the milk from the influences of witchcraft.
Peculiar notions about the magical properties of salt are common among American negroes. Thus in some regions a new tenant will not move into a furnished house until all objects therein have been thoroughly salted, with a view to the destruction of witch-germs.[301] Another example of the supernatural attributes ascribed to salt is the opinion current among uneducated people in some communities of its potency in casting a spell over obnoxious individuals. For this purpose it is sufficient either to sprinkle salt over the sleeping form of an enemy, or on the grave of one of his ancestors.[302] Another kind of salt-spell in vogue in the south of England consists in throwing a little salt into the fire on three successive Friday nights, while saying these words:—
It is not this salt I wish to burn,
It is my lover’s heart to turn;