274 Children and Wells.
At Acton, in Suffolk, " near the haunted corner, known as the nursery corner, is a pool called Wimbell Pond, in which, tradition says, an iron chest of money is concealed ; if any daring person venture to approach the pond, and throw a stone into the water, it will ring against the chest, and a small figure has been heard to cry, in accents of distress, ' That's mine ! '" ^
Striding across the world to New Zealand, we find water-babies there also, in the shape of Ponaturi, tiny little people dwelling in the water and coming ashore to sleep.-
The water-god, being fond of children, occasionally steals them.
In Hungary, Wassermann or Wasserweib steals babies and leaves changelings. In Bavaria the nixies, the water- spirits of Germany, steal healthy children and leave horrid little cretins behind in their stead.^ In Brandenburg the nicker or nixy, a mannikin small and grey, who spends his time sitting in the water, steals little unbaptized babies whenever he can, replacing them with his own goitrous brood. So that you are warned against going near the water with little children in Brandenburg,* just as you must be careful in the same way near the Tees of Peg Powler.
In Silesia, Spillaholla takes the lazy children away with her into the wells when they die, in order to bring them again to other people who have not been able to get any babies.^
The water-sprites living in a lake in Catalonia once carried off a girl and kept her a prisoner in the lake for seven years.^ And a German tale tells how another girl once passed fifteen years in the sea-wife's house and never
^Hope, I.e., p. 163. 2 jjeggar, l^., p. 97.
^PIoss, Das Kind, vol. i., p. 112. ■* Ploss, I.e., vol. i., p. 115.
- Ploss, I.e., vol. i., p. 96. ^ Grimm, I.e., vol, ii., p. 597.
