hills were full of fairies, "romping and carousing within," and that they carried off children and robbed milk and butter. The sprites could exercise malignant power on infants especially before baptism, stealing the handsome ones and replacing them by puny withered changelings. The only way to get rid of these was to set a pot on the fire and threaten to boil the fairy child, who then vanishes and the real child was brought back. Women who die in childbirth are believed to have been carried off to fairyland.
I met everywhere, from Ballycastle to Inishbofin, beliefs as to the existence of changelings. Lady Wilde gives several from Inishark which seem to be good local tales.[1] I must only give the shortest condensation of the beliefs. (1) An old woman came into a house and looked at a child without saying "God bless you"; it got ill, a strange "wise woman" told the parents that it had been changed and directed them to get a bit of the old woman's cloak. This made the elf sneeze and the true child was brought back. (2) A man saw the fairies carrying off a boy, and, signing the cross, rescued the infant. He found the mother weeping over the supposed corpse, which he made her throw into the fire, where it came to life and flew up the chimney. He then gave her the real baby. (3) A man, whose young wife had long been childless, taunted her, and she soon after bore a lovely boy. One day to his horror it suddenly grew a long beard, and he beat his wife, at whose screams two red-capped women came and beat him till he asked pardon. The real child sent a tuft of rushes to the mother, and she was able to enter the fairy palace. An old woman brought her to the king and said she was the nurse of his own son. He restored her own child and said the man who beat her was a fairy disguised as her husband. She invoked God's name and fell senseless, eventually recovering and returning home to find she had been three years absent. She found that her husband had detected the changeling and put it on the fire, when it shrieked and flew up the chimney. (4) Mary Callan of Shark while sitting alone with her
- ↑ Ancient Cures, Charms and Usages of Ireland (1890), p. 141; Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland (1887), vol. i. pp. 38, 73, 119.
