46 Asimis in Teg u lis.
changeling, is regularly the chimney. In Ireland certainly \vc hear of a black dog coming down the chimney and stealing a child. ^ The orthodox way of getting rid of the changeling is to burn, or threaten to burn it at the fire,^ when the fairy mother will hastily effect the exchange. It is true that this is not the invariable method ; the changeling is often not burned, but beaten or otherwise ill- treated to make it cry with pain ; it may not go up the chimney but run out at the door, as in a Hebridean example, Folk-Lore, vol. xi. p. 444, cf. xxi. p. 475 (Isle of Man); or it may be left on the door-step or the rubbish-heap, or under a hedge, etc. ; but I am much inclined to regard these as maimed rites, intended to prevent serious damage if after all the child should turn out to be simply an ailing or ill-tempered human baby. An instructive example is to be found in vol. xxi. p. 198, where a sickly child, in Co. Clare was exposed on the door-step, but on a shovel, i.e. a pretence was made of burning it. I am confirmed in this belief by the examples, some of them very horrible, of grown persons supposed to be changelings who have been treated by fire. E.g. the defendant in a witch-burning case at Clonmel ^ explained to a bystander, " It is not Bridget I am burning. You will soon see her go up the chimney."
IV. Marriage. Although the house in general plays a very important part in the marriage ceremonies of most peoples, I can hardly find any rite in which the roof is important as such.* And if I am correct in supposing it to
1 Folk-Lore, vol. iv. p. 190.
^ E.g. Folk-Lore, xxvi. p. 93 ; xxxii. p. 104 ; County Folklore, vii. pp. 31, 398 ; cf. Whittier's poem, " Rake out the red coals, goodman," where a witch, not a fair}', is suspected.
^ Folk-Lore, vol. vi. p. 376 ; cf. iv. p. 333.
- A few bits of ritual, all apotropaeic in character, will be found in
Samter, op. cit. p. 56, n. 6 ; Kochling, de coronarum ui atque iisii, Giessen, 1914, gives an exhaustive list of the parts of a house which were garlanded in the classical marriage ceremonies ; they include every concei\able approach to the house except the roof.
