The Science of Fairy Tales / An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology

These verses carry us back to the egg-shell episode, from which the consideration of the means adopted to drive away the intrusive goblin has diverted us. They contain a vague assertion of age like those then before us, but not a hint of laughter. Nor have we found anything throughout the whole discussion to favour Simrock's suggestion, or to shake the opinion that the dissolution of the fairy spell was derived either from the vexation of the supernatural folk at their own self-betrayal, or from the disclosure to the human foster-parents of the true state of the facts, and their consequent determination to exorcise the demon.

It is true we have a few more stories to examine, but we shall find that they all confirm this conclusion. The cases we have yet to deal with, except the first, exhibit a different and much more humane treatment of the changeling than the foregoing. The case excepted is found in Carnarvonshire, where one infallible method of getting rid of the child was to place it on the floor and let all present in the house throw a piece of iron at it. The old woman who mentioned this to Professor Rhys conjectured that the object was to convince the Tylwyth Teg, or fairy people, of the intention to kill the babe, in order to induce them to bring the right child back.[97] This would be the same motive as that which threatened death by fire or other ill-usage, in some of the instances mentioned above. But we could not thus account for the requirement that iron, and only iron, was to be used; and here we have, in fact, a superstition carefully preserved, while its meaning has quite passed out of memory. In a future chapter we shall examine the attitude of mythical beings in folklore to metals, and especially to iron; in the meantime we may content ourselves with noting this addition to the examples we have already met with of the horror with which they regarded it.

So far from its being always deemed wise to neglect or injure the changeling, it was not infrequently supposed to be necessary to take the greatest care of it, thereby and by other means to propitiate its elvish tribe. This was the course pursued with the best results by a Devonshire mother; and a woman at Strassberg, in North Germany, was counselled by all her gossips to act lovingly, and above all not to beat the imp, lest her own little one be beaten in turn by the underground folk. So in a Hessian tale mentioned by Grimm, a wichtel-wife caught almost in the act of kidnapping refused to give up the babe until the woman had placed the changed one to her breast, and ?nourished it for once with the generous milk of human kind.? In Ireland, even when the child is placed on a dunghill, the charm recited under the direction of the ?fairy-man? promises kindly entertainment in future for the ?gambolling crew,? if they will only undo what they have done. A method in favour in the north of Scotland is to take the suspected elf to some known haunt of its race, generally, we are told, some spot where peculiar soughing sounds are heard, or to some barrow, or stone circle, and lay it down, repeating certain incantations the while. What the words of these incantations are we are not informed, but we learn that an offering of bread, butter, milk, cheese, eggs, and flesh of fowl must accompany the child. The parents then retire for an hour or two, or until after midnight; and if on returning these things have disappeared, they conclude that the offering is accepted and their own child returned.[98]