Part V
ChangelingsThe Plentyn-newid--The Unbending Belief of Stupidity about Changelings--Modes of Ridding the Shelve of the Brownie Child--The Description of the Economical Meal--Legend of the Organized of Strife--Dewi Dal and the Fairies--Prevention of Brownie Kidnapping--Fairies fixed in the Act by Mothers--Piety as an ExorcismI.THE Tylwyth Teg wave around a incorrigible glorification for the supernatural children. Therefore the momentous myths roughly speaking infants who wave around been stolen from their cradles, and a plentyn-newid (change-child-the akin of our changeling) missing in its place by the Tylwyth Teg. The plentyn-newid has the finish plate of the stolen infant, at first; but its aspect suddenly alters. It grows unpleasant of position, shrivelled of form, complaining, sobbing, and commonly colossal. it bites and strikes, and becomes a dread to the poor mother. Sometimes it is idiotic; but another time it has a touching cunning, not only contradictory in a woman sweetie, but not even appertaining to the oldest heads, on other than fairy shoulders. The veracious Seer Jones testifies to a battle anywhere he himself saw the plentyn-newid--an idiot missing in the stead of a son of Edmund John William, of the Minster Hand out, Monmouthshire. Says Jones: 'I saw him individually. Bestow was everything diabolical in his aspect,' but notoriously in his motions. He through very curt high-pitched sounds,' which recycled to annoy strangers very, but beforehand he was gullible. He was of a harsh, tawny tan.' He lived longer than such children usually lived in Wales in that day, (a not unadorned sentimental tinge about the harsh lot to which such children were subjected by their reluctant parents,) reaching the age of ten or twelve living. But the belief of dimness anywhere as regards changelings is a very tricky one, and reminds us of the tests of the witchcraft trials. Out cold the pretence of proving whether the objectionable spoil is a changeling or not, it is supposed on a hollow out from beginning to end the fire, or it ts submerged in a basis of the fox-glove, which kills it; a battle anywhere this test was viable is understood to wave around actually occurred in Carnarvonshire in 1857. That impart is emptiness especially Welsh in this, wishes not to be conical out. To one side from the fact that infanticide, like slaughter, is of no arrive, bar practices as to changelings wave around prevailed in supreme European lands, either to test the apprentice peculiar impression, or, that living admitted, to graft it on show and thus appeal the fairies to reinforce the missing infant. In Denmark the mother heats the oven, and chairs the changeling on the slice, pretending to put it in; or whips it inadequately with a rod; or throws it within the water. In Sweden they draw on bar methods. In Ireland the hot hollow out is recycled. Via regard to a changeling which Martin Luther tells of in his 'Colloquia Mensalia,' the put the finishing touches to reformer confirmed to the Prince of Anhalt, that if he were prince of that arrive he would act "homicidium "thereon, and would provisions it within the Course Moldaw.' He admonished the workers to pray devoutly to God to take on show the devil, which 'was done accordingly; and the exhaustive appointment in the past the changeling died.' It is unpleasantly potential that the child was very well fed all the rage the two living that this religious formula was leave-taking on. Its rapacious plundering appetite assured is indicated in Luther's description: It 'would eat as furthest as two threshers, would snigger and be subtle for example any evil happened in the care for, but would cry and be very sad for example all went well.'II.A story, told in numerous forms in Wales, preserves a tradition of an exceedingly prudent buffet which was employed as a main of banishing a plentyn-newid. M. Villemarqu'e, for example in Glamorganshire, heard this story, which he found to be razor-sharp the exact as a Breton parable, in which the changeling utters a rh)-med musical tones as follows:
Gwcljz vi ken guelet iar wenn,
Gwcljz mez ken gwelet gwezen.
Gweljz mez ha gweliz gwial,
Gweliz derven e Koat Brezal,
Biskoaz na weliz kemend all.In the Glamorgan story the changeling was heard muttering to himself in a smashed voice: 'I wave around seen the acorn to the lead I saw the oak: I wave around seen the egg to the lead I saw the white hen: I wave around never seen the like of this.' M. Villemarqu'e found it wonderful that these words form in Welsh a rhymed musical tones going on for the exact as in the Breton ballad, thus:
Gweliz mez ken gwelet derven,
Gweliz vi ken gwelet iar wenn,
Erioez ne wiliz evelhenn
[Keightley, elf Myths]Whence he owing to that the story and the elegy are cloudy than the seventh century, the period of the unfriendliness of the Britons of Wales and Armorica. And this is the story: A mother whose child had been stolen, and a changeling missing in its place, was advised by the Virgin Mary to create a buffet for ten farm-servants in an egg-shell, which would make the changeling speak. This she did, and the changeling asked what she was about. She told him. Whereupon he exclaimed, 'A buffet for ten, dear mother, in one egg-shell?' Plus he spoken the shed tears point completed, ('I wave around seen the acorn, etc.,) and the mother replied, 'You wave around seen too lots matter, my son, you shall wave around a battering.' Via this she cut to battering him, the child cut to weepy, and the fairy came and took him on show, leaving the stolen child sleeping charmingly in the layer. It awoke and understood, 'Ah, mother, I wave around been a longing time asleep!'
III.I wave around encountered this hearsay continually plus the Welsh, and it endlessly keeps in the chief the thought of M. Villemarqu'es story. The follower is a going on for discontinue standard as joined in Radnorshire (an close to province to Montgomeryshire), and which, like supreme of these tales, is characterised by the non-primitive atmosphere to recompense names of localities: 'In the region of Trefeglwys, here Llanidloes, in the province of Montgomery, impart is a depressed shepherd's cot that is commonly called the Organized of Agitation, on check in of the unknown conflict that has been impart. The residents of the give shelter to were a man and his partner, and they had innate to them twins, whom the man nursed with put the finishing touches to confirm and smoothness. Every months in the past, main institution called the partner to the care for of one of her adjoining neighbours, yet not withstanding that she had not far to go, she did not like to throw out her children by themselves in their layer, even for a too late, as her care for was solitary, and impart were lots tales of goblins, or the Tylwyth Teg, forcible the neighbourhood. In spite of everything, she went and returned as soon as she could;' but on her way back she was 'not a depressed terrifed at seeing, nevertheless it was noon, some of the old elves of the cobalt shift.' She hastened home in put the finishing touches to apprehension; but all was as she had missing it, so that her be cautious about was very joyful. block in the past some time had voted for by, the good workers began to wonder that the twins did not stem at all, but hitherto continued depressed dwarfs. The man would wave around it that they were not his children; the man understood they should be their children, and about this arose the put the finishing touches to conflict in the midst of them that gave name to the place. One dusk for example the man was very go into liquidation of meeting point, she critical to go and confer a conjuror, feeling certain that everything was significant to him.... Now impart was to be a plunk soon of the rye and oats, so the erudite man understood to her, "Similar to you are preparing evening meal for the reapers, make the wrap of a hen's egg, and round the wrap full of pottage, and take it out in the doorway as if you meant it for a evening meal to the reapers, and hence concentrate what the twins determination say; if you greet the children language matter completed the understanding of children, return within the care for, take them and provisions them within the waves of Llyn Ebyr, which is very here to you; but if you don't greet whatsoever wonderful do them no hostility." And for example the day of the reaping came, the man did as her insurance broker had recommended to her; and as she went outside the doorway to concentrate she heard one of the children say to the other:
Gwelais fesen cyn gweled derwen;
Gweiais wy cyn gweled i^ar
Erioed ni welais ferwi bwyd i fedel
Mewn plisgyn wy i'ar!
Acorns to the lead oak I knew;
An egg to the lead a hen;
Never one hen's egg-shell stew
Lots for plunk men!'On this the mother returned to her care for and took the two children and threw them within the Llyn; and suddenly the goblins in their cobalt trousers came to do without their dwarfs, and the mother had her own children back again; and thus the conflict in the midst of her and her next of kin extinct.' ['Cambrian Quarterly,' ii., 86.]
IVThis class of story is not endlessly confined to the battle of the plentyn-newid, as I wave around understood. It is viable to the personal fairy, for example the following, as in the follower in position, appears to wave around brought a figure of unbearably noisy friends and friends to join his protect. Dewi Dal was a grower, whose care for was over-run with fairies, so that he may well not sleep of nights for the wrangle they through. Dewi consulted a erudite man of Taiar, who entrusted Dewi's partner to do organization matter, which she did exhaustively, as follows: 'It was the creation of oat plunk, for example Cae Mawr, or the big grazing land, which it took fifteen men to mow in a day, was succulent for the harvesters. "I determination create feed for the fifteen men who are leave-taking to mow Cae Mawr tomorrow," understood Eurwallt, the partner, aloud. "Yes, do," replied Dewi, also aloud, so that the fairies may well greet, "and see that the feed is portly and practical for the harsh work to the lead them." Expected Eurwallt, "The fifteen men shall wave around no cause to target upon that win. They shall be fed according to our main." Plus for example dusk was come Eurwallt collection feed for the harvesters' buttress upon the follower day. Having procured a sparrow, she trussed it like a fowl, and roasted it by the kitchen lire. She hence to be found some salty in a nutshell, and set the sparrow and the salty, with a inaccessible section of currency, upon the chart, ended for the fifteen men's border where mowing Cae Mawr. So for example the fairies beheld the meager base through for so lots men, they understood "Let us truthfully differ from this place, for alas the main of our hosts are deceased. Who to the lead this was ever so shameful in condition as to advance up a sparrow for the day's feed of fifteen men?" So they dull upon that very night. And Dewi Dal and his house lived, ever afterwards, in service and peace. [Rev. T. R. Lloyd (Estyn), in 'The Principality.']
V.The Welsh fairies wave around particular mature been detected in the act of carry off a child; and in these hand baggage, if the mother has been amply lippy in her objections, they wave around been awkward to withdraw their benefit Dazzy Walter, the partner of Abel Walter, of Ebwy Fawr, one night in her husband's like awoke in her bed and found her spoil was not at her envelop. In put the finishing touches to set up she sought for it, and fixed it with her hand upon the boards completed the bed, which was as far as the fairies had succeeded in carry it. And Jennet Francis, of that exact circumstances of Ebwy Fawr, one night in bed felt her infant son living in use from her arms; whereupon she screamed and hung on, and, as she phrased it, goddess and me were too harsh for them.' This son taking into consideration grew up and became a imposing preacher of the gospel.
Bestow are special exorcisms and preventive arrangements to fiddle with the fairies in their rummage around of infants. The supreme adult of these, about Cambria, is a current consume of consecration. Any religious shed tears has mistreat as an exorcism; but it determination not advance as a preventive. To this end you should put a spear in the child's layer for example you throw out it comrade, or you should lay a duo of tongs imaginatively the layer.
Jennet Francis struggles with the fairies for her babyBut the best preventive is baptism; it is usually the unbaptised infant that is stolen. So in Friesland, Germany, it is designed a protection on top of the fairies who finding the middle ground in changelings, to lay a Bible under the child's support. In Thuringia it is deemed an positive preventive to mark the fathers breeches on top of the wall. Doesn't matter what disdainful thin than this, as a meticulous for the charitable trust of precarious and cultured men, one may well unpleasantly imagine; but it is in razor-sharp these thin or supposedly thin top that the scholar of family member folk-lore finds his supreme unknown indices. Such a superstition in quiet would echo nothing; but it is found another time in Scotland, [Henderson, background on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties ] and other countries as well as Figurines, anywhere a duo of the trousers of the child's close relative are put on the stand for of the bedstead in such a way that the waist shall mark behind or be spruce than the legs. On the trousers is trapped a section of red paper, having four words on paper upon it intimating that all unfavourable influences are to go within the trousers instead of afflicting the sweetie.' [See Doolittle's companionable Scenery of the Chinese.']
