the
oven-broom. Then they began to quarrel which of them should carry the
broom thus rolled up into the bedroom; and as they were unable to agree
they resolved to carry it together. No sooner had they disappeared into
the inner apartment than the boy leaped out of bed, picked up his
mistress' child and took it into his own bed. When the _laumes_ returned
the infant was not to be found. They were both very angry and began to
scold one another: "It's your fault." "No, it's your fault; didn't I
say, You carry it, while I stay here and keep watch? I said it would be
stolen!" While they wrangled thus, kakary ku! crew the cock, and, foiled
and enraged, they had to make off. The boy had great difficulty in
wakening his mistress, who was in a deep sleep, dreaming a horrible
dream that a stock of wood had been placed on her breast so that she
could hardly breathe. He told her what had happened, but she would not
believe it until she saw that she had _two_ children--one to which she
had given birth, the other fashioned out of the oven-broom.[71]

Prayer and the utterance of a holy name are to the full as effectual as
physical strength. A fisherwoman in the north-east of Scotland was once
left alone in bed with her baby, when in came a little man dressed in
green, and proceeded to lay hold of the child. The woman knew at once
with whom she had to do, and ejaculated: "God be atween you an' me!" Out
rushed the fairy in a moment, and mother and babe were left without
further molestation. A curious tale is told of two Strathspey smugglers
who were one night laying in a stock of whiskey at Glenlivat when they
heard the child in the cradle give a piercing cry, just as if it had
been shot. The mother, of course, blessed it; and the Strathspey lads
took no further notice, and soon afterwards went their way with their
goods. Before they had gone far they found a fine healthy child lying
all alone on the roadside, and recognized it as their friend's. They saw
at once how the affair stood. The fairies had taken away the real infant
and left a stock; but owing to the pious ejaculation of the mother, they
had been forced to drop it. As the urgency of their business did not
admit of their return they took the child with them, and kept it until
they went to Glenlivat again. On their arrival here they said nothing
about the child, which they kept concealed. In the course of
conversation the woman remarked that the disease which had attacked the
l