In order to compel a re-exchange, directions are given
to bind with a weed growing at the bottom of the lake and to beat with a
rod of the same, calling out therewithal: "Take thine own and bring me
mine." A mother in a Little Russian tale had a baby of extraordinary
habits. When alone, he jumped out of the cradle, no longer a baby but a
bearded old man, gobbled up the food out of the stove, and then lay down
again a screeching babe. A wise woman who was consulted placed him on a
block of wood and began to chop the block under his feet. He screeched
and she chopped; he screeched and she chopped; until he became an old
man again and made the enigmatical confession: "I have transformed
myself not once nor twice only. I was first a fish, then I became a
bird, an ant, and a quadruped, and now I have once more made trial of
being a human being. It isn't better thus than being among the ants; but
among human beings--it isn't worse!" Here the chopping was evidently a
threat to kill. Nor, if we may trust the stories, was this threat always
an empty one. The changeling fashioned out of a broom in the Lithuanian
story already cited, was disposed of, by the parish priest's advice, by
hewing its head off. The reason given by the holy man was that it was
not yet four and twenty hours old, and it would not be really alive
until the expiration of that time. Accordingly when the neck was severed
nothing but a wisp of straw was found inside, though blood flowed as if
there were veins.[91]

But even more truculent methods are represented by the story-tellers as
resorted to free the afflicted household. Nothing short of fire is
often deemed sufficient for the purpose. There were various methods of
applying it. Sometimes we are told of a shovel being made red-hot and
held before the child's face; sometimes he is seated on it and flung out
into the dung-pit, or into the oven; or again, the poker would be heated
to mark the sign of the cross on his forehead, or the tongs to take him
by the nose. Or he is thrown bodily on the fire, or suspended over it in
a creel or a pot; and in the north of Scotland the latter must be hung
from a piece of the branch of a hazel tree. In this case we are told
that if the child screamed it was a changeling, and it was held fast to
prevent its escape. Generally, however, it is related that the elf
flies up the chimney, and when safely at the top he stops to make
uncomplimentary remarks upon his persecutors. In