them, and the mother receives her own again. In
other tales she drops the twins into the river; but in one case the
witch who has been credited with the change bathes the child at a
mountain spout, or _pistyll_, and exacts a promise from the mother to
duck him in cold water every morning for three months. It is not very
surprising to learn that "at the end of that time there was no finer
infant in the Cwm."[94]

There is an oft-quoted passage in Luther's "Table Talk," in which he
relates that he told the Prince of Anhalt that if he were prince he
would venture _homicidium_ upon a certain changeling with which he had
been brought into contact, and throw it into the river Moldaw. The great
Reformer was only on a level with his countrymen in their superstitions
in reference to changelings, or Killcrops, as they were then called. I
have already quoted his opinion of them as devils; and the test of their
true nature, which he seems to have thought infallible, was their
inordinate appetite; nor did he attach any value to baptism as a means
of exorcism. One excellent tale he tells on the subject concerns a
peasant who lived near Halberstadt, in Saxony. This good man, in
accordance with advice, was taking the child to Halberstadt to be rocked
at the shrine of the Virgin Mary, when in crossing a river another devil
that was below in the river called out "Killcrop! Killcrop!" Then, says
Luther, the child in the basket, that had never before spoken one word,
answered "Ho, ho!" The devil in the water asked, "Whither art thou
going?" and the child replied, "I am going to Halberstadt to our Loving
Mother, to be rocked." In his fright the man threw the basket containing
the child over the bridge into the water, whereupon the two devils flew
away together and cried "Ho, ho, ha!" tumbling themselves one over
another, and so vanished.[95] This may be taken as a type of many a
story current in North Germany and the neighbouring Slavonic lands. It
is not, however, unknown in this country. Mr. Hunt has versified a
Cornish tale in which the mother took her brat to the chapel well to
plunge it at dawn and pass it round slowly three times _against_ the
sun, as she had been advised to do on the first three Wednesdays in the
month of May. Reaching the top of the hill on one of these occasions,
she heard a shrill voice in her ear: "Tredrill, Tredrill! thy wife and
children greet thee well." The little one of course replied, much to her
astonishme