d never seen any one brew in
a nutshell before. 'If you are as old as that,' said the wife, 'you
can go elsewhere;' and she took the broom-stick and beat the
changeling until it ran away, and as it ran he caught his feet in his
hands and rolled away over hill and dale so long as they could see it.
This story has a variation that they made a sausage with the skin,
bones, and bristles of a pig, and gave the changeling, who made the
same exclamation, with the result as I have before related. There is
also another variation, where the changeling is got rid of by heating
the oven red hot and putting it into the oven, when the Trold mother
appears and snatches it out, and disappears with her child."

"The superstition would appear to have arisen from children being
affected with diseases which were not understood," said Hardy.

"We can only speculate," said the Pastor, "in these subjects; the
origin is lost in the mists of time. There is one story of a
changeling that has some graphic incidents. When a child is born, a
light is always kept burning in the mother's room until the child is
baptized, as the Trolds may come and steal it. This was not done at a
place in North Jutland, because the mother could not sleep with the
light burning. The father therefore determined to hold the child in
his arms, so long as it was dark in the room, but he fell asleep;
shortly after he was aroused, and he saw a tall woman standing by the
bed, and found that he had two children in his arms. The woman
vanished, but the children remained, and he did not know which was his
own. He consulted a wise woman, who advised him to get an unbroken
horse colt, who would indicate the changeling. Both children were
placed on the ground, and the colt smelt at them; one he licked, but
the other he kicked at. It was therefore plain which was the
changeling. The Trold mother came running up, snatched the child away,
and disappeared."

"The advice of the wise woman was clever. It is, as you say, a graphic
story," said Hardy. "But who were the wise women?"

"There were both men and women. They were called Kloge Maend and Kloge
Koner, or wise men and wise wives. They pretended to heal diseases, to
find things lost or stolen, and the like. They were often called white
witches, as in England. There was a man called Kristen, who pretended
to have wonderful powers. A certain Bonde did not believe in him, and
one day told him that he had a sow possessed with a devi