ct moral teaching which made the Fairies, according
to the testimony of Giraldus, truthful, void of ambition, and honest.

It must, however, be confessed, that there is much that is mythical in
these legends, and every part cannot well be made to correspond with
ordinary human transactions.

It is somewhat amusing to note how modern ideas, and customs, are mixed
up with these ancient stories. They undoubtedly received a gloss from
the ages which transmitted the tales.

In the next chapter I shall treat of another phase of Fairy Folk-lore,
which will still further connect the Fair Race with their conquerors.

FAIRY CHANGELINGS.

It was firmly believed, at one time, in Wales, that the Fairies exchanged
their own weakly or deformed offspring for the strong children of
mortals. The child supposed to have been left by the Fairies in the
cradle, or elsewhere, was commonly called a changeling. This faith was
not confined to Wales; it was as common in Ireland, Scotland, and
England, as it was in Wales. Thus, in Spenser's _Faery Queen_, reference
is made in the following words to this popular error:--

And her base Elfin brood there for thee left;
Such, men do chaungelings call, so chaung'd by Faeries theft.

_Faery Queen_, Bk. I, c. 10.

The same superstition is thus alluded to by Shakespeare:--

A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king,
She never had so sweet a changeling.

_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act II., Sc. 1.

And again, in another of his plays, the Fairy practice of exchanging
children is mentioned:--

O, that it could be prov'd,
That some night-tripping Fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children, where they lay,
And call'd mine, Percy, his Plantagenet:
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.

_Henry IV_., Pt. 1., Act I, Sc. 1.

In Scotland and other countries the Fairies were credited with stealing
unbaptized infants, and leaving in their stead poor, sickly, noisy, thin,
babies. But to return to Wales, a poet in _Y Brython_, vol. iii, p. 103,
thus sings:--

Llawer plentyn teg aeth ganddynt,
Pan y cym'rynt helynt hir;
Oddi ar anwyl dda rieni,
I drigfanau difri dir.

Many a lovely child they've taken,
When long and bitter was the pain;
From their parents, loving, dear,
To the Fairies' dread domain.

John Williams, an old man, who lived in the Penrhyn quarry district,
informed th