e writer that he could reveal strange doings of the Fairies in
his neighbourhood, for often had they changed children with even
well-to-do families, he said, but more he would not say, lest he should
injure those prosperous families.

It was believed that the Fairies were particularly busy in exchanging
children on _Nos Wyl Ifan_, or St. John's Eve.

There were, however, effectual means for protecting children from their
machinations. The mother's presence, the tongs placed cross-ways on the
cradle, the early baptism of the child, were all preventives. In the
Western Isles of Scotland fire carried round a woman before she was
churched, and round the child until he was christened, daily, night and
morning, preserved both from the evil designs of the Fairies. (Brand,
vol. ii, p. 486.) And it will be shortly shewn that even after an
exchange had been accomplished there were means of forcing the Fairies to
restore the stolen child.

It can well be believed that mothers who had sickly or idiotic babies
would, in uncivilized places, gladly embrace the idea that the child she
nursed was a changeling, and then, naturally enough, she would endeavour
to recover her own again. The plan adopted for this purpose was
extremely dangerous. I will in the following tales show what steps were
taken to reclaim the lost child.

Pennant records how a woman who had a peevish child acted to regain from
the Fairies her own offspring. His words are:--"Above this is a
spreading oak of great antiquity, size, and extent of branches; it has
got the name of _Fairy Oak_. In this very century (the eighteenth) a
poor cottager, who lived near the spot, had a child who grew uncommonly
peevish; the parents attributed this to the _Fairies_, and imagined that
it was a changeling. They took the child, put it into a cradle, and left
it all night beneath the tree, in hopes that the _Tylwyth Teg_, or _Fairy
Family_, or the Fairy folk, would restore their own before the morning.
When morning came, they found the child perfectly quiet, so went away
with it, quite confirmed in their belief."--_History of Whiteford_, pp.
5, 6.

These people by exposing their infant for a night to the elements ran a
risk of losing it altogether; but they acted in agreement with the
popular opinion, which was that the Fairies had such affection for their
own children that they would not allow them to be in any danger of losing
their life, and that if the elfin child were