recognized by tricky habits, constant
crying, and other unusual characteristics. It was customary to
recover the true child in the following way: The changeling was
placed upon an iron shovel over the fire, when it would go shrieking
up the chimney, and the _bona fide_ human child would be restored. It
was believed that fairy changelings often produced a set of small
bagpipes from under the clothes and played dance music upon them,
till the inmates of the cottage dropped with exhaustion from the
effects of the step dancing they were compelled to engage in.

On Samain eve, the night before the first of November, or, as it is
now called, All Hallows' night or Hallowe'en, all the fairy hills or
_shees_ are thrown wide open and the fairy host issues forth, as
mortals who are bold enough to venture near may see. Naturally
therefore people keep indoors so as not to encounter the spectral
host. The superstition that the fairies are abroad on Samain night
still exists in Ireland and Scotland, and there is a further belief,
no doubt derived from it, that the graves are open on that night and
that the spirits of the dead are abroad.

Salt, as already suggested, is regarded to be so lucky that if a
child falls, it should always be given three pinches of salt, and if
a neighbor calls to borrow salt, it should not be refused, even
though it be the last grain in the house.

An infant born with teeth should have them drawn by the nearest
smith, and the first teeth when shed should be thrown into the fire,
lest the fairies should get hold of what had been part of you.

Those who hear fairy music are supposed to be haunted by the melody,
and many are believed to go mad or commit suicide in consequence.

The fairies are thought to engage in warfare with one another, and in
the year 1800 a specially sanguinary battle was believed to have been
fought between two clans of the fairies in county Kilkenny. In the
morning the hawthorns along the fences were found crushed to pieces
and drenched with blood.

In popular belief fairies often go hunting, and faint sounds of fairy
horns, the baying of fairy hounds, and the cracking of fairy whips
are supposed to be heard on these occasions, while the flight of the
hunters is said to resemble in sound the humming of bees.

Besides the life-sized fairies who are reputed to have these direct
dealings with human beings, there are diminutive preternatural beings
who are also supposed to come into