became a perfect
plague; no amount of food or drink would satisfy it, and yet withal it
became lean. The _girn_, my informant said, was never out its face, and
it _yammered_ on night and day. One day an old highland woman having
seen the child, and inspected it carefully, affirmed that it was a fairy
child. She went the length of offering to put the matter to the test,
and this is how she tested it. She put the poker in the fire, and hung a
pot over the fire wherein were put certain ingredients, an incantation
being said as each new ingredient was stirred into the pot. The child
was quiet during these operations, and watched like a grown person all
that was being done, even rising upon its elbow to look. When the
operations were completed, the old woman took the poker out of the fire,
and carrying it red hot over to the cradle, was about to burn the sign
of the cross on the baby's brow, when the child sprung suddenly up,
knocked the old woman down and disappeared up the _lum_ (chimney,)
filling the house with smoke, and leaving behind it a strong smell of
brimstone. When the smoke cleared away, the true baby was found in the
cradle sleeping as if it never had been taken away. Another case was
related to me as having occurred in the same neighbourhood, but in this
instance the theft was not discovered until after the death of the
child. The surreptitious or false baby, having apparently died, was
buried; but suspicion having been raised, the grave was opened and the
coffin examined, when there was found in it, not a corpse, but a wooden
figure. The late Mr. Rust, in his _Druidism Exhumed_, states that this
superstition is common in the North of Scotland, and adds that it is
also believed that if the theft be discovered before the apparent death
of the changling, there are means whereby the fairies may be propitiated
and induced to restore the real baby. One of these methods is the
following:--The parents or friends of the stolen baby must take the
fairy child to some known haunt of the fairies, generally some spot
where peculiar _soughing_ sounds are heard, where there are remains of
some ancient cairn or stone circle, or some green mound or shady dell,
and lay the child down there, repeating certain incantations. They must
also place beside it a quantity of bread, butter, milk, cheese, eggs,
and flesh of fowl, then retire to a distance and wait for an hour or
two, or until after midnight. If on going back to where the ch