f local information and other
assistance which they have spared no pains to render me, and to the Town
Clerk of Coventry for permission to inspect the invaluable local
manuscripts belonging to the Corporation.

CHAPTER V.

CHANGELINGS.

The belief in changelings--Precautions against changing--Motives
assigned for changing--Attempts frustrated--How changelings may
be known--Their physical characteristics--Devices to lead them to
betray themselves--Their subsequent treatment--Journey to
Fairyland to fetch back the true child--Adult changelings.

A new-born babe, of all human beings the most helpless, has always
roused compassion and care. Nor is it a matter for wonder if its
helplessness against physical dangers have led to the assumption that it
is exposed to spiritual or supernatural evils more than its elders. At
all events it seems a widespread superstition that a babe, when first it
makes its appearance in this world, must be protected not merely against
the natural perils of its condition, but also against enemies of an even
more subtle and fearful description. The shape taken by this
superstition in north-western Europe is the belief in Changelings--a
belief which I propose to examine in the present chapter.[60]

By the belief in changelings I mean a belief that fairies and other
imaginary beings are on the watch for young children, or (as we shall
see hereafter) sometimes even for adults, that they may, if they can
find them unguarded, seize and carry them off, leaving in their place
one of themselves, or a block of wood animated by their enchantments and
made to resemble the stolen person. Wise mothers take precautions
against such thefts. These precautions are tolerably simple, and for the
most part display the same general character. First and foremost among
them is the rite of baptism, whereby the little one is admitted into the
Christian Church. Faith in the efficacy of baptism as a protection from
the powers hostile to man is not less strong among communities nominally
Protestant than among Roman Catholics, and has doubtless operated to
bring many children within the pale of the visible Church who might
otherwise have been long in reaching that sacred enclosure. Examples of
the belief in the power of baptism against the depredations of fairies
could easily be cited from all Protestant countries. Without doing this,
we may just pause to note that baptism was also reckoned