the elves and to become united
with them, and on the other hand by obtaining the milk and fostering
care of human mothers for their own offspring. Doubts have been
expressed by the German poet and mythologist, Karl Simrock, whether this
was the primitive motive. He suggests that originally these spirits were
looked upon as wholly beneficent, and even the theft of children was
dictated by their care for the best interests of mankind. Nor does he
hesitate to lay it down that the selfish designs just mentioned were
first attributed to them when with growing enlightenment the feeling
manifested itself that the kindly beings were falling into decay.[68]

It might be sufficient to reply that no spiritual existences imagined by
men in a state of civilization such as surrounded our Celtic and
Teutonic forefathers were ever regarded as unswervingly benevolent:
caprice and vindictiveness, if not cruelty, are always elements of their
character. Beyond this general consideration, however, there is a
further and conclusive answer in the fact that there is no warrant in
tradition for the supposition that could we penetrate to the oldest
strata of mythical belief we should not discover selfish designs imputed
to "the good people." The distinguished commentator himself is bound to
admit that the belief in their need of human help is entwined in the
very roots of the Teutonic myths. It is, indeed, nothing but the
mediaeval and Teutonic form of tenets common to all the nations upon
earth. The changeling superstition and the classic stories of children
and adults beloved by gods of high and low degree are consistent with
this belief, and inseparable from it. The motive is so far
comprehensible: what is wanted is to know whether any special relations,
such as are pointed at by the Greek epithet _Drakos_, were held to exist
between the mysterious world and newly-born babes which would render the
latter more obnoxious to attack than elder children or adults; or
whether, as I have put it at the beginning of this chapter, their
helplessness alone suggested their exceeding danger. To solve the riddle
we must wait for a larger accumulation of documents.[69]

But in the best regulated families it is not always possible to prevent
the abduction from being attempted, and sometimes accomplished, in spite
of every precaution. One night a Welsh woman, waking in a fright in her
husband's absence, missed her baby. She sought for it and caught it upon