n grim scheme of things. "Such
changelings and killcrops," he goes on to say, "_supponit Satan in locum
verorum filiorum_; for the devil hath this power, that he changeth
children, and instead thereof layeth devils in the cradles, which thrive
not, only they feed and suck: but such changelings live not above
eighteen or nineteen years. It sometimes falleth out that the children
of women in child-bed are thus changed, and Devils laid in their stead,
one of which more fouleth itself than ten other children do, so that
the parents are much therewith disquieted; and the mothers in such sort
are sucked out, that afterwards they are able to give suck no more."[77]

Making allowance for the influence of imagination, there can be no
doubt, on comparison of these passages, that the children to whom the
character of changelings was ascribed were invariably deformed or
diseased. The delightful author of the "Popular Romances of the West of
England" says that some thirty or forty years before the date of writing
he had seen several reputed changelings. And his evidence is express
that "in every case they have been sad examples of the influence of
mesenteric disease." After describing their external symptoms, he adds:
"The wasted frame, with sometimes strumous swellings, and the unnatural
abdominal enlargement which accompanies disease of mesenteric glands,
gives a very sad, and often a most unnatural, appearance to the
sufferer." Professor Rhys' description of a reputed changeling, one
Ellis Bach, of Nant Gwrtheyrn, in Carnarvonshire, is instructive as
showing the kind of being accredited among the Welsh with fairy nature.
The professor is repeating the account given to him of this poor
creature, who died nearly half a century ago. He tells us: "His father
was a farmer, whose children, both boys and girls, were like ordinary
folks, excepting Ellis, who was deformed, his legs being so short that
his body seemed only a few inches from the ground when he walked. His
voice was also small and squeaky. However, he was very sharp, and could
find his way among the rocks pretty well when he went in quest of his
father's sheep and goats, of which there used to be plenty there
formerly. Everybody believed Ellis to have been a changeling, and one
saying of his is well known in that part of the country. When strangers
visited Nant Gwrtheyrn, a thing which did not frequently happen, and
when his parents asked them to their table, and pressed them