[59] I am indebted to Mr. Samuel Timmins, F.S.A., and to Mr. W. G. Fretton, F.S.A., for a great amount of 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.
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 a remedy for disease. This is doubtless a relic of the old creed which refers all human ailments to witchcraft and other spiritualistic origins. Mr. Henderson, speaking of the notion prevalent in the north of England that sickly infants never thrive until they are christened, relates a story communicated to him by a clergyman, within whose personal knowledge it had happened. He says: "The infant child of a chimney-sweeper at Thorne, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was in a very weak state of health, and appeared to be pining away. A neighbour looked in, and inquired if the child had been baptized. On an answer being given in the negative, she gravely said, 'I would try having it christened.' The counsel was taken, and I believe with success." The same belief is found both in North and South Wales. It is also testified to by a Scottish clergyman, who moreover adduces the following conversation as illustrative of it and of "an undefinable sort of awe about unbaptized infants, as well as an idea of uncanniness in having them without baptism in the house," which is entertained among the labouring classes in the north-east of Scotland. "Oh, sir," said the wife of a working man to the minister, on asking him to baptize her child along with others, whose mothers were present, "this registration's the warst thing the queentry ever saw; it sud be deen awa' wee athegeethir!" "Why?" asked the minister, in astonishment at the woman's words and earnestness of manner. "It'll pit oot kirsnin athegeethir. Ye see the craitirs gets their names, an we jist think that aneuch, an' we're in nae hurry sennin for you." How far, as this anecdote dimly suggests, it was the giving of a name which was supposed to protect a child, I cannot say: more probably it was the dedication to God involved in baptism. This is countenanced by the precaution said to have been observed in Nithsdale when a pretty child was born to consecrate it to God, and sue for its protection by "taking the Beuk" and other acts of prayer and devotion.[61]