Celtic Lore & Legend (19 page)

In times and areas where infantile diseases such as tuberculosis were common, such beliefs often served to explain how a normal-sized, healthy baby turned into a thin, wasted, and crying invalid almost overnight. And if the child were to die (as many of them did), then the idea provided at least some form of solace for the grieving parents. After all, it was not
their
child who had died—he or she was still alive amongst the fairies—but rather some withered ancient thing. If the tiny bodies were later exhumed, it was declared, all that would be found in the coffin was an old and blackened stick.

Of course, parents did not want their children taken at all, so a series of measures and protections was devised to rid the house of these potential “changelings” (a fairy changed for a human being). If a child were suspected of being a changeling, then there were ways of finding out. The most common way was to trick the changeling into revealing its true age, which would be far older than that of a human infant. There were of course more drastic measures—in Ireland, they might be given a mixture of milk and powdered lusmore (foxglove) to drink. Because foxglove is a poison, this only hastened the demise of the unfortunate infant, though it was supposed to burn the entrails out of a fairy creature. Even more drastic was to place the infant on an iron shovel and hold it over an open fire. It was far better, then, to protect the child from being taken in the first place.

Baptism by the Church was the surest way of preventing a child from being “taken,” but in many remote country areas it was maybe a few days before the cleric could attend to perform the ceremony. The child therefore had to be protected during the crucial days directly after birth. Crucifixes and religious ornaments were often placed around the crib to deter the Other People from coming too close; an open pair of scissors might be left at the crib-foot to turn evil powers
back; and there were numerous other deterrents. Open iron tongs from the hearth, for instance, might be left crosswise on the bedding, or an iron nail from a horseshoe could be hidden amongst the bedclothes. (Iron was considered to be anathema to the fairy kind.) As someone who has never been baptized myself, I vaguely remember my grandmother laying an item of my father’s clothes across my bed in order to remind “the fairies and the dead” that I was a human child and my father’s property. This, I think, continued until I was well into my fifth year. Despite these protections, human children might still be “taken away” and a changeling left in their place.

The following selection of changeling stories comes from rural Wales and is found in Reverend Elias Owen’s
Welsh Folk-lore
(published 1896).

by Reverend Elias Owen

Once on a time in the fourteenth century, the wife of a man at Corwrion had twins and she complained one day to the witch who lived close by at Tyddyn y Barcut, that the children were not getting on, but that they were always crying, day and night. “Are you sure that they are your children?” asked the witch, adding that it did not seem to her that they were like hers.

“I have my doubts also,” answered the mother.

“I wonder has somebody changed children with you,” said the witch.

“I don’t know,” said the mother

“But why do you not seek to know?” asked the other.

“But how am I to go about it?” said the mother. The witch replied,

“Go and do something rather strange before their eyes and watch what they will say to one another.”

“Well I do not do what I should do,” said the mother.

“Oh,” said the other “take an egg-shell and proceed to brew beer in it in a chamber aside and come here to tell me what the children will say about it”. She went home and did as the witch had directed her, when the two children lifted their heads out of the cradle to see what she was doing, to watch and to listen. Then one observed to the other—

“I remember seeing an oak having an acorn” to which the other replied: “And I remember seeing a hen having an egg” and one of the two added “But I do not remember before seeing anybody brew beer in the shell of a hen’s egg”

The mother then went to the witch and told her what the twins had said and she directed her to go to a small wooden bridge, not far off, with one of the strange children under each arm and there to drop them from the bridge into the river beneath. The mother then went back home again and did as she had been directed. When she reached home this time to her astonishment she found that her own children had been brought back.

[
Editor’s Note
: This tale is an extremely popular one with many variations all across the Celtic world. In Ireland, it is known as “The Brewery of Eggshells,” where a changeling is driven out by fire from the grate after being tricked into revealing its true age: more than a thousand years old.]

Another version of this tale was related to me by my young friend, the Rev. D.H. Griffiths of Clocaenog Rectory near Ruthlin. The tale was told to him by Evan Roberts, Ffriddagored, Llanfwrog. Mr. Roberts is an aged farmer.

A mother took her child to the gleaning field and left it sleeping under the sheaves of wheat whilst she was busily engaged gleaning. The Fairies came in the field and carried off her pretty baby, leaving in its place one of their own infants. At the time, the mother did not notice any difference between her own child and the one that took its place, but after awhile she observed with grief that the baby she was nursing did not thrive, nor did it grow, nor would it try to walk. She mentioned these facts to her neighbours and was told to do something strange and then listen to its conversation. She took an eggshell and pretended to brew beer in it and she was surprised to hear the child who had observed her actions intently, say:

Mi welais fesan gan dderwen,
Mi welais wy gan iar
Ond ni welais I eriod ddarllaw
Mewn cinyn wy iar.

I have seen an oak having an acorn,
I have seen a hen having an egg
But I never saw before brewing
In the shell of a hen’s egg.

This conversation proved the origin of the precocious child who lay in the cradle. The stanza seems to have been taken down from Roberts’ lips. But he would not say what was done to the fairy changeling.

In Ireland, a plan for reclaiming the child carried away by the Fairies was to take the Fairy’s changeling and place it on the top of a dunghill, and then to chant certain innovatory lines beseeching the Fairies to return the stolen child.

There was, it would seem, in Wales, a certain form of incantation resorted to reclaim children from the Fairies, which is as follows—The mother who had lost her child was to carry
the changeling to a river but she was to be accompanied by a conjuror, who was to take a prominent part in the ceremony. When at the river’s brink the conjuror was to cry out:

Crap ar y wrach—

A grip on the bag

And the mother was to respond—

Rhy hwyr gyfraglach

Too late decrepit one

And having uttered these words, she was to throw the child into the stream and to depart and it was believed that on reaching her home she would find her own child, safe and sound.

I will now relate a tale somewhat resembling those already given but in this latter case, the supposed changeling became the mainstay of the family. I am indebted for the
Gors Goch
legend to an essay written by Mr. D Williams, Llanfachreth, Merionethshire which took the prize at the Liverpool Eisteddfod 1870 and which appears in a publication called
Y Gordofigion
published by Mr. I Foulkes, Liverpool.

This tale, rendered into English is as follows—There was once a happy family living in a place called Gors Goch. One night, as usual, they went to bed but they could not sleep a single wink, because of the noise outside the house. At last, the master of the house got up and trembling enquired: What was there and what was wanted. A clear sweet voice answered him this:

“We want a warm place where we can tidy the children.” The door was opened when there entered half-full the house of the
Tylwyth Teg
(Welsh fairies) and they began forthwith washing their children. And when they had finished, the commenced singing and the singing was entrancing. The dancing
and singing were both excellent. On going away, they left behind them money, not a little for the use of the house. And afterward they came pretty often to the house and received a hearty welcome in consequence of the large presents which they left behind them on the hob. But at last a sad affair took place which was no less than the exchange of children. The Gors Goch baby was a dumpy child, a sweet, pretty, affectionate little dear, but the child which was left in its stead was a sickly, thin, shapeless, ugly being which did nothing but cry and eat, though it ate ravenously like a mastiff, it did not grow. At last the wife of Gors Goch died of a broken heart and so did all her children but the father lived a long life and became a rich man, because his new heirs family had brought him abundance of gold and silver

The wife of Garth Uchaf, Llanuwchllyn, went out one day to make hay and left her baby in the cradle.
Unfortunately she did not place the tongs crossways on the cradle
, and consequently the Fairies changed her baby and by the time she came home there was nothing in the cradle but some old decrepit changeling which looked as if it was half famished but, nevertheless, it was nursed.

The reason why the Fairies exchanged babies with human beings was their desire to obtain healthy well-formed children in the place of their own puny, ill-shaped offspring but this is hardly a satisfactory explanation of such conduct. A mother’s love is ever depicted as being so intense that deformity on the part of her child rather increases then diminishes her affection for her unfortunate babe. There was once thought that the Fairies were obliged every seventh year to pay the great enemy of mankind an offering of one of their own children or a human child instead and as a mother is ever a mother whether she be elve’s flesh or Eve’s flesh, she always endeavoured to
substitute some one else’s child for her own, and hence the reason for exchanging children.

The Rev. Peter Roberts’s theory was that the smaller race kidnapped the children of the stronger race who occupied the country concurrently with themselves for the purpose of adding to their own strength as a people.

Gay, in lines quoted in
Brand’s Popular Antiquities
, laughs at the idea of changelings. A Fairy’s tongue ridicules the superstition:

Whence sprung the vain conceited lye,
That we the world with fools supply,
What! Give our sprightly race away
For the dull, hapless sons of clay.
Besides, by partial fondness shows
Like you we dote upon our own.
Where ever yet was found a mother
Who’d give her booby for another?
And should we change with human breed
Well might we pass for fools indeed.

With the above fine satire I bring my remarks on Fairy Changelings to a close.

For the ancient Celts, death was a transition from one form of existence into another: from the material world that we know and experience every day to a mystical Otherworld that lay just outside our realm of consciousness. This transition from one reality to another was accomplished in a number of ways. The dying person could be carried off by beautiful maidens, as in the death of the Celtic King Arthur, or he or she could be carried off by dark horsemen, who appear in several Irish and Manx tales.

The most common method for carrying off the souls of the dead in Ireland, Scotland, and Brittany, however, was the “death coach,” a fearsome vehicle that traveled about the night-bound roads, collecting the spirits of those who had died to take them to the Otherworld (and during the Christian period to Paradise or Hell). In Ireland, it was known as the “coshta-bodhr” (coach-a-bower) or “deaf coach,” as it’s passing made no sound—although this wasn’t always the case. Sometimes, the thing rumbled along so fast along the Irish roads that it set the very bushes along the roadsides on fire. It was a conveyance that inspired awe and terror.

In Brittany, this horrible vehicle was no more than a creaking cart, loaded with the souls of the dead and driven by a creature known as the Ankou. Explanations as to what this being actually was vary from place to place. In some areas of Brittany, he is the Lord of the Dead, responsible for the safekeeping of the dead until they receive their Ultimate Reward; in order regions, he is a ghost or specter. He is always the embodiment of Death or Father Time.

The following account of the Ankolu—possibly the best that there is—is taken from Breton writer and folklorist Anatole Le Braz’s (1859–1926) seminal work on Breton death and the supernatural,
La Legende de la mort en Basse-Britagne, croyances et usages des Bretons armoricaines
(published in Paris in 1893).

by Anatole Le Braz

In many places, the last one to die in each year becomes the Ankou; in a few places it is the first one to die.

When there have been more deaths than usual in a year, they say the Ankou is a wicked one.

Sometimes they depict the Ankou as a tall, thin man with long white hair and a face shaded by a large felt hat; sometimes in the form of a skeleton draped in a shroud, and whose head turns continuously, just like a weather cock, so that he can see all the region he has to cover at a single glance.

In one case or the other he holds a scythe. It differs from ordinary scythes in having its blade turned the other way round, so that when he uses it, instead of bringing it towards him, he pushes it forward.

The Ankou’s coach is like the ones they used in the old days for transporting the dead.

It is usually pulled by two horses harnessed in line. The one in front is thin, emaciated and scarcely able to stand on its feet. The one behind is fat, with a shiny coat, and without a collar.