Brownies and Bogles
he Korrigans had a fear that their frail race was dying out, and sought to steal hearty young children, and leave the wee, bright, sickly "changeling," or ex-changeling, in its pl
ect that they had not quite the immortality they boasted. However, we pass it by, sure at least that the philosopher who first observed the merry goblins to be at bottom wavering and di
little beings, in their fantastic dress, flew east and west on an anxious hunt for human children, who might be captured and delivered over to bondage instead. And they crept cautiously to many a cradle, and having secured the sleeping innocent, "plucked the nodding nurse by the nos
e of herself, she suddenly awoke to this view of the case: that the dwindled babe was her babe no longer, but a miserable young gosling from Fairyland slipped
and restore the rightful heir again. They were not especially polite to the poor changeling. In Denmark, and in Ireland as well, they dandled him on a hot shovel! If he were really a changeling, the fairies, rather than see him singed, we
ilky-haired, and (what was unusual) with the fairest face under heaven; that it was not able to walk nor to move a joint, seldom smiled, ate scarcely anything, and never spoke nor cried; but that if you called it a fairy-elf, it fixed its gaze on you as if
r manage a musical instrument. There was an Irish changeling, the youngest of five sons, who, being teased, snatched a bagpipe from a visitor, and played upon it in the most accomplished and melting manner, sitti
AN IRISH C
d) who at first was exactly like the absent nursling, but soon grew ugly, shrivelled, biting, wailing, cunning and ill-tempered. In the hope of proving whether
FORE THE OAK
uch perplexed over what she took to be a changeling, was advised to cook a meal for ten farm-servants in one egg-shell. When the queer little creature, burning with curiosity, asked her from his high-chair what she was about, she could hardly answer, so excited was she to hear him speak. At that he cried louder: "A meal for ten, dear mother, in one egg-shell? The acorn before the oak have I seen, and the wildern
than when they were taken from home. And if they appointed a changeling in the meantime (which they were not very apt to do) it never showed its elfi
e. They used to stalk in among church congregation
ne Lucas Jacobso
e latter was a complete stranger, and the woman was sore worried; and went to walk in the woods to ease her anxious and aching he
the gude d
ty Stoorie
she hurried with a cry of fear; like the Austrian dwarf Kruzimügeli, the "dear Ekke Nekkepem" of Friesland, and many another
NT VOICE SINGIN
Spain, Finland, Brittainy, Japan, and a dozen other kingdoms, and seems to be as old as the Odyssey. Do you remember where Ulysses tells the Cyclop that his name is Outis, which means Nobody? and how, after the eye
NSE
s his elfin playfellow to be. So Alan tells the sprite that his name is "My Ainsel," and gets the better of it. For bye-and-bye they wax very frisky and friendly, and right in the middle of their sport, when little Alan pokes the fire, and gets a spark by chance on Ainsel's foot, and when he roars with pain, and the old fairy-mother appears instantly, crying ang