so that they almost turned skeletons, the common people imagine they are taken away (at least the substance) by spirits, called Fairies, and the shadow left with them; so, at a particular season in summer, they leave them all night themselves, watching at a distance, near this well, and this they imagine will either end or mend them; they say many more do recover than do not.  Yea, an honest tenant who lives hard by it, and whom I had the curiosity to discourse about it, told me it has recovered some, who were about eight or nine years of age, and to his certain knowledge they bring adult persons to it; for, as he was passing one dark night, he heard groanings, and coming to the well, he found a man, who had been long sick, wrapped in a plaid, so that he could scarcely move, a stake being fixed in the earth, with a rope, or tedder, that was about the plaid; he had no sooner enquired what he was, but he conjured him to loose him, and out of sympathy he was pleased to slacken that, wherein he was, as I may so speak, swaddled; but, if I right remember, he signified, he did not recover.”—­Account of the Parish of Suddie, apud Macfarlane’s MSS.

According to the earlier doctrine, concerning the original corruption of human nature, the power of daemons over infants had been long reckoned considerable, in the period intervening between birth and baptism.  During this period, therefore, children were believed to be particularly liable to abstraction by the Fairies, and mothers chiefly dreaded the substitution of changelings in the place of their own offspring.  Various monstrous charms existed in Scotland, for procuring the restoration of a child, which had been thus stolen; but the most efficacious of them was supposed to be, the roasting of the suppositious child upon the live embers, when it was believed it would vanish, and the true child appear in the place, whence it had been originally abstracted.[A]

[Footnote A:  Less perilous recipes were sometimes used.  The editor is possessed of a small relique, termed by tradition a toad-stone, the influence of which was supposed to preserve pregnant women from the power of daemons, and other dangers incidental to their situation.  It has been carefully preserved for several generations, was often pledged for considerable sums of money, and uniformly redeemed, from a belief in its efficacy.]

The most minute and authenticated account of an exchanged child is to be found in Waldron’s Isle of Man, a book from which I have derived much legendary information.  “I was prevailed upon myself,” says that author, “to go and see a child, who, they told me, was one of these changelings, and, indeed, must own, was not a little surprised, as well as shocked, at the sight.  Nothing under heaven could have a more beautiful face; but, though between five and six years old, and seemingly healthy, he was so far from being able to walk or stand, that he could not so much as move any one joint; his limbs were vastly