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In this issue: Changelings in Denmark Mum Foils Troll to recover baby Mysterious Hump appears on man Young Boy Fathers 18 elves

TOP STORY:

Clever Mum Foils Troll

Mrs. Abby Wisenheart from Clansberry reports that she cleverly implemented a scheme to recapture her true born child from the clutches of troll abduction. The changeling was got rid of in the following manner. The mother, suspecting it to be such from its refusing food, and being so ill-thriven, heated the oven as hot as possible. The maid, as instructed, asked her why she did it.
"To burn my child in it to death," was the reply.
When the question had been put and answered three times, she placed the child on the peel, and was shoving it into the oven, when the troll-woman came in a great fright with the real child, and took away her own, saying, "There's your child for you. I have treated it better than you treated mine," and in truth it was fat and hearty.

Changeling Report from Denmark

There lived once, near Tis Lake, two lonely people, who were sadly plagued with a changeling, given them by the underground people instead of their own child, which had not been baptized in time.
This changeling behaved in a very strange and uncommon manner, for when there was no one in the place, he was in great spirits, ran up the walls like a cat, sat under the roof, and shouted and bawled away lustily; but sat dozing at the end of the table when anyone was in the room with him.
He was able to eat as much as any four, and never cared what it was that was set before him; but though he regarded not the quality of his food, in quantity he was never satisfied, and gave excessive annoyance to everyone in the house.
When they had tried for a long time in vain how they could best get rid of him since there was no living in the house with him, a smart girl pledged herself that she would banish him from the house. She accordingly, while he was out in the fields, took a pig and killed it, and put it, hide, hair, and all, into a black pudding, and set it before him when he came home.
He began, as was his custom, to gobble it up, but when he had eaten for some time, he began to relax a little in his efforts, and at last he sat quite still, with his knife in his hand, looking at the pudding. At length, after sitting for some time in this manner, he began: "A pudding with hide! And a pudding with legs in it! Well, three times have I seen a young wood by Tis Lake, but never yet did I see such a pudding! The devil himself may stay here now for me!"
So saying, he ran off with himself, and never more came back again.

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Notes:

* Source: Thomas Keightley, Fairy Mythology (1850), pp. 125-126.

* Tis Lake (Danish: Tisø) is a prominent lake on the island of Zealand (Danish: Sjælland), and is featured in many legends.

Have you seen this goblin? Last seen hiding in the rushes by Cragmore Pond. Suspected of threanening to "git" Johnny Moorechild if he "dint say 'is prayers". Identifying features: six toes on each foot and unusually pointed ears even for a goblin. Do not attempt to apprehend!
Call the Cragmore police with information.

 The Fairies and the Hump-Back

Scotland

A man who was a hump-back once met the fairies dancing, and danced with their queen; and he sang with them, "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday," so well that they took off his hump, and he returned home a straight-bodied man.
Then a tailor went past the same place, and was also admitted by the fairies to their dance. He caught the fairy queen by the waist, and she resented his familiarity. And in singing he added "Thursday" to their song and spoilt it. To pay the tailor for his rudeness and ill manners, the dancers took up the hump they had just removed from the first man and clapped it on his back, and the conceited fellow went home a hump-back.

* Source: W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries (London and New York: H. Frowde, 1911), p. 92.

* Evans-Wentz's source was a protestant minister whose calling had taken him to the Western Hebrides. The above legend comes from the remote island of Benbecula in the Western Hebrides.

Boy Confesses To Be Father of Eighteen Elves

Iceland
At a certain farm, long ago, it happened that all the household were out one day, making hay, except the farmer's wife and her only child, a boy of four years.
He was a strong, handsome, lusty little fellow, who could already speak almost as well as his elders, and was looked upon by his parents with great pride and hope.
As his mother had plenty of other work to do besides watching him, she was obliged to leave him alone for a short time, while she went down to the brook to wash the milk pails. So she left him playing in the door of the cottage, and came back again as soon as she had placed the milk pails to dry.
As soon as she spoke to the child, it began to cry in a strange and unnatural way, which amazed her not a little, as it had always been so quiet and sweet tempered. When she tried to make the child speak to her, as it normally did, it only yelled the more, and so it went on for a long time, always crying and never would be soothed, till the mother was in despair at so remarkable a change in her boy, who now seemed to have lost his senses.
Filled with grief, she went to ask the advice of a learned and skillful woman in the neighborhood, and confided to her all her trouble.
Her neighbor asked her all sorts of questions: How long ago this change in the child's manner had happened? What his mother thought to be the cause of it? and so forth. To all of which the wretched woman gave the best answers she could.
At last the wise woman said: "Do you not think, my friend, that the child you now have is a changeling? Without doubt it was put at your cottage door in the place of your son, while you were washing the milk pails.
"I know not," replied the other, "but advise me how to find it out."
So the wise woman said: "I will tell you. Place the child where he may see something he has never seen before, and let him fancy himself alone. As soon as he believes no one to be near him, he will speak. But you must listen attentively, and if the child says something that declares him to be a changeling, then beat him without mercy."
That was the wise woman's advice, and her neighbor, with many thanks for it, went home.
When she got to her house, she set a cauldron in the middle of the hearth, and taking a number of rods, bound them end to end, and at the bottom of them fastened a porridge spoon. This she stuck into the cauldron in such a way that the new handle she had made for it reached right up the chimney.
As soon as she had prepared everything, she fetched the child, and placing him on the floor of the kitchen left him and went out, taking care, however, to leave the door ajar, so that she could hear and see all that went on.
When she had left the room, the child began to walk round and round the cauldron, and eye it carefully, and after a while he said: "Well! I am old enough, as anybody may guess from by beard, and the father of eighteen elves, but never in all my life, have I seen so long a spoon to so small a pot."
On hearing this the farmer's wife waited not a moment, but rushed into the room and snatching up a bundle of firewood flogged the changeling with it, till he kicked and screamed again.
In the midst of all this, the door opened, and a strange woman, bearing in her arms a beautiful boy, entered and said, "See how we differ! I cherish and love your son, while you beat and abuse my husband." With these words, she gave back to the farmer's wife her own son, and taking the changeling by the hand, disappeared with him.
But the little boy grew up to manhood, and fulfilled all the hope and promise of his youth.
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Notes
* Source: Jón Arnason, Icelandic Legends, translated by George E. J. Powell and Eiríkur Magnússon (London: R. Bentley, 1864). Translation slightly revised.