THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

CHANGELING AND WITCH
Bring the holy crust of Bread,
Lay it underneath the head;
'Tis a certain Charm to keep
Hags away, while Children sleep;
Let the superstitious wife
Near the childs heart lay a knife:
Point be up, and Haft be downe;
(While she gossips in the towne)
This 'mongst other mystick charms
Keeps the sleeping child from harms.49
According to Robert Kirk,
The Tramontains to this Day [16g1] put Bread, the Bible, or
a piece of Iron, in Womens Beds when travelling, to save them
from being thus stollen; and they commonly report, that all un-
couth, unknown Wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly so much
as by cold Iron. They delyver the Reason to be that Hell lying
betwixt the chill Tempests, and the Fire Brands of scalding Metals,
and Iron of the North, (hence the Loadstone causes a tendency to
that Point,) by ane Antipathy thereto, these odious farscenting
Creatures shrug and fright at all that comes thence relating to so
abhorred a Place, whence their Torment is eather begun, or feared
to come hereafter.50
48 Herrick, Hesfierides, p. 284.
Ibid.
Sec. Comm., pp. 13-14.
In 1703, fire was used to protect mortal babies. Cf. M. Martin,
"A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland," rpt. in Pinker-
ton, Voyages and Travels, Vol. 3, p. 612:
"There is another way of the dessil, or carrying fire round about
women before they are churched, after child-bearing; and it is used
likewise about children until they are christened; both which are per-
formed in the morning and at night. This is only practised now by
some of the ancient midwives: I enquired their reason for this custom,
which I told them was altogether unlawful; this disobliged them
mightily, insomuch that they would give me no satisfaction. But
others, that were of a more agreeable temper, told me that fire-round