Northern mythology

44 NORTH GERMAN TRADITIONS.
cradle, and left a changeling, with a huge head and staring
eyes, in its stead, which ate and drank voraciously. In
her distress the mother applied to a neighbour, who advised
her to carry the changeling into
the kitchen, set it
on the hearth, kindle a fire, and boil water in two eggshells
: that would cause the changeling to laugh, and as
soon as he laughed it would be all over with him. The
woman did as her neighbour advised. As she was placing
the egg-shells on the fire, the clodpate exclaimed "
: I now
am as old as the Westerwald, and have never till this
^^
moment seen anything boiled in an egg-shell ! and then
began to laugh. While he was laughing there came in
a multitude of Wichtelmannikins, bringing with them the
woman^s own child, which they placed on the hearth, and
took the changeling away with them ^
A person once saw a female dwarf going across a field
with a stolen child. The sight was a singular one ; for
she could not hold the babe sufficiently high, on account
of its length, and therefore kept constantly calling to it :—
Baer op dyn Gewant,
Dat du nidi haekst
In den gakni Grant.
Hold up thy robe,
That thou be not hook'd
In the bitter orant.
Grant or dorant (antirrhinum or marrubium) scares away Dwarfs
(Wichtel) and Nikkers. See Grimm, D. :M. p. 11G4.
In Eiderstedt a woman one night kindled a huge fire
in the middle of the barn, and placed upon it
an exceedingly
diminutive pot. When a Kielkropf (changeling)
that she had was fetched, it clapped its hands in full
astonishment, and cried in a shrill voice :
" I am now
1
Grimm, K. and H. Marchen, No. 39. Wichtel (Wichtelmann) is the
Prankish name for elf.