Northern mythology

;
NORTH GERMAN TRADITIONS. 45
fifty years old, and have never seen the Hke !
" The
woman would have thrown the kielkropf into the fire, but
it
was snatched from her, and her own genuine child stood
there before her.
Similar stories are almost innumerable in Germany, but the foregoing,
together with the two following, will amply suffice to show the resemblance
between the German traditions of changelings and those of Scandinavia.
Before going to bed, a pair of open scissors must be
laid in the cradle of a new-born child, until it is baptized.
If it sleeps by its mother, at the last swathing a cross
must be made on its breast and forehead ; else the subterraneans
will change it.
There was once in Amrum a woman whose youngest
son was stolen by these beings ; but the child they left
in place of the stolen one so closely resembled it, that the
mother at first was not aware of the deception. But afterwards
their own child came back, and the parents were
wholly unable to determine which was theirs, until an
accident settled the difficulty. It was in the haiTcst, and
the woman going one day to the thrashing-floor, took up
a shovel and began casting aside the thrashed-out corn;
both boys being present. One of them fell a laughing,
and in answer to the woman^s question, why he laughed ?
said :
" My father just came in and fetched half a ton of
rye, and in going out fell and broke his leg.^^
said the woman :
'^ Thou art the one ;
Thereupon
go therefore to the
place thou camest from.^' She then seized the boy and
flung him through the window of the thrashing-house,
and never again set eyes on him.
It is to be observed that a thrashing-floor should always
be swept with the sun, and never in the opposite direction
otherwise the subterraneans will steal the corn. The
woman, it evidently appeared, had taken this precaution.