Ossian Collection > Folk tales and fairy lore in Gaelic and English

THE KINTALEN CHANGELING.
There was living in Kintalen a woman who had a
male-child with neither the growth nor the bloom of
other children of his age. From morning to evening
he would not cease one minute from crying, and he
would eat far more food than was natural for the like
of him.
It was harvest, and there was not a person on the
farm who could draw a sickle but was out on the
reaping field, except the mother of the child. She, too,
would have been out were it not for fear that the nasty
screaming thing would break his heart crying, if she
should leave him in charge of any other person.
It happened that there was at the time a tailor in the
house, making clothes. The tailor was a shrewd, ob-
servant man, and he was but a short time within until
he became suspicious of the lad in the cradle. " You,"
said he to the woman, " may go to the reaping, and
I will take care of the child."
The woman went away. But she had barely taken
her feet over the threshold when the withered object
she had left behind began shrieking and crying loudly
and sorely. The tailor listened to him a good while,
keeping his eye on him, till he was sure that he was
nothing but a changeling. He now lost patience with
him, and cried in a sharp, angry voice: "Stop that
music, lad, or I'll put thee on the fire." The crying
ceased for a while, but afterwards it began a second