{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/celt/prwe/prwe033.htm","path":"neu/celt/prwe/prwe033.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/prwe/prwe033.htm","text":"THE SPRIGGAN'S CHILD, AS TOLD BY A CORNISH DROLL.\nI'LL tell you a tale, an you've patience to hear an,\n'Bout the Spriggans, that swarm round Partinney still--\nYou knew Janey Tregeer, who lives in Brea Vean,\nIn the village just under the Chapel Hill.\nOne arternoon she went out for to reap,\nAnd left the child in the cradle asleep:\nJaney took good care to cover the fire ;--\nTurn'd down the brandis on the baking.ire (iron),\nSwept up the ashes on the hearthstone,\nAnd so left the child in the house all alone--\nThe boys had all on 'em gone away,\nSome to work and some to play.\nJaney work'd in the field as gay as a lark,\nAnd when she came home it was nearly dark;\nThe furst thing she saw when she open'd the door\nWas the cradle upset--all the straw on the floor.\nBut no child in sight--\nShe search'd all round--\nStill no child was found:\nAnd it got dark night.\nSo great was Jane's fright,\nThat for more than an hour\nShe hadn't the power\nTo strike a light.\nHowever, she kindled the fire at last,\nAnd threw in a faggot to make a blast.\nAs she stoop'd over the wood.corner stone,\nShe heard a sound 'tween a cry and a moan--\nIt clearly came from a bundle of ferns--\nThe two bigger boy's bed--\nAnd there, sure enough, as frighten'd she turns,\nJaney saw the child's head.\n'Twas very queer. How the child got there, \nNobody could say;Yet ever since that day, the\nAnd blinking and peeping, when it ought to be sleeping,\nBut seldom it closed its eyes.\nJane said for a child it look'd too wise--\nThat, she thought it a changeling\nShe didn't disguise--\nAnd often and often the gave it a beating,\nTo stop--but she couldn't--its cussed bleating.\nJaney resolved to work the spell,\nAnd whene'er she could stay,\nShe bath'd the brat in the Chapel Well--\nWhich he thought rare play.\nOn the three first Wednesdays in flow'ry May\nShe plunged it deep at the dawn of day--\nPass'd it slowly three times against the sun,\nWent three times round,--and when all was clone,\nThe imp of a child roar'd aloud for fun.\nNo tongue can tell\nThe trouble it gave her\nTo dip the shaver,\nAnd work the spell.\nFrom Brea to Chapel-Uny is a mile or more,\nAnd surely it tried Janey's patience sore\nTo trudge forth and back from the Chapel Well,\nWith this brat on her back, to work the spell.\nShe wish'd it dead; but it wouldn't die:\nIt ate its bread, it would pine and cry;\nAnd Janey was nearly beside herself\nWith this plague of her life--this wicked elf.\nWell, one rainy day,--as it rains in May,--\nJaney set out with the child in her arms\nOnce more to work the holy charms.\nWhen very close to the top of the hill,\nWhere she was sure there was nobody near,\nShe heard the strangest voice in her ear,\nSaying these words, quite clear and shrill--\n\"Tredrill Tredrill! thy wife and children greet thee well.\"\nOh, Janey's heart-strings were like to crack,\nWhen up spake the thing in her arms, good lack!--\n\" For wife or child little care I,\nThey may laugh,\nOr they may cry,--\nWhile milk I quaff;\nWhen I am dry--\nGet of my pap my fill\nWhenever I will,\nOn the dowdy's back ride,\nWith my legs astride,\nWhen we work the spell\nAt the Chapel Well\"\nJaney dropp'd the cussed thing on the ground,\nAnd turn'd round, and round, and round;\nYou may be sure she was in a fright\nTo hear the sound, and nobody in sight,\nAnd to hear a child talkMonths before it could walk.\nShe has said o'er and -o'er,\nAnd I am sure you can't wonder,\n'Twouldn't frighten her more,\nHad the rocks burst asunder,\nAnd the earth belch'd forth thunder,\nWhen Janey at length got over the fright\nFrom hearing the sound and nobody in sight,\nAnd the brat which lay crying, as if it was dying,\nTalking out like a man of his wife and his child,\nShe felt all bedazzled as if she was wild--\nTook the brat by the arm, flung it over her shoulder--\nWouldn't believe it her child if the parson had told her--\nThought the devil was in it,\nAs she ran the hill down,\nWithout -stopping a minute\nTill she came to Brea -town.\nThe old women came out, and all on 'em agreed \n'Twas the strangest thing that ever they seed;\nThey stood in a row, and each one had a word--\n'Twas the wonderfull'st story that ever they heard;\n'Twas a Spriggan's brat--they were all sure of that--\nNo more like Jane's child than an old ram-cat.\nShe must beat it black, she must beat it blue,\nBruise its body all o'er with the heel of her shoe--\nThen lay it alone beneath the church stile,\nAnd keep out of hearing and sight for a while--\nWhen every one said, as every one thought,\nThat Janey's child would again be brought:\nSome said 'twould be living--some said 'twould be dead -\nBut the Spriggan's base brat she no longer need dread.\nJane beat the babe black,\nAnd she beat the babe blue,\nOn the ashes' pile before the door;\nAnd she would have beaten it ten times more,\nBut out of her hand she lost her shoe,\nStruck away all at once - by she couldn't tell who.\nThe brat bad roar'd--it could roar no more--\nSo they carried it off to the old church stile,\nAnd laid it under the stones--some swore\nThat when placed on the earth it was seen to smile--\nThen all turn'd back, and kept far out of sight\nAnd Janey declared she was almost wild:\nBut they kept her back till the turn o' the night,\nWhen she rush'd to the stile and found her own child\n'Twas there, sure enough, her own dear child\nBut when first she saw it,\nShe did not know it--It look'd so frighten'd--it seem'd so wild.\nThen the old women said,\nIf it keeps its wits,\nWe're sadly afraid\nThe poor babe will have fits.\nA friend writes me:--\"I saw an account in a newspaper the other day of an Irishwoman who was brought before the magistrates, in New York, for causing the death of a child by making it stand on hot coals, to try if it were her own truly begotten child, or a changeling. I think the notion was, that her own child\nwould stand fire, but an imp would either die, to all appearance, or be spirited away. This is much worse than the plan of the woman of Brea Vean, who put the brat on the ashes' pile, and beat it black with the broom.\" [a]\n[a] \"The Father of Eighteen Elves,\" in\" Legends of Iceland,\" is, in all its chief features, similar to this story, even to the beating hint without mercy. \"Icelandic Legends. Collected by John Arnason: Translated by George E. J. Powell and Erikur Magmisson.\" Bentley, 1864.","title":"The Fairies: The Spriggan's Child","type":"page"}