{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/celt/sce/sce14.htm","path":"neu/celt/sce/sce14.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/sce14.htm","text":"4. THEIR Hou\u0192es are called large and fair, and (unle\u0192s att \u0192ome odd occa\u0192ions) unperceaveable by vulgar eyes, like Rachland, and other inchanted I\u0192lands, having fir Lights, continual Lamps, and Fires, often \u0192een without Fuel to \u0192u\u0192tain them. Women are yet alive who tell they were taken away when in Child-bed to nur\u0192e Fairie Children, a lingering voracious Image of their (them?) being left in their place, (like their Reflexion in a Mirrour,) which (as if it were \u0192ome in\u0192atiable Spirit in ane a\u0192\u0192umed Bodie) made fir\u0192t \u0192emblance to devour the Meats that it cunningly carried by, and then left the Carca\u0192e as if it expired and departed thence by a naturall and common Death. The Child, and Fire, with Food and other Nece\u0192\u0192aries, are \u0192et before the Nur\u0192e how \u0192oon \u0192he enters; but \u0192he nather perceaves any Pa\u0192\u0192age\nout\nout, nor \u0192ees what tho\u0192e People doe in other Rooms of the Lodging. When the Child is wained, the Nur\u0192e dies, or is conveyed back, or gets it to her choice to \u0192tay there. But if any Superterraneans be \u0192o \u0192ubtile, as to practice Slights for procuring a Privacy to any of their Mi\u0192teries, (\u0192uch as making u\u0192e of their Oyntments, which as Gyge\u0192's Ring makes them invi\u0192ible, or nimble, or ca\u0192ts them in a Trance, or alters their Shape, or makes Things appear at a va\u0192t Di\u0192tance, &c.) they \u0192mite them without Paine, as with a Puff of Wind, and bereave them of both the naturall and acquired Sights in the twinkling of ane Eye, (both the\u0192e Sights, where once they come, being in the \u0192ame Organ and in\u0192eparable,) or they \u0192trick them Dumb. The Tramontains to this Day put Bread, the Bible, or a piece of Iron, in Womens Beds when travelling, to \u0192ave them from being thus \u0192tollen; and they commonly report, that all uncouth, unknown Wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly \u0192o much as by cold Iron. They delyver the Rea\u0192on to be that Hell lying betwixt the chill Tempe\u0192ts, and the Fire Brands of \u0192calding\nMetals\n[paragraph continues] Metals, and Iron of the North, (hence the Load\u0192tone cau\u0192es a tendency to that Point,) by ane Antipathy thereto, the\u0192e odious far-\u0192centing Creatures \u0192hrug and fright at all that comes thence relating to \u0192o abhorred a Place, whence their Torment is eather begun, or feared to come hereafter","title":"The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies: The Secret Commonwealth: Chapter 4","type":"page"}