We see from this pretty fragment, which, after the nature of the best popular ballad, forces you to chant and will not be read, that a woman had been carried off, four days after bearing a son, to serve as nurse in the elf-queen's family. She is promised that she shall be permitted to return home if she will tend the fairy's bairn till he has got the use of his legs. We could well have spared stanzas 10-12, which belong to 'Thomas Rymer,' to know a little more of the proper story.
That elves and water-spirits have frequently solicited the help of mortal women at lying-in time is well known: see Stewart's Popular Superstitions of the Highlands, p. 104; Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, Nos 41, 49, 68, 69, 304; Müllenhoff, Nos 443, 444; Thiele, Danmarks Folkesagen, 1843, II, 200, Nos 1-4; Asbjørnsen, Norske Huldre-Eventyr, 2d ed., I, 16; Maurer, Isländische Volkssagen, p. 6 f; Keightley's Fairy Mythology, pp 122, 261, 275, 301, 311, 388, 488.[foot-note] They also like to have their offspring suckled by earthly women. It is said, writes Gervase of Tilbury, that nobody is more exposed to being carried off by water-sprites than a woman in milk, and that they sometimes restore such a woman, with pay for her services, after she has nursed their wretched fry seven years. He had himself seen a woman who had been abducted for this purpose, while washing clothes on the bank of the Rhone. She had to nurse the nix's son under the water for that term, and then was sent back unhurt. Otia Imperialia, III, 85, Liebrecht, p. 38. Choice is naturally made of the healthiest and handsomest mothers for this office. "A fine young woman of Nithsdale, when first made a mother, was sitting singing and rocking her child, when a pretty lady came into her cottage, covered with a fairy mantle. She carried a beautiful child in her arms, swaddled in green silk. 'Gie my bonnie thing a suck,' said the fairy. The young woman, conscious to whom the child belonged, took it kindly in her arms, and laid it to her breast. The lady instantly disappeared, saying, 'Nurse kin', an ne'er want.' The young mother nurtured the two babes, and was astonished, whenever she awoke, at finding the richest suits of apparel for both children, with meat of most delicions flavor. This food tasted, says tradition, like loaf mixed with wine and honey," etc. Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 302.
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