would protect him against the Fairies, and he was to stick the dirk into the threshold, to prevent the hill closing upon him. Then he would see a grand room, and there, working at a forge, he would find his own son; and when the Fairies questioned him he was to say that he had come for his boy, and would not go away without him. So the smith went, and did what the old man told him. He heard the music, found the hill open, went in, stuck the dirk in the threshold, carried the Bible on his breast, and took the cock in his hand. Then the Fairies angrily asked what he wanted, and he said, "I want my son whom I see down there, and I will not go without him." Upon this the whole company of the Fairies gave a loud laugh, which woke up the cock, and he leaped on the smith's shoulders, clapped his wings, and crowed lustily. Then the Fairies took the smith and his son, put them out of the hill, flung the dirk after them, and the hill-side closed up again. For a year and a day after he got home the boy never did any work, and scarcely spoke a word; but at last one day sitting by his father, and seeing him finish a sword for the chieftain, he suddenly said, "That's not the way to do it," and he took the tools, and fashioned a sword the like of which was never seen in that country before; and from that day he worked and lived as usual. Here is another story. A woman was going through a wild glen in Strath Carron, in Sutherland--the Glen Garaig--carrying her infant child wrapped in her plaid. Below the path, overhung with trees, ran a very deep ravine, called Glen Odhar, or the dun glen. The child, not a year old, suddenly spoke, and said:-- "Many a dun hummel cow, With a calf below her, Have I seen milking In that dun glen yonder, Without dog, without man, Without woman, without gillie, But one man; and he hoary." Then the woman knew that it was a fairy changeling she was carrying, and she flung down the child and the plaid, and ran home, where her own baby lay smiling in the cradle. A tailor went to a farm-house to work, and just as he was going in, somebody put into his hands a child of a month old, which a little lady dressed in green seemed to be waiting to receive. The tailor ran home and gave the child to his wife. When he got back to the farm-house he found the farmer's child crying and yelping, and disturbing everybody. It was a fairy changeling which the nurse had taken in, meaning to give the farmer's own child to the fairy in exchange; but nobody knew this but the tailor. When they were all gone out he began to talk to the child. "Hae ye your pipes?" said the Tailor. "They're below my head," said the Changeling. "Play me a spring," said the Tailor. Out sprang the little man and played the bagpipes round the room. Then there was a noise outside, and the Elf said, "Its my folk wanting me," and away he went up the chimney; and then they fetched back the farmer's child from the tailor's house.