In seeking for the witch in fairy-land, we must often look for her under some other name--as a fairy, for instance, and especially as a fairy-godmother. One of the most embarrassing attributes of the fairy-godmother is that if you offend her she at once changes into a witch, without giving you any warning whatever. She may have officiated as godmother to half a dozen of your children, treating them always as a real fairy should. But should you once offend her, and especially should you forget to invite her to a christening, she at once becomes a witch of the utmost malignancy. This is a curious perversion from the habits of the real witch, whose interests are entirely against the baptising of children under any circumstances. It may be supposed that, having for the nonce laid aside her evil doing, and adopted the civilised veneer of fairyism, she is quick to take offence at any implied non-recognition thereof, very much as might a black man if anyone said to him, "I suppose you don't wear trousers at home?" A famous example of the beneficent fairy godmother occurs, of course, in "Cinderella"; a cynic might, indeed, argue that her beneficence towards Cinderella, her provision of fine dresses, six-horse coaches, and glass slippers, were induced rather by the desire to spite the ugly sisters than out of any actual love of Cinderella herself. Another common type of the double-edged godmother occurs in the story of Prince Hazel and Prince Fair. With characteristic perversity, while pretending that each prince will have an equal chance, she yet makes everything smooth for the one, while placing irresistible temptation in the path of the other, basing her action upon her preconceived idea of their disposition. The witch-fairy need not be a godmother. In the "Sleeping Beauty," for instance, her sole cause of irritation is at not receiving an invitation to the christening. In consequence, as every child knows, she condemns the future Beauty to prick her finger at the age of fifteen and thereafter to fall asleep--she and all her entourage--until a casual prince shall have sufficient curiosity to make his way through the surrounding thorn-thickets. It may be noted in this connection that the every-day inhabitants of fairy-land have never shown themselves able to learn from experience. Scarcely a royal christening could take place without some important witch-fairy being forgotten, always with disastrous results, yet no steps seem ever to have been taken to guard against the recurrence of such disastrous negligence.