Were all the details of the fairy-tales true, which abound in every land, the cruelty meted out to the child suspected of being a changeling would surpass human belief. Hartland enumerates the following procedures as having been in use, according to legend, to determine the justice of the suspicion: Flinging the child on a dung-heap; putting in the oven; holding a red-hot shovel before the child's face; heating a poker red-hot to mark a cross on its forehead; heating the tongs red-hot to seize it by the nose; throwing on, or into, the fire; suspending over the fire in a pot; throwing the child naked on the glowing embers at midnight; throwing into lake, river, or sea (258. 120-123). These and many more figure in story, and not a few of them seem to have been actually practised upon the helpless creatures, who, like the heathen, were not supposed to call for pity or love. Mr. Hartland cites a case of actual attempt to treat a supposed changeling in a summary manner, which occurred no later than May 17,1884, in the town of Clonmel, Ireland. In the absence of the mother of a three-year-old child (fancied by the neighbours to be a changeling), two women "entered her house and placed the child naked on a hot shovel, 'under the impression that it would break the charm,'"--the only result being, of course, that the infant was very severely burned (258. 121). On the other hand, children of true Christian origin, infants who afterwards become saints, are subject to all sorts of torment at the hands of Satan and his angels, at times, but come forth, like the "children" of the fiery furnace in the time of Daniel, in imitation of whose story many of the hagiological legends have doubtless been put forth, unscathed from fire, boiling water, roaring torrents, and other perilous or deadly situations (191. 9,122). CHAPTER VII. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF CHILD-LIFE: PARENTAL AFFECTION. These are my jewels.--_Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi)_. A simple child That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?--_Wordsworth_. Children always turn towards the light.--_Hare_. That I could bask in Childhood's sun And dance o'er Childhood's roses!--_Praed_. Grief fills the room up of my absent child.--_Shakespeare_. _Parental Love_. In his essay on _The Pleasures of Home_, Sir John Lubbock makes the following statement (494. 102):-- "In the _Origin of Civilization_, I have given many cases showing how small a part family affection plays in savage life. Here I will only mention one case in illustration. The Algonquin (North America) language contained no word for 'to love,' so that when the missionaries translated the Bible into it they were obliged to invent one. What a life, and what a language, without love!"