So, too, in the baptismal ceremonies of the Church of England in mediæval times, salt, over which an exorcism had been said, was placed in the child’s mouth, and its ears and nostrils were touched with saliva,—practices which became obsolete at about the time of the reign of Henry VIII. An octagonal font of the fifteenth century, in St. Margaret’s Church, Ipswich, Suffolk, has upon one of its sides the figure of an angel bearing a scroll, on which appears a partially illegible inscription containing the words _Sal et Saliva_.[294] Thomas Ady, in “A Perfect Discovery of Witches” (London, 1661), says that holy water, properly conjured, was used to keep the Devil in awe, and to prevent his entering churches or dwellings. With such holy water Satanic influences were kept away from meat and drink, and from “the very salt upon the table.” In the Highlands of Scotland, instead of using salt as an amulet for the protection of young babies, it was customary for watchers to remain constantly by the cradle until the christening. For it was believed that spiteful fairies were wont to carry off healthy infants, leaving in their stead puny specimens of their own elfish offspring; and infants thus kidnapped were sometimes kept in fairyland for seven years. This well-known popular belief gave rise to the word “changeling,” which signifies a “strange, stupid, ugly child left by the fairies in place of a beautiful or charming child that they have stolen away.”[295] And inasmuch as baby elves were invariably stunted and of feeble intellect, all idiotic and dwarfish children were thought to be changelings.[296] From thence a faery the unweeting reft, There as thou slepst in tender swadling band, And her base elfin brood there for the left: Such men do _chaungelinges_ call, so chaunged by fairies’ theft.[297] VIII. SALT AS A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE The natives of Morocco regard salt as a talisman against evil, and a common amulet among the Neapolitan poor is a bit of rock-salt suspended from the neck.[298] The peasants of the Hartz Mountain region in Germany believe that three grains of salt in a milk-pot will keep witches away from the milk;[299] and to preserve butter from their uncanny influences, it was a custom in the county of Aberdeen, Scotland, some years ago, to put salt on the lid of a churn.[300] In Normandy, also, the peasants are wont to throw a little salt into a vessel containing milk, in order to protect the cow who gave the milk from the influences of witchcraft.