Once, at a certain farm, long ago, it happened that all of the household were
out one day, making hay while the sun shone, except the farmer's wife and her
only child, a boy of four years, both of whom had stayed at home. The boy was
a strong, handsome, little fellow, who could already speak almost as well as
his elders, and was looked upon by his parents with both great pride and hope
for the future. His mother had plenty of other work to do besides watching him,
so she was obliged to leave him alone for a short period, while she went down
to the brook to wash out the milk pails. Thus she left him, playing in the doorway
to the cottage, and she came back again as soon as she had placed the milk pails
out to dry. As soon as she spoke to the child, it began to cry in a weird and
unusual manner, which amazed the mother a great deal, as her son had always
been so gentle and smooth tempered. When she tried to get the child speak to
her as it normally would, it only yelled all the more, and so this went on for
a long while, always crying and never being soothed, until at last the mother
fell to despair at the odd change in her boy, who now it seemed had lost his
senses. Full of grief, she went to ask advice from a wise and skilful woman
of the area, and told to her all that had happened. The wise-woman asked
her all manner of questions: How long ago had this change in the child's manner
begun? What did his mother think to be the cause of it all? and so on. The mother
gave the woman the best answers she could, although she was at a loss. eventually
the wise woman said: "Think you not, friend, that this child you now have is
a changeling and not your own son at all? Without any doubt it was put in your
cottage doorway in the place of your own son, while you were away washing the
milk pails."
"I do not know," replied the mother, "but please give me your counsel
as to how I may find this out." So now the wise woman said: "I will tell you
how it should be done. Place this child where he may see something that he has
never seen before, and let him think himself to be alone. As soon as he thinks
that no one to be near him, then he will speak. But you must listen carefully,
for if this child says something which reveals him to be a changeling, then
you must at once beat him and show no mercy." And that was the wise woman's
counsel to the mother, who, with many thanks for this advice, went away home.
When she got back to her house, she set down a cauldron in the middle of the
hearth, and took a number of staves, bound them end to end, and fastened them
to a porridge spoon. This strange device she stuck down into the cauldron in
such a manner that the new handle she made for it reached right up into the
chimney and out of the top. As soon as all was ready, she fetched forth the
child, placed him on the floor of the kitchen, left him there and then went
out, taking care, however, to leave the door a little open, in order that she
could thus hear and see all which went on within. When she had gone out of the
room, the child began to walk around and around the cauldron, and to look at
it most carefully. After a while of puzzlement at the cauldron and its strange
spoon he declared aloud: "As those who can see my beard can tell, I have lived
a long while, and am the father of eighteen elves, but never in all my long
life have I seen so lengthy a spoon put in so little a pot."
On hearing this declaration the mother did not hesitate. She ran into the room
and grabbed a bundle of wood from the fire store and began flogging the changeling
with it. He kicked and he wailed, he thrashed and he screamed but still she
would not stop the beating. As the mother continued to beat the changeling ,
the door of the house opened. In came a weird woman who bore in her arms a bonny
young boy. The stranger looked about her and said, "How different we folk are
from you! I love and nurture your son while all you can do is beat and harm
by husband!"
Saying these words, she gave back to the farmer's wife her own son, and taking
the changeling by the hand, disappeared with him. But the little boy grew up
to manhood, and fulfilled all the hope and promise of his youth.
Source: Jón Arnason, Icelandic Legends, translated by George E. J. Powell and
Eiríkur Magnússon (London: R. Bentley, 1864). The original translation has been
revised here by Shaun D. L. Brassfield-Thorpe