Superstitions Online » fairies http://superstitionsonline.com Spells, charms, rituals, taboos; Searchable and entertaining, find your fears, wonders and worries here. Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:10:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Changelings http://superstitionsonline.com/changelings/ http://superstitionsonline.com/changelings/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 02:11:54 +0000 Superstitions http://superstitionsonline.com/?p=877 In medieval Britain, parents sometimes believed that their child had been taken away by the fairy people and substituted with a changeling. There were a number of tests to find out. One was to put a shoe in a bowl of soup in front of the baby: if it laughed, showing it understood the joke, it was a fairy. Similarly, if you pretended to try to make a loaf of bread in an eggshell in front of the child and it giggled, it wasn’t human. Suspect babies would be held over a fire to drive the fairies out, or abandoned.

]]> http://superstitionsonline.com/changelings/feed/ 0 Arrows http://superstitionsonline.com/arrows/ http://superstitionsonline.com/arrows/#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:53:05 +0000 Superstitions http://superstitionsonline.com/?p=229 arrow
Wearing an arrowhead protects against the evil eye.

Cattle suddenly coming down with illness have been “elf-shot” or pierced by fairy’s arrows.

Drinking water into which a flint arrowhead has been dipped cures female ailments.

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