Search Results for 'pedlar'

Until recent times there was widespread belief in fairies; both the malignant and the more innocent kind. Many people believed that the fairies would steal away certain children, or an adult, and replace them with a changeling. These beliefs were mostly found in rural communities; and were often an attempt to explain, or to invite compassion or ‘kindness’ for a handicapped child, or someone who was temporarily ‘not themselves.’ The phrases used to describe this transformation are various; but locally included the words ‘touched’, or ‘swept’, or ‘taken’.