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Page:Fairy tales, now first collected by Joseph Ritson.djvu/92

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82
THE SHEPHERDS DREAM.
Me shirt or slop, them greeved, forI then would go away.Yee fairies too made mothers, ifweake faith, to sweare that yeInto their beds did foist your babes,and theirs exchang'd to be.When yee (that elvish manners didfrom elvish shapes observe)By pinching her, that beat that child,made child and mother swerve,This in that erd beliefe, That, notcorrected, bad that grew.Thus yee, I, pope, and cloysterers,all in one teame then drew.But all things have gone crosse with ussince here the gospell shind,Nor helps it aught that she that itunclowded is inshrind.[1]Well, though our Romish exorcistsand regulars be outed,

    also heard that he would chafe exceedingly, if the maid or good-wife of the house, having compassion on his nakednes, laid anie clothes for him, beesides his messe of white bread and milke, which was his standing fee. For in that case he saith, what have we here?

    Hemton hamten,Here will I never more tread nor stampen."Discoverie of witchcraft, p. 85.

  1. Queen Elizabeth.