Jenny Trayer lived in Braevean near Land’s End, she was a bonny girl and a new mother who loved her little baby dearly. The baby was a happy baby, slept and smiled and cooed and gurgled and when he cried it was hardly a whimper. One day at the end of the summer Jenny knew everyone would be feasting to celebrate harvest, so bonny Jenny left her baby at home tucked up in its basket while she went to watch the Crying the Neck ceremony in St Just. Jenny loved marking the end of harvest, and she had walked to watch it every year since she was a tiny maid. The parishioners gathered, the farmer and his harvesting crew on the edge of a field. There was just one last handful of corn waiting to be cut and Jenny smiled as the farmer swung his scythe and lifted it high above his head so it glowed gold in the early autumn sunlight.

‘I ‘ave ‘un. I ‘ave ‘un. I ‘ave ‘un.’ said the farmer holding the corn high.

‘A neck, A neck, A neck,’ everyone cried.

‘Hurrah! Hurrah for the neck!’

When Jenny got home her baby had changed, it had a funny nose, ears and it was heavy, so heavy. The baby fussed, cried, howled and even shouted. Jenny could not love her baby, she sang to it and she rocked it but still her baby felt different, and after many days of struggle Jenny sat by the fireside and cried. When she had cried all she could cry she listened to the shouting of the baby, and she listened to the howling of the wind and the rain battering her cottage, and Jenny knew she must get help.

‘What is it has changed about my baby,’ Jenny asked her neighbours.

‘They small people have taken her,’ they all said in chorus.

‘But what can I do?’ sobbed Jenny.

‘You must bathe the shouting baby in Chapel Euny Well in May.

Jenny looked after the shouting whining heavy baby all winter, Jenny was tired and Jenny was finding it harder and harder to love her baby. She watched the snowdrops and the bluebells and at last May came and Jenny took the baby to Chapel Euny Well. She put it in the water three times from East to West but still the baby didn’t change.

The next Wednesday, she wanted a walk and took the child over the hill to the spring. They were nearly past Chapel Carn Brae when a voice rang out over the moor.

“Tredill! Tredill! Your wife and child miss you.’

‘What do I care for my wife and child when I ride on Jenny's back to Chapel Well.’ the baby shouted.

Jenny was scared, she dropped the heavy, yelling baby with on the ground and ran crying to Braetown. She told her neighbours that dunking the baby in Chapel Euny Well had not helped, it seemed to have made things worse as now the baby could talk. The neighbours advised laying the child on Church Way stile and leaving it til morning. As soon as dawn came Jenny ran to the style and bent over the basket. She lifted out the bundle wrapped in pretty fairy fabric and held it close. This baby smelt like Jenny’s baby, this baby had eyes like Jenny’s baby and it crowed sweetly and even gave her a windy smile. Jenny never left her baby alone again, although sometimes on the sea wind she heard the grumpy shouts of the changeling Tredill.

Retold by Anna Chorlton

Source William Bottrell Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall Vol 2

Robert Hunt Popular Romances of the West of England