Third TaleA mother had her child taken from the cradle by elves.In its place they laid a changeling with a thick head and staring eyes who would do nothing but eat and drink.
And then Simon saw that what she had cradled, that which now dangled from an outflung hand, was a doll… a doll made from reeds and leaves and twining stems of grass.
The revanche du berceau (“revenge of the cradle”) dreamed of by some romantic nationalists as retaliation for the British conquest of 1759 didn't seem so far-fetched.
Einstein once wrote that " the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science."