Once a farmhand went to heat the drying barn. It was night. A fire was burning in the stove and he in sat front of it warming himself. He heard two people talking. He hid behind the flax to see what would happen. He saws a witch and a velnias come in.
The witch was holding an infant, who wouldn’t take her breast.
She said to the velnias, "The baby won’t take my breast. A human child should suck it first and then mine would suck, too. There’s an unbaptized child who has never been blessed. You would do well to bring it to me."
The farmhand heard everything. The witch told her husband to bring her the farmhand’s master’s child.
The velnias brought the baby in no time. The witch suckled it and gave it to the velnias to take back. Giving it over, she said, "I’m sorry for this child, since now it’s going to die. If someone knew how, it could be saved. A cut should be made on his ring finger and when the blood flows, it should be given to the child to drink. Then it won’t die."
The farmhand, who was crouching behind the flax, could hear everything.
After spending some time in the drying barn, the witch and the velnias went away.
The farmhand crawled out from his hiding place and, after putting out the fire in the stove, he went home. He saw that his mistress’s baby was about to die. Without delay, he cut the baby’s finger and gave it some blood to drink. He did it exactly the way he had heard the witch instruct. The baby recovered. Then the farmhand told his mistress what he had seen in the drying barn.
From that time on, that woman would be very careful to bless her child regularly.

(Recorded in 1958)