"In the district called Haga, in Iceland, dwelt a nobleman called Sigward Forster, who had an intrigue with one of the subterranean females.  The elf became pregnant, and exacted from her lover a firm promise that he would procure the baptism of the infant.  At the appointed time, the mother came to the churchyard, on the wall of which she placed a golden cup, and a stole for the priest, agreeably to the custom of making an offering at baptism.  She then stood a little apart.  When the priest left the church, he enquired the meaning of what he saw, and demanded of Sigward, if he avowed himself the father of the child.  But Sigward, ashamed of the connexion, denied the paternity.  He was then interrogated if he desired that the child should be baptized; but this also he answered in the negative, lest, by such request, he should admit himself to be the father.  On which the child was left untouched and unbaptized.  Whereupon the mother, in extreme wrath, snatched up the infant and the cup, and retired, leaving the priestly cope, of which fragments are still in preservation.  But this female denounced and imposed upon Sigward, and his posterity, to the ninth generation, a singular disease, with which many of his descendants are afflicted  at this day."  Thus wrote Einar Dudmond, pastor of the parish of Garpsdale, in Iceland, a man profoundly versed in learning, from whose manuscript it was extracted by the learned Torfæus... (The Lady of the Lake, Scott, 1904)