Changeling
A changeling, in European folklore, refers to a supernatural substitute—typically a deformed, elderly-looking, or developmentally impaired offspring of fairies, elves, or trolls—left in place of a human child abducted by these beings.[1] This motif appears prominently in Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian traditions, where the stolen human infants were purportedly taken to serve as servants or to infuse fairy lineages with vitality.[2] Changelings were characterized by voracious appetites, failure to thrive physically or mentally, unusual behaviors such as precocious speech or crying, and rapid aging appearances, prompting families to employ rituals like brewing beer in eggshells or exposing the child to fire to compel revelation or return of the original.[1] Anthropological and historical analyses suggest the changeling legend served as a folk explanation for congenital conditions, intellectual disabilities, or developmental disorders like autism, where empirical observations of atypical child growth were attributed to supernatural interference rather than medical causes.[3] These beliefs persisted into the 19th century, occasionally leading to tragic outcomes such as the abuse or murder of suspected changelings, as documented in cases where communities justified extreme measures to "exorcise" the substitute.[1] While rooted in pre-industrial understandings of heredity and pathology, the motif underscores causal patterns in folklore where unexplained anomalies in offspring were rationalized through otherworldly agency, reflecting broader human tendencies to seek narrative coherence amid uncertainty.[3] The legend's endurance in literature and art highlights its role in exploring themes of parental anxiety, otherness, and the boundaries between human and supernatural realms.[2]Core Definition and Traits
Etymology and Basic Description
The term changeling entered the English language in the 1550s, formed by combining "change" with the diminutive suffix "-ling," originally denoting one prone to change or, specifically in folklore, a fairy child exchanged for a human infant.[4] This etymology reflects the core concept of substitution inherent to the myth.[5] In European folklore, particularly traditions from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and Germanic regions, a changeling refers to an otherworldly creature—typically the sickly or malformed offspring of fairies, elves, trolls, or similar supernatural beings—secretly left in place of a stolen human child.[1] These substitutions were believed to occur to replenish fairy populations with robust human stock or to fulfill other motives attributed to the fairies, such as envy of human vitality.[1] The changeling myth provided a supernatural rationale for infants exhibiting developmental delays, physical anomalies, or failure to thrive, which pre-modern observers interpreted through a lens of enchantment rather than medical conditions.[3] Accounts of changelings appear in oral traditions and early written folklore collections, underscoring their prevalence in rural communities where infant mortality and congenital issues were common yet poorly understood.[2]Attributed Characteristics and Behaviors
In European folklore, changelings were commonly attributed with physical traits markedly different from human infants, including a wizened, prematurely aged appearance, emaciated bodies, and disproportionate features such as oversized heads or limbs. These substitutes were said to exhibit stunted growth, remaining unnaturally small and failing to thrive despite adequate care, often contrasting sharply with the healthy vigor of the stolen human child.[1] [6] Behaviorally, changelings displayed persistent irritability, manifested as incessant crying and nocturnal wailing that disrupted households. They were characterized by unusual appetites, either refusing nourishment or consuming excessive amounts without satisfaction, alongside aversion to physical affection and general unresponsiveness to parental interaction. Accounts frequently noted obstreperous conduct, emotional inexpressiveness, and developmental anomalies like delayed milestones or sporadic precocious utterances revealing unnatural knowledge.[7] [6] Some folklore traditions ascribed cunning or malevolent tendencies to changelings, portraying them as capable of mischief, deception, or even harm toward family members, behaviors interpreted as stemming from their supernatural fairy heritage. These traits collectively served to identify the impostor, prompting rituals aimed at revelation or expulsion, though such narratives often reflected broader anxieties over child mortality and disability rather than empirical supernatural events.[1][6]Mythological Framework
Purpose of Substitution in Folklore
In European folklore, fairies or other supernatural entities substituted human children with changelings primarily to acquire vigorous human infants, which were perceived as healthier and more robust than fairy offspring, thereby strengthening the fairy population through rearing in the otherworldly realm.[1] This exchange was often depicted as fairies envying the plumpness and vitality imparted by human nursing, leading them to swap their own puny or aged kin for human babies to benefit from mortal care and milk.[1] A secondary motive involved tormenting humankind, with changelings—typically irritable, voracious substitutes—serving to plague families through incessant crying, rapid aging, or disruptive behaviors until detection rituals compelled the fairies' return of the original child.[1] In Scottish traditions, particularly as recounted in the 16th-century ballad Tam Lin, fairies abducted children every seven years to fulfill a tithe or soul-tax owed to Hell, substituting human victims to spare their own kind from infernal sacrifice.[8] These purposes reflect pre-Christian pagan beliefs overlaid with Christian demonology, where fairies acted out of self-preservation, envy, or malice, as documented in medieval and early modern tales across Celtic and Germanic regions.[1] Variations emphasized fairies' need for human vitality to sustain their diminutive races, contrasting the substitutes' wizened, greedy traits with the stolen children's idealized vigor.[9]Methods of Detection and Reversal
In European folklore, particularly from the British Isles, detection of a changeling often involved tests designed to exploit the substitute's supernatural nature or advanced age in fairy reckoning. One prevalent method, documented in Irish and Scottish traditions, entailed brewing beer or simulating cooking within empty eggshells, an absurd act that purportedly provoked the changeling to speak or react with knowledge beyond a human infant's years, such as exclaiming its great age.[2][10] This "eggshell test" appears in multiple 19th-century collections of oral traditions, where the creature might declare, "I have seen the acorn before the oak," thereby confirming its otherworldly origin.[11] Exposure to iron implements or blacksmith forges served as another detection tactic, as iron was believed to burn or reveal fairies and their proxies, causing visible distress or transformation in the suspected child.[12] Folklore accounts from medieval and early modern periods describe placing iron scissors over a cradle or subjecting the child to forge heat, eliciting cries or physical marks indicative of the imposture.[13] Religious rituals, including repeated baptisms, exorcisms, or sprinkling holy water, were also employed, drawing on Christian countermeasures against demonic or fairy influence, though these sometimes overlapped with pagan elements in rural practices.[13] Reversal of the substitution required banishing the changeling to compel the fairies to restore the human child, often through harsh exposure or ritual abandonment. Common procedures included leaving the detected changeling outdoors overnight on a fairy path or hill, or positioning it between plow furrows in a field to invoke supernatural exchange.[2] In extreme variants from Irish lore, the changeling faced immersion in water, whipping with birch rods, or brief subjection to fire, actions intended to distress the fairies into returning the original infant, typically within hours or days.[14] These methods, rooted in pre-Christian animism blended with later Christian exorcism, carried risks of harm but were substantiated in trial records and folk narratives as culturally sanctioned responses to perceived fairy theft.[15]Historical Evidence and Practices
Documented Accounts from Medieval to Early Modern Periods
One of the earliest documented references to the changeling belief appears in the Middle English text Hali Meiðhad, composed between 1190 and 1220, where the term "cangun" is used to describe a substituted fairy child left in place of a human infant.[16] In the early 13th century, William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris from 1228 to 1249, described popular beliefs in changelings as offspring of incubi demons exchanged for human babies; these substitutes were characterized by failure to thrive, excessive wailing, voracious milk consumption, emaciated bodies, and eventual disappearance after several years, reflecting medieval theological concerns over demonic interference in human reproduction.[6] During the early modern period, Protestant reformer Martin Luther encountered and commented on suspected changelings, integrating the motif into Christian demonology by attributing substitutions to Satan rather than fairies. In 1532 at Dessau, Luther examined a 12-year-old boy described as a soulless "mass of flesh" with pig-like eyes, inert and unresponsive like a statue, whom he declared a changeling and recommended be drowned to end its torment, arguing such beings lacked human souls and served demonic purposes.[17] Luther's Table Talk records further instances, where he advised similar lethal measures for changelings exhibiting developmental anomalies, viewing them as devilish impostors unfit for Christian society.[18] A 1580 German case, later recorded in the Grimm brothers' Deutsche Sagen (1816 edition, no. 88), involved a mother in a nobleman's field who suspected her week-old infant of being a changeling due to its insatiable milk demand; after beating it with a switch, the "devil" reportedly restored the original child, illustrating how such beliefs prompted direct interventions against perceived substitutes.[6] These accounts, drawn from theological writings and oral traditions preserved in later compilations, highlight the persistence of changeling lore amid Reformation-era anxieties over disability, demonic possession, and child mortality, often rationalized through supernatural causation rather than medical understanding.[1]Associated Rituals and Folk Remedies
In European folklore traditions, protective measures against changeling substitution emphasized iron, believed to possess inherent repellant properties against fairies, elves, and trolls. Parents commonly placed iron objects—such as open scissors, horseshoes nailed above doorways, or knives—near the infant's cradle to deter supernatural exchanges, a practice particularly documented in Scandinavian and Irish accounts.[13] [19] Religious safeguards complemented these, including the use of holy water, crucifixes for Catholic households, or open Bibles for Protestants placed in or over the cradle, alongside vigilant monitoring of newborns for the first few days or weeks post-birth.[1] Detection rituals focused on eliciting unnatural reactions from suspected changelings, often through deliberate absurdities. A widespread method involved brewing beer or boiling water in empty eggshells before the child's eyes; the changeling, feigning infancy but possessing ancient knowledge, would reportedly laugh uncontrollably or exclaim in bewilderment, such as "I've seen towers rise and crumble, but never beer brewed in eggshells," thus exposing its true identity.[1] This technique appears in German folktales collected by the Grimms and broader European variants, serving as a non-violent test rooted in the belief that supernatural beings could not conceal their wisdom under such provocation.[1] Remedies to reverse the substitution and compel the fairies' return frequently invoked threats of harm or discomfort to the changeling. In Irish and Scandinavian lore, families heated a shovel until red-hot, sprinkled it with salt or marked it with a cross, and placed the child upon it, prompting screams that allegedly summoned the fairy host to retrieve their kin and restore the human infant.[13] Exposure to open fire, boiling water, or physical beating—such as switching with birch rods, as in a 1580 Breslau account—were also employed, with the rationale that the changeling's discomfort would force its parents' intervention.[1] Christian-influenced practices included exorcisms, baptisms, or prayers to expel demonic influences presumed responsible for the swap.[13] These methods, while embedded in folk belief, often blurred into abusive acts, reflecting the era's limited medical understanding of developmental anomalies.[1]Regional Folklore Variations
British Isles and Celtic Traditions
In Irish folklore, the Aos Sí—supernatural beings descended from the Tuatha Dé Danann—were believed to steal healthy human infants from their cradles, replacing them with changelings, or iarla sí, which were deformed or aged fairy offspring disguised to evade detection. These substitutes manifested as unnaturally wrinkled, voracious yet frail children who exhibited sudden behavioral shifts, such as irritability, refusal of milk, or precocious speech revealing otherworldly knowledge.[2][20] The abduction motive centered on fairies' need for robust human vitality to replenish their diminishing stock or serve in their subterranean realms, a motif documented in 19th-century collections like Thomas Crofton Croker's Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1825).[2] Scottish traditions paralleled this, attributing substitutions to the Sìth or daoine sìth, who left shargs—puny, listless impostors that grew minimally and displayed aversion to iron or Christian symbols. Folk accounts from the Highlands, as compiled by John Francis Campbell in Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1900), describe changelings as emitting eerie cries or demanding unusual foods like bread without leaven, prompting families to verify authenticity through exposure to fire or exhaustive brewing rituals.[21][22] Divergences from Irish lore included Scottish emphasis on changelings' temporary residence until the fairy parent retrieved them, often signaled by the impostor vanishing amid flames or pronouncements of its true age.[22] Welsh folklore invoked the Tylwyth Teg, diminutive fairies inhabiting hills and lakes, who swapped children for their own weak progeny, resulting in offspring that lagged in development and exhibited supernatural longevity. Eyewitness-like accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries, such as those in William Jenkins Thomas's The Welsh Fairy-Book (1895), recount mothers in regions like Pembrokeshire identifying changelings via rituals involving heated pokers or herbal infusions of vervain, compelling the fairies to restore the original child at sites like fairy rings.[23] These practices underscored a shared Celtic pattern of using mundane elements—fire for purification, iron for aversion—to disrupt the enchantment, reflecting pre-Christian animistic views of boundaries between human and fairy domains.[22][24] Across these traditions, changeling beliefs explained infant illnesses or disabilities through supernatural causality, persisting in rural oral narratives into the late 19th century despite clerical condemnation, as evidenced by Irish Folklore Commission archives holding over 200 first-person reports from counties like Kerry and Galway.[24]Continental Europe
In Germanic folklore, particularly German traditions, the changeling is known as the Wechselbalg, a substitute child exchanged by elves, dwarfs, or elderly mountain women for unattended, unbaptized human infants left in cradles. These entities were characterized by physical deformities such as oversized heads and necks, insatiable appetites, and developmental delays resembling mental retardation or malformation.[25] Legends describe Wechselbalg as exhibiting behaviors like rapid consumption of food, refusal to thrive, and precocious speech revealing otherworldly knowledge, such as complaining about poor treatment in the human world.[25] One documented tale from 16th-century Germany recounts a mother, guided by a local healer, placing the suspected Wechselbalg in an oven; the creature then spoke, demanding release and restoring the original child in exchange for its return to the supernatural realm.[25] Scandinavian folklore, spanning Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, attributes changeling substitutions primarily to trolls or subterranean beings rather than aerial fairies, with the exchanged child often displaying an aged face on an infant body, voracious eating habits akin to a wolf's, and perpetual stagnation in growth or motor skills.[26] In Norwegian variants, guardians detected such impostors through rituals like heating a shovel in the fire and threatening the child with it, causing the changeling to leap up the chimney and flee, sometimes restoring the human infant.[26] Swedish accounts from the 19th century describe changelings as selfish and demanding, with iron objects—such as knives placed in cradles—serving as deterrents due to the beings' aversion to the metal, a motif linking to broader Indo-European supernatural vulnerabilities.[27] In the Low Countries, Dutch folklore features wisselkind or changelings left by earth-dwelling spirits like aardmannen, who abducted children and replaced them with awkward, gluttonous substitutes prone to illness and odd mannerisms.[28] French continental traditions, particularly in regions like Auvergne, echo these motifs with tales of fairy or elf substitutions, where suspected changelings were exposed by public humiliation, such as whipping in a marketplace under clerical guidance, compelling the entity to revert and return the stolen child.[29] Across these areas, the lore emphasized prevention through baptism, iron talismans, or constant vigilance, reflecting causal concerns over infant mortality and unexplained disabilities prevalent in pre-modern Europe.[1]