Changeling

Hello and welcome back to Fab Figmentals, the podcast that explores the realm of curious creatures, magical monsters, and beautiful beasts!

I’m your host, Lindsey Morse.

Each episode, we dive into the folklore and history of a different legendary creature and share a story about it. And today we’re going to be looking at a creature that’s always given me a mad case of the heebie jeebies— The Changeling. 

Picture this: your young child, who has always been happy and healthy, all of the sudden one day seems… different. Once content and carefree, the little one is now irritable and grouchy. As time passes, the poor youngster doesn’t seem to be growing at all, and instead looks weak and sickly. Could it be a disease? An undiagnosed disorder? Maybe. Or perhaps the fairies have swapped your healthy, vibrant child for one of their own, a changeling. 

In most cases, a changeling is said to look just like the child it’s impersonating, but there may be some indications of fraud if you know where to look. Irish legend states that a changeling might have long teeth or a bit of a beard, Polish changelings may have claws, thin limbs, and hairy bodies, and Welsh lore warns that a changeling may grow uglier with each passing day. 

There are also some odd behavioral changes you might want to keep an eye out for: beware if your little one begins to exhibit signs of wisdom beyond their years, or becomes disturbingly insightful. It might also be wise to peek in when your child thinks no one is watching. If it’s dancing around like a loon, singing strange songs, or playing an instrument it shouldn’t know how to play, you may have a changeling on your hands. 

But why would fairies want to steal children? Well, motivations seem to vary. It could be malice, a need for human slaves, or perhaps the fairies simply fall in love with certain children and want to keep them as their own. 

But fear not. Just because a child gets swapped with a fairy changeling, doesn’t mean that all is lost. Folklore suggests holding the suspected imposter near the fire. Not close enough to burn the child, mind you, but as close as you can get without singeing it. If it’s a changeling, legend states that it might scoot up the chimney and return with the real child. Or, as we’ll see in today’s story, you might want to start collecting some eggshells… 

Stories and folklore about changelings can be found throughout Europe, but most of the examples I’ve seen come from Ireland, the UK, and the Isle of Mann, and today’s story is from Scotland. It was published in 1901, and is from J. F. Campbell’s collection Popular Tales of the West Highlands. I’ve made a few small changes for clarity, but the story is largely unchanged. 

I’m going to read our story for this week, but I’ve invited Amanda, one of the hosts of Spirits, a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore, to join the show. Amanda is going to read something for us later in the episode, and stay tuned after the credits to hear a promo for Spirits.

Here’s “The Smith and the Fairies”.

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Years ago there lived in Crossbrig a smith of the name of MacEachern. This man had an only child, a boy of about thirteen or fourteen years of age, cheerful, strong, and healthy. All of a sudden he fell ill, took to his bed, and moped whole days away. No one could tell what was the matter with him, and the boy himself could not, or would not, tell how he felt. He was wasting away fast; getting thin, old, and yellow; and his father and all his friends were afraid that he would die.

At last one day, after the boy had been lying in this condition for a long time, getting neither better nor worse, always confined to bed, but with an extraordinary appetite,--one day, while sadly revolving these things, and standing idly at his forge, with no heart to work, the smith was agreeably surprised to see an old man, well known to him for his sagacity and knowledge of out-of-the-way things, walk into his workshop. Forthwith he told him the occurrence which had clouded his life.

The old man looked grave as he listened; and after sitting a long time pondering over all he had heard, gave his opinion thus-- "It is not your son you have got. The boy has been carried away by the fairies, and they have left a changeling in his place.”

"Alas! and what then am I to do?" said the smith. "How am I ever to see my own son again?”

"I will tell you how," answered the old man. "But, first, to make sure that it is not your own son you have got, take as many empty eggshells as you can get, go with them into the room, spread them out carefully before his sight, then proceed to draw water with them, carrying them two and two in your hands as if they were a great weight, and arrange when full, with every sort of earnestness, round the fire." The smith accordingly gathered as many broken eggshells as he could get, went into the room, and proceeded to carry out all his instructions.

He had not been long at work before there arose from the bed a shout of laughter, and the voice of the seeming sick boy exclaimed, " I am now 800 years of age, and I have never seen the like of that before.”

The smith returned and told the old man. "Well, now," said the sage to him, "did I not tell you that it was not your son you had: your son is with the fairies now. Get rid as soon as possible of this intruder, and I think I may promise you your son.

"You must light a very large and bright fire before the bed on which this stranger is lying. He will ask you, 'What is the use of such a fire as that?' Answer him at once, 'You will see that presently!' and then seize him, and throw him into the middle of it. If it is your own son you have got, he will call out to save him; but if not, this thing will fly through the roof.”

The smith again followed the old man's advice; kindled a large fire, answered the question put to him as he had been directed to do, and seizing the child flung him in without hesitation. The changeling gave an awful yell, and sprung through the roof, where a hold was left to let the smoke out.

On a certain night the old man told him the green round hill, where the fairies kept the boy, would be open. And on that night the smith, having provided himself with a Bible, a knife, and a crowing cock, was to proceed to the hill. He would hear singing and dancing and much merriment going on, but he was to advance boldly; the Bible he carried would be a certain safeguard to him against any danger from the fairies. On entering the hill he was to stick the knife in the threshold, to prevent the hill from closing upon him; "and then," continued the old man, "on entering you will see a spacious apartment before you, beautifully clean, and there, standing far within, working at a forge, you will also see you own son. When you are questioned, say you come to seek him, and will not go without him.”

Not long after this the time came round, and the smith sallied forth, prepared as instructed. Sure enough, as he approached the hill, there was a light where light was seldom seen before. Soon after a sound of piping, dancing, and joyous merriment reached the anxious father on the night wind.

Overcoming every impulse to fear, the smith approached the threshold steadily, stuck the knife into it as directed, and entered. Protected by the Bible he carried on his breast, the fairies could not touch him; but they asked him, with a good deal of displeasure, what he wanted there. He answered, "I want my son, whom I see down there, and I will not go without him.”

Upon hearing this the whole company before him gave a loud laugh, which wakened up the cock he carried dozing in his arms, who at once leaped up on his shoulder, clapped his wings lustily, and crowed loud and long.

The fairies, incensed, seized the smith and his son, and, throwing them out of the hill, flung the knife after them, and in an instant all was dark.

For a year and a day the boy never did a turn of work, and hardly ever spoke a word; but at last one day, sitting by his father and watching him finishing a sword he was making for some chief, and which he was very particular about, he suddenly exclaimed, "That is not the way to do it;" and, taking the tools from his father's hands, he set to work himself in his place, and soon fashioned a sword the like of which was never seen in the country before.

From that day the young man wrought constantly with his father, and became the inventor of a peculiarly fine and well-tempered weapon, the making of which kept the two smiths, father and son, in constant employment, spread their fame far and wide, and gave them the means in abundance, as they before had the disposition, to live content with all the world and very happily with one another.

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The fears of a particular time often find their way into stories and legends, and the theme of swapped children pops up frequently in medieval European literature. There’s something truly dark, I think, about the idea that at any time your child could be replaced with a changeling right under your nose, but it’s a concern that reflected real fears of the time.

For many peasant families in Pre-Industrial Europe, resources were scant and poverty was a way of life. Many families needed to utilize every member in a productive capacity in order to survive, and a sick child could quickly drain a family’s limited resources. A sudden malady could be devastating, and illness would have been an ongoing concern. Reflecting these fears, many changeling stories speak about the creatures’ “ravenous appetites.” The phrase “eat you out of house and home” comes to mind. 

Sadly, in many cases, suspected changelings were killed or abused; there are two such 19th century Irish cases on the historical record. 

The first took place in 1826, when a mother took her suspected changeling, a four year old son who could neither speak nor stand, to a local river to try and “bathe the fairy out of him.” The child drowned, and— remarkably— she was acquitted of murder. Later, in 1895, a woman named Bridget Cleary fell ill with what might have been pneumonia. This sudden shift in health led someone to suggest she was a changeling, and she was killed by her husband with the help of several others. He was charged with murder, but insisted that he had not murdered his wife, only a fairy imposter. Though some suspected he’d killed her in a fit of rage and then tried to escape consequences by using a “fairy defense,” none of killers were convicted of murder— only the lesser charge of manslaughter. 

But even though most people today no longer believe in fairies, “changelings” are still sometimes reported. 

In 1923, a French psychiatrist named Joseph Capgras identified a psychiatric disorder in which, “a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an identical impostor.” Known as Capgras delusion, those afflicted will often swear up and down that someone close to them has been replaced with a lookalike. Capgras delusion is rare, and it’s still not fully understood how and why it happens. 

As I said at the top of the episode, there’s something about changelings that I find deeply unsettling. I suppose it’s the knowledge that children, who need our support and protection, sometimes had their loved ones turn on them— all because they were unlucky enough to get sick. Or maybe it’s also the fact that this uncomfortable horror isn’t confined to the past. Any one of us—due to the manifestation of Capgras delusion— could suddenly start believing that a loved one has been replaced by a replicant. 

But I don’t want to linger in the darkness of the real world for too long. 

I’d like to try and end this episode on a lighter note, by looking at changelings from a different perspective. 

In 1886 William Butler Yeats penned a poem called, “The Stolen Child,” which is ostensibly about a youngster who is lured away from the world of the humans and into the realm of the fairies. It describes the glorious natural wonders that await the child in the fairy realm, and seems to advertise the fairy lifestyle as a childlike one, full of innocence and play.

Yeats was a nationalist, and believed that Ireland should not be a divided country. The poem is thus often interpreted through a political lens— the celebration of fairies, childhood, and the Celtic images of the past are seen as representing Yeats’ own desire to look back in time, and to return to the days when Ireland was united.

But as a lover of folklore, I enjoy this poem because it looks at the other side of the changeling legend. Changelings are often seen as dangerous creatures that disrupt families and ruin lives, but what of the stolen child? Most tales seem to assume that the missing child has been kidnapped or taken against his will, but what if that’s not the case? What if he’s not stolen at all? What if these missing children go willingly? 

I’ll leave you to ponder that, as Amanda from Spirits rounds out this episode with a reading of “The Stolen Child” by W. B. Yeats.

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There dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island,

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water rats;

There we’ve hid our faery vats,

Full of berries,

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than

you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim gray sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances,

Mingling hands and mingling glances,

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than

you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout,

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than

you can understand.

Away with us he’s going,

The solemn-eyed:

He’ll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside;

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For he comes, the human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

From a world more full of weeping than

he can understand.

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Thank you so much for tuning in to Fab Figmentals!

Research, writing, and sound editing are done by me, Lindsey Morse. Niall Cooper assists with writing and editing. Our theme music was created by Graeme Ronald. 

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Thanks again for listening, and I hope you’ll join me next week. In honor of Thanksgiving, we’re going to look at the Corn Mother, a figure from some indigenous agricultural tribes in North America said to be responsible for the origin of corn. But this isn’t your typical happy, slappy, feel-good origin story— this one has some dark and rather disturbing layers.

We’ll see you next time. 

(Spirits promo.)