The Changeling

The Changeling
Change´ling
n.
1.
One who, or that which, is left or taken in the place of another, as a child exchanged by fairies.
Such, men do changelings call, so changed by fairies' theft.
- Spenser.
The changeling [a substituted writing] never known.
- Shak.
2.
A simpleton; an idiot.
Changelings and fools of heaven, and thence shut out.
Wildly we roam in discontent about.
3.
One apt to change; a waverer.
a.
1.
Taken or left in place of another; changed.
2.
Given to change; inconstant
changeling
noun
(mythology) In British and Irish mythology, an infant of a fairy or sprite that the fairy has secretly exchanged for a human infant.
(colloquial) An infant secretly exchanged with another infant.


When I was young my mother often told me I wasn’t her child but a changeling , a fairy child and that one day, especially if I was badly behaved, the Goblins would come and take me back... I can remember that more than once I packed my teddy and some books and waited at the gate for them to come.
Through my early years I mostly read fairy tales so enjoyed the idea of being one of their children, seeing myself as something magical and special and this has probably lead to my love of mythology and folklore. When I recounted this story recently however, someone said to me that it would be considered child abuse now because ‘changeling’ was another word for a child that was ‘different’, possibly one that was sickly or unwanted and as a result was often neglected or mistreated. Babies whose defects were not obvious at birth but appeared in the first few years could then be explained as not truly human. Determined, as ever, to get to the bottom of this I re-read the stories and tried to find out more about the children that, like myself, were considered to be changelings.
In mythology a changeling was considered to be a child of the fairies that had taken the place of a mortal one, though the reasons for this vary from fairies exchanging one of their own poorly children for a healthy human one, to the protection of the fairy child, general mischief and even to trolls wanting their children to be brought up as humans as it was considered to be the troll equivalent of a finishing school!
Of course when these stories were first told, the image of the fairy was not of the tiny, sweet winged creatures of Disney, but that of a race of human sized supernatural beings with magical powers almost akin to gods, something to be both feared and in awe of.
Although most people associate fairies with the Celtic lands, tales of similar magical creatures can be found the world over, from the Chinese Devas and the Dryads of Ancient Greece to the Elves of Norse mythology.
As Christianity began to replace the old Pagan beliefs, the stories changed to that of unbaptised children being stolen, possibly in a bid to help convert the masses from the old religions.

Some Folklorists believe that the ‘fairy’ stories could have been a supernatural way of explaining the indigenous population being forced into hiding by invaders and that changelings were the way of exchanging their children for the invaders to ensure their survival.
The tests to see whether you have a changeling instead of your own flesh and blood were many and varied and in some cases very cruel. A brew made from Foxgloves, containing digitalis, which can be poisonous, was given to the child in the hope of returning it to its real family. Another way was to try and drown the baby or to place the child on a fire and if it was a changeling, it would leave, climbing up the chimney. At no point however, does it appear that any harm came to the human child when taken unlike the stories of what happened to child left in its place and I shudder to think how many innocent children may have been badly injured or killed in this way.
As these tests were applied to the children who generally looked different or behaved oddly; more recently doctors have concluded that the changeling legend may have developed to explain the differences in children with disabilities such as autism, spina bifida or cystic fibrosis.

Indeed some autistic adults associate themselves with changelings or aliens for this reason and their own feeling of being in a world where they do not belong and of practically not being the same species as the "normal" people around them (taken from Kim Duff, The Role of Changeling Lore in Autistic Culture).

So how did the majestic fairies of old become the Tinkerbelle’s of today and what does any of this have to do with my childhood?

Could the changing religious beliefs have decreased the stature and importance once associated with the ‘fair folk’, making them all but disappear? Do the stories come from an actual event in history? Is there a link with previously unknown disabilities? Possibly, but still it does not answer why mother called me a changeling all those years ago. There was only one way to find out, so I asked her.

Her reply was simple... sometimes I had been a naughty little imp.