by Asia Leonardi for this Carl Kruse Blog
«Don’t call us gnomes. We don’t want to be called that anymore. Once it was the perfect word
to designate a wide variety of creatures, but today it has too many meanings […] If you want to
give me a name, I am like them, an elf. Or rather, I’m a Changeling. We steal the kids and take
their place. The elf becomes a child, and the elf child..»
(Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child)
The ancient European legends and traditions about the fairy world are for the most part fairy tales
that refer to the devotion of human beings to the creatures of the woods. There are, however, some
beliefs that depict fairies as creepy beings, who kidnap healthy children, replacing them with
deformed and sick beings, the so-called “Changeling”.
Changeling is an ancient mythological figure in European folklore, particularly in Scotland. It was
said that fairy creatures, attracted to beautiful and healthy human children, had the horrible habit
of stealing and replacing them with their own, ugly and creepy beings. The parents, therefore,
found in the cradle, in place of their newborn, a being with wrinkled and withered skin, with
indomitable hair, or, less monstrously, with unusual facial features and lips with a strange foramen.
The Changeling, in addition to having a creepy appearance, always cried, screamed, and shouted,
ate a lot but above all, attracted the misfortune of the family that welcomed him. \
Hancock: «Not only the magical creatures kidnapped healthy and happy children, but they replaced
them with beings not entirely human», which ethnographic and folk studies report as «thin and
restless, ugly and deformed, weak but extremely voracious, capricious and always dissatisfied».
The Changeling, despite being very awkward and abrupt in its movements, distinguished himself
from other children for his unusual musical talent, as well as for his sharp intellect. These marked
“abilities” make us deduce that the changeling phenomenon was used, by European folklore, to
explain the phenomenon of autism.
According to ancient traditions, fairies preferred unbaptized children, or too spoiled and pampered
by their parents, And the only chance for the human mother to get her baby back was to take care
of the changeling as if it were her child, so the fairies would take it back on their own. However,
this did not happen frequently, so that these “little demons” did not survive for long: they counted,
at most, a few years of life. At that point, for the poor parents, there was no more hope and they
resigned themselves to the fact that their child would be raised forever in the world of fairies.
The European folk tradition has handed down some tricks used by families to ensure the exchange
between the two babies, and eventually, get rid of the changeling. One stratagem consisted of
pouring a spoonful of chamomile into an eggshell, at which point the deformed newborn would
have to exclaim “in so many years of my existence I have seen some things, but never pour chamomile
into an eggshell!” before he disappears and sends the kidnapped child back. At times, instead, he
was forced to reveal his true age (other folk traditions handed down that, in front of a fairy
creature, it was enough to extract their name to make it go away).
To verify the true identity of the child, a basket was hung to a hazel branch above the fire, and in
this basket was placed the suspect Changeling. In case the child would have screamed in pain, the
identity of the changeling could be certain.
Numerous court documents dating from 1850 to 1900 in Germany, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and
Ireland reveal several proceedings against defendants accused of torturing and murdering suspected
changelings. A particularly well-known case is that of a family from Gotland, Sweden, who in 1690
abandoned a ten-year-old “changeling” child on a heap of manure throughout the night of Christmas
Eve, hoping that the fairies would return to take him back. The poor child froze to death from
exposure to the winter cold.
These legends are historical evidence that suggests that infanticide was often the solution adopted
for such a problem. The progress of science between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has
slowly eliminated the popular belief that autist or malformed children were probably not human
but rather the fruit of some demonic being, of children who could be neglected, mistreated, and
even put to death without moral scruples. When theological explanations gave way to medical
explanations, human and social values changed to such an extent that the very word “changeling”
and its equivalents in other languages became historical curiosities, remains of beliefs and practices
that have helped our European ancestors – for better or worse – to face the problems of life and
death in the face of physically or mentally imperfect children.
On the Fairy People
The belief in the presence of a «secret people», dwelling in another dimension but superimposed on
ours, which is accessed by using “portals” within mountains, hills, or ancient burial mounds, is
diffused almost all over the world and especially in the northern part of the hemisphere (Europe
and North America). Particularly rich in this regard is the Scottish folkloric tradition, which makes
mention of such entities with the names of Sith or «Good People», and that of Ireland, which calls
them Sidhe or Gentry. In England, they are known as Fairies, in France as Fées, and in Italy as Fatae
(Fate). In European folklore, there are many testimonies of men who, voluntarily or despit
themselves, have been allowed to enter the underground kingdom (Fairyland) in which the «secret
people» live.
Although today similar stories belong more to the realm of children’s fables than to actual beliefs,
Nevertheless, even in the last century, the chronicles report exceptional facts that can be traced back
to the research in question – not being able to explain only with “rational” or “scientific”
explanations. One of these concerns a Norwegian milkmaid named Anne who had just given birth to
a very healthy child and one night saw «a woman dressed in black» enter her room with another
child in her arms. During the distressing “meeting” Anne was unable to move and only later she
discovered that «her child was no longer there, and in its place, there was an unpleasant, mangled,
ugly, hunchbacked brat. The understudy grew up… to be an idiot mooing like an ox. Anne never
saw her child again».
An equally sinister story, which occurred on the island of Skye, was learned by W.Y. Evans-Wentz in
1908:
«An old nurse had fallen asleep in front of a chimney with a baby on her lap. The mother, who
was in bed and stared at them dreamily, at a certain point saw with astonishment three strange
little women entering the house, who approached the sleeping child, and just as the one who
seemed the leader was about to take him out of the womb of the nurse, The last of the three
exclaimed, “Oh, let’s leave him with her, we’ve already taken so many!” “Let it be” answered the
eldest… »
Similar tales were – as is easily imagined – even more widespread in previous centuries. Hancock
reports a case that occurred in England in 1611, of which mention is made during a trial that saw in
the guise of accused the alleged witch Susan Swapper :
«In Susan’s time it was known that fairy had a constant and extraordinary need to procure
human children of all ages, but above all, and surprisingly, newborns. When the visitors
appeared, Susan was pregnant and close to childbirth and for this reason, was terrified that
they could kidnap her; She resisted with all her strength when “the woman in the green
petticoat said to her: “Sue, get up and come with me, otherwise I will drag you away by
weight”.»
Susan shakes her husband trying to wake him from sleep, begging him to come to his aid, but these,
not seeing at all the beings of which the wife claimed to feel the presence, turned her back and
went back to sleep. This case of the XXVII century, considered at the time the result of a «pact with
the devil», suggests at the same time how often the cases of “abductions” by the fairies can be
analyzed, from the perspective of the XXI century, on the one hand in correlation to the phenomena
of «paralysis in sleep» and on the other with the alleged «alien abduction».
Renewal of lineage
According to some Scottish beliefs, Sith-type entities would not possess the soul (whatever is meant
by this term), but they might “obtain” it by marrying or joining “carnally” (however inappropriate
that term may appear here) with a human being: hence, abductions and forced matings at the
expense of human hosts, which equally according to folkloric tradition would serve to generate a
hybrid offspring. Such beliefs are also widespread in different parts of the world, for example in the
Amazon or the Far East (Japan, Indonesia, etc.).
Although in the comment by Mario M. Rossi (titled The Chaplain of the Fairies), the author assumes
that the fairies are actually «nostalgic creatures who want the love of men, who kidnap newborns
just to achieve a fuller, fuller life», usually scholars are more inclined to explain these alleged
“abductions” differently: the Dungeons would not aim abstractly at a «fuller life», but at a real
organic state, so to speak, «fuller».In other words, the end of these abductions and substitutions of
people would be to become more concrete, spraying their lineage, so to speak, with a dose of
human “physicality”, thanks to mating and genetic hybridization. Therefore, not the achievement of
a «soul», but that of a «fuller» physical state would be the aim of fairies.
This view is supported by the majority of specialists in European and especially British folk
traditions, including folklorist Peter Rojcewicz, according to whom :
«[…] the most significant form of fairy addiction to mortals concerns their genetic evolution.
Humans are indispensable for health. »
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, the Irish poet W.B. Yeats in The Celtic Twilight wrote that the
(fairies) Idses needed «human physical strength» and for this reason, they often seduced and mated
with the males of our species to carry out “hybrid” pregnancies, in the Secret Kingdom. Even Diane
Purkiss tells a legend that the fairy… need blood. They need new blood». Of the same opinion is
Katherine Briggs, according to which the fairies aspire to «reinvigorate their decadent lineage with
fresh blood and human vigor», arriving for this to kidnap men, to bring them into their kingdom
and to offer them food and drink fairy, who would recognize the power to magically hold such
guests in the Underworld.
Jean Markale in his book Wonders and Secrets of the Middle Ages similarly notes: «Fairies need men,
perhaps to regenerate their race threatened with sterility [… ] We also know that they kidnap
human children to make them exceptional beings, communicating their knowledge and their
magical powers». Finally, we quote the opinion of Hartland, according to which:
«The motive assigned to fairies in northern stories is that of preserving and improving their
race, on the one hand by carrying off human children to be brought up among the elves and to
become united with them, and on the other hand by obtaining the milk and fostering care of
human mothers for their Offspring. »
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Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Other articles by Asia Leonardi include Joan of Arc, Lou von Salome and Lost Architecture.
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