Changelings are supernatural beings who replace human children, often targeted if unbaptized or beautiful. Precautions include steel objects and catching them talking. Some legends suggest abuse as a way to get rid of them. The origins of changeling myths are debated, with theories including actual child swapping during invasions or birth defects.
A shapeshifter is the child of a supernatural being who is mistaken for a human child. Shapeshifting appears in the folklore of many European countries, and references to shapeshifting can be found from time to time in modern popular culture. According to legend, fairies, trolls, and other creatures desire human children to be raised as their own or used as servants, and secretly steal the children and replace them with their own offspring or a bewitched inanimate object. Human parents are said to be able to recognize the changeling by its ugliness or by its strange or vicious behavior.
Stories of changelings are frequent in medieval legends. Some children were said to be particularly vulnerable: those not yet baptized and those who were particularly beautiful, often with blond hair and blue eyes. Boys are also said to be targeted more often.
There are a number of legendary precautions against changelings. Scandinavian tradition suggests placing a steel object over the cradle of an unbaptized child, while other traditions favor practices such as turning the child’s clothes inside out or using amulets. In many cultures, the changeling is believed to be much wiser than a human child, so it can be driven away by catching it talking and then blowing its cover. Methods of accomplishing this include cooking a meal in an eggshell or brewing beer in an acorn.
There are also a number of more disturbing methods of getting rid of a shapeshifter that involve abusing the child in various ways. Beating, drowning, and burning in a stove or fireplace have all been recommended as ways to deal with a changeling. A Swedish folktale tells of a woman who refuses to mistreat a shapeshifter and is eventually reunited with her son; the human child is healthy, and the woman discovers that the troll mother who bore her child had likewise rejected pleas to abuse the child, and that her kindness had broken the spell.
Folklorists have two main theories about the possible origins of changeling myths. One possibility is that changeling stories are supernatural reinterpretations of an actual event; populations forced into hiding by the invaders may have exchanged their children for healthier ones of the invaders.
The other theory holds that children with birth defects were the origin of the changeling lore. This is consistent with the legend that male babies were replaced more often with changelings, as males have a higher incidence of birth defects. The children in some changeling stories have characteristics similar to those that result from birth defects such as autism, progeria, or a variety of physical deformities. Some alleged cases of changelings may also have been cases of failure to thrive, a condition in which a child does not grow or gain weight as expected and requires extra care.
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