The Stolen Child

Alexandra Sophie, Pinterest

The enigmatic world of faerie stretches throughout many cultures describing a vast and wide range of creatures. There are nature spirits and house goblins, water nixies and brownies, banshee and leprechaun. Each figure in their own right hold a claim to particular regions of the world and allegorically represent a history of superstition and tiny fears. Recently we've reviewed the role of the Tuatha de Danann, the various Celtic figures who emerge from their subterranean territories and toil with the human world. These figures such as the Sidhe, the Fir Darrig and Trooping Fairies are historical representatives of old Irish and Highlander legend. These tales of old world pre-Christian deities surely influenced the various beliefs of Changelings in Medieval Europe.

Changeling, Alan Lee 1976

The idea of the stolen child influenced various works by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson and J.M. Barrie, notably Barrie's Peter Pan. But long before childish daydreams and innocent nursery tales, beliefs of fairy intervention with children had more sinister outcomes. Ideas and myths surrounding Changelings are among some of the oldest fairy beliefs. Changelings represent a range of figures who are primarily interested in the affairs of human beings, most significantly with midwives, new-born babies and their mothers. They come to a household eager to possess a newborn child.

The Elves, by Walter Crane

"Mentions of the thefts of babies are to be found in the Medieval Chronicles of Ralph of Coggeshall and Gervase of Tilbury among others, through the Elizabethan and Jacobean times, and right down to the beginning of the...(20th) century. The fairies' normal method was to steal an unchristened child, who had not been given proper protection, out of the cradle and to leave a substitute in it's place. This 'changeling' was of various kinds. Sometimes it was a stock of wood roughly shaped into the likeness of a child and endowed by glamour with a temporary appearance of life, which soon faded, when the baby would appear to die and the stock would be duly buried. More often a fairy child who did not thrive would be left behind, while the coveted, beautiful human baby was taken. More often still the changeling would be an ancient, withered fairy, of no more use to the fairy tribe and willing to lead an easy life being cherished, fed and carried about by its anxious foster-mother, wailing and crying for food and attention in an apparent state of paralysis." --- Katherine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies

Puck, Richard Dadd 1840

The notion of Faeries entering one's household today is often viewed as childish fancy. The notion or speculation of such things in Medieval Europe had devastating consequences. The Malleus Maleficarum often referred to as The Hammer of the Witches was written by a German Catholic clergyman named Heinrich Kramer in 1486. This treatise on the persecution of witches utilized various folk legends and fear to systematically dispute arguments that claimed witchcraft did not exist. The book accounted for a wide variety of superstition including that of the changeling myth. The contents written by Heinrich Kramer are as follows:

 

Malleus Maleficarum Part 2

Chapter VIII

Certain Remedies prescribed against those Dark and Horrid Harms with which Devils may Afflict Men.

        Yet again we reserve our judgement in discussing the remedies against certain injuries to the fruits of the earth, which are caused by canker-worms, or by huge flights of locusts and other insects which cover vast areas of land, and seem to hide the surface of the ground, eating up everything to the very roots in the vineyards and devouring fields of ripe crops. In the same light too we consider the remedies against the stealing of children by the work of devils.
        But with regard to the former kind of injury we may quote S. Thomas, the Second of the Second, Question 90, where he asks whether it is lawful to adjure an irrational creature. He answers that it is; but only in the way of compulsion, by which it is sent back to the devil, who uses irrational creatures to harm us. And such is the method of adjuration in the exorcisms of the Church by which the power of the devil is kept away from irrational creatures. But if the adjuration is addressed to the irrational creature itself, which understands nothing, then it would be nugatory and vain. From this it can be understood that they can be driven off by lawful exorcisms and adjurations, the help of the Divine mercy being granted; but first the people should be bidden to fast and to go in procession and practice other devotions. For this sort of evil is sent on account of adulteries and the multiplication of crimes; wherefore men must be urged to confess their sins.
        In some provinces even solemn excommunications are pronounced; but then they obtain power of adjuration over devils.

         Another terrible thing which God permits to happen to men is when their own children are taken away from women, and strange children are put in their place by devils. And these children, which are commonly called changelings, or in the German tongue Wechselkinder, are of three kinds. For some are always ailing and crying, and yet the milk of four women is not enough to satisfy them. Some are generated by the operation of Incubus devils, of whom, however, they are not the sons, but of that man from whom the devil has received the semen as a Succubus, or whose semen he has collected from some nocturnal pollution in sleep. For these children are sometimes, by Divine permission, substituted for the real children.

         And there is a third kind, when the devils at times appear in the form of young children and attach themselves to the nurses. But all three kinds have this in common, that though they are very heavy, they are always ailing and do not grow, and cannot receive enough milk to satisfy them, and are often reported to have vanished away.
     
   And it can be said that the Divine pity permits such things for two reasons. First, when the parents dote upon their children too much, and this a punishment for their own good. Secondly, it is to be presumed that the women to whom such things happen are very superstitious, and are in many other ways seduced by devils. But God is truly jealous in the right sense of the word, which means a strong love for a man's own wife, which not only does not allow another man to approach her, but like a jealous husband will not suffer the hint or suspicion of adultery. In the same way is God jealous of the soul which He bought with His Precious Blood and espoused in the Faith; and cannot suffer it to be touched by, to converse with, or in any way to approach or have dealings with the devil, the enemy and adversary of salvation. And if a jealous husband cannot suffer even a hint of adultery, how much more will he be disturbed when adultery is actually committed! Therefore it is no wonder if their own children are taken away and adulterous children substituted.

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These sinister words are a small example of the larger work, which aided in the brutal persecution of witches throughout the 16th and 17th Century. Clergymen in different regions of the world had various methods in the disposal of the accused devils, non of which were less devastating. Even as early as the 20th Century an infant child was abducted in Ireland by meddling neighbors who suspected a changeling. The child was placed upon a red-hot shovel in expectation that it would fly up the chimney. Work like the Malleus Maleficarum and general ignorance of unfamiliar sudden diseases such as infantile paralysis inspired households that this was the work of the Devil or God's divine intervention. Often victimized parents were offered strange advice to deal with their circumstances. They were advised to expose the fairy by beating it or casting it into the fire. Sometimes they were instructed to bathe the child in a solution of fox-glove, which is poisonous and deadly. In Denmark women were instructed to beat the fairy with a rod or throw it into a body of water so as to release the fairy. These hauntingly sinister activities were invented to more or less inspire the fairies to return a stolen child. On rare occasion they were instructed to treat the child kindly so theirs in return would receive the same attention.

A Changeling, PJ Lynch

Particular Welsh Faeries called the Tylwyth Teg, being fair-haired envied and coveted fair-haired children and infants. "The Tylwyth Teg have a fatal admiration for lovely children. Hence the abundant folk-lore concerning infants who have been stolen from their cradles, and a plentyn-newid (change-child---the equivalent of our changeling) left in it's place by the Tylwyth Teg. The plentyn-newid has the exact appearance of the stolen infant, at first; but its aspect speedily alters. It grows ugly of face, shriveled of form, ill-tempered, wailing, and generally frightful. It bites and strikes, and becomes a terror to the poor mother. Sometimes it is idiotic; but again it has a supernatural cunning, not only impossible in a mortal babe, but not even appertaining to the oldest heads, on other than fairy shoulders." --- W. Sikes, British Goblins

David Talley, Pinterest

Children were often abducted by the fairies for three reasons, the first to pay tithe to the Devil, to help populate the fairy stock, or simply because of their beauty. Often it was believed that the replacement babe was an elder fairy enchanted to appear like a baby. There were various methods for revealing the true nature of the changeling. One such method was to make the creature laugh and therefore trick it into betraying it's true age. There are multiple tales that tell of a Mother who suspected that her disagreeable child was not her own. She then learned of an old common trick, to take two dozen egg shells and place them upon the hearth, then by going through various motions of brewing the baby ceased it's crying and peered down from its cradle. The changeling broke out into a humorous rant, "I've seen the first acorn before the oak, but never have I seen brewing done in eggshells before!" In that moment the woman turned up the flame of the fire and cast the child upon it. The creature then flew up the chimney shrieking and filled with laughter, and then the true baby would be returned to the door. In some tales the child would not return and the parents would travel to a particular fairy dwelling, such as a fairy hill (,comparable to the Tuatha de Dannan) to retrieve their stolen child.

"And The Cloud of her Soul was Lifted"
Illustration from "The Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier"
Revised Edition, 1879, Riverside Press.

Fear and the precarious nature of these tales dwindled as they evolved to suit simple fireside tales. Changelings in myth involved more than just children. In lore we see beautiful women being taken as fairy wives, many legends therefore tell of the valiant husband who was/or wasn't successful in the undertaking of saving his wife. There is a rich culture of tales that see a nursing Mother taken by the fairies to nurse their own children, her breast milk offering particular nutrients that the fairy-child wouldn't otherwise receive. The Brothers Grimm have a few tales that honor the peculiar nature and myth surrounding creatures. Rumpelstiltskin represents a culmination of changeling myths as he is obsessed with the notion of possessing a human child. Some tales see a reversal on the enchantment. In the beautiful tale Hans My Hedgehog, a child is born, a beast-like creature who, part hedgehog understands that he is an enchanted being. He is a changeling of sorts and must wait for true love to release him from his plight. This is perhaps an early variant on Beauty and the Beast.

Rumpelstiltskin, Arthur Rackham

There is a wide range of contemporary fiction that has been dedicated to the further exploration of these creatures, most notably a novel by author Keith Donohue titled: The Stolen Child. This acclaimed 2006 debut novel is a haunting look at both perspectives of the changeling myth. The novel gives a first hand account of the human child stolen and the fairy-child forced to become a human. It is an emotional exploration of youth, as well as a coming of age tale established through unforeseen circumstances.

"I am a changeling---a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own. The hobgoblin becomes the child, and the child becomes a hobgoblin. Not any boy or girl will do, but only those rare souls baffled by their young lives or attuned to the weeping troubles of this world. The changelings select carefully, for such opportunities might only come along once a decade or so. A child who becomes a part of our society might have to wait a century before his turn in the cycle arrives, when he can become a changeling and reenter the human world"---Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child

Kate Bush by Steven Brown 1987

The most notable contribution to the changeling legend comes from William Butler Yeats first published in 1889 in The Wanderings of Oisin and other Poems:

The Stolen Child:

  Where 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 berrys
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 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 dropp 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,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

William Butler Yeats 

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Source Material:

• An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Katherine Briggs, Pantheon Books, New York 1976
• The Vanishing People: Fairy Lore and Legends, Katherine Briggs, Pantheon Books, New York 1978
• British Goblins, W. Sikes, The Lost Library, Glastonbury England, First Published by Sampson Low in 1880
• Malleus Maleficarum, Sacred-texts.com
• Poemhunter.com
• The Stolen Child, Keith Donohue, Anchor Books, New York