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Changelings An Essay by D. L. Ashliman

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« on: October 13, 2009, 12:12:55 am »

The mistreatment of changelings in folklore accounts often (although not always) leads to a happy outcome for the human parents and their rightful child. To halt the abuse of their offspring, the otherworldly parents frequently rescue the changeling and return the stolen mortal child. Stories with these fantasy endings provided hope, wish fulfillment, and escape to an era that was plagued with birth defects and debilitating infant diseases.

But not all changeling accounts have happy endings. Often the child thought to be a changeling is driven away or killed, but there is no indication that the healthy original child is returned. The tales that omit the safe recovery of the rightful child authentically illustrate a painful aspect of family survival in pre-industrial Europe. A peasant family's very subsistence frequently depended upon the productive labor of each member, and it was enormously difficult to provide for a person who was a permanent drain on the family's scarce resources. The fact that the changelings' ravenous appetite is so frequently mentioned indicates that the parents of these unfortunate children saw in their continuing existence a threat to the sustenance of the entire family. Changeling tales support other historical evidence in suggesting that infanticide was not infrequently the solution selected.
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