Origins
The dark history of changelings in Ireland
The first stories of Changelings were told through oral story telling centuries ago, but changelings were referred to formally as far back as the 1600's. In 1741 Carl Linneaus was on a research expedition and documented that a family brought a changeling for him to see. He recognized the medical characteristics as a disease, but this tells us that people were familiar with the folklore of changelings as well as dispelling the stories by the mid 1700s.
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In Ireland stories of changelings came from rural communities with a high concentration coming from the region of Connacht.
Rural Ireland held deep beliefs and respect for the Fairy world. These communities believed that fairies would take action against people for being "bad" or even just to cause mischief. Part of this was fairies stealing human children and leaving their own, a changeling, in their place. Parents were supposed to care for these changelings as if they were their own child, in hopes that the fairy would return their own child back, however this was rarely the case.
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Another way to get their children back was to perform ceremonies that typically involved throwing the "changeling" into a fire or leaving them on a hillside, or on a shovel for days. It was believed that this would cause the changeling to leave and their child to return.
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Changelings were thought to be unruly and otherworldly, and often faced extreme violence and death from those performing these ceremonies.
A more in depth look
Characteristics of a Changeling
Often times parents would report a sudden change in their child, or even report something being "off" about their babies. A fairy doctor would be called to the family who would decide if the child was actually a changeling and what treatment was appropriate.
Some characteristics of a changeling would include excessive crying, extreme expressions, deformities, extreme weight loss, appearing wizened, and sudden changes in personality and character.
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Today we recognize that many of these characteristics point towards autism or other medical and mental illnesses.
Fairy doctors influence
Fairy doctors were respected within communities. They were people believed to have been taken by fairies and returned to the human world with a special gift for healing. They were able to work between the human and fairy realms for this reason.
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Fairy doctors would be called to determine if a child was a changeling. If they deemed the child a changeling they would instruct parents and community members on what to do in order to get their "real" child back. This consisted of those actions like leaving babies on shovels outside for days, throwing them into fires, or in one horrific instance a community beating the "changeling" to death.
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While horrific to think about, it's important to remember that these rural communities truly believed that their children were gone and following these instructions from the fairy doctors would bring them back.
Community involvement
Violence against children believed to be changelings involved everyone in the community, these were not practices kept behind closed doors.
However, some parents did try to stop communities from accusing their children of being changelings or attacking them, but were rarely successful.
Once these practices became common older children who were accused of being changelings, were often found deceased from a heart attack the morning of their "treatment". It's thought that these children knew the horrific deaths others faced and the terror caused them to have heart attacks.
Sometimes city courts would hear of these cases and call the parents and fairy doctors to trial for murdering their children. Even in court the rural folks were adamant about the children not being theirs but actually being changelings. Parents and fairy doctors typically faced jail time for their actions.