Episode 144: Dark Fae: Changelings
The folklore of changelings in a nutshell, translated to Afrikaans, and how I reimagined it for my writing.
Written and narrated by Ronel Janse van Vuuren.
Copyright 2024 Ronel Janse van Vuuren — All rights reserved.
Learn more about changelings in folklore here.
Get the transcript here.
Learn more about the author and her writing here.
Music: Secrets by David Fesliyan (FesliyanStudios.com) and Dramatic Heartbeat by FesliyanStudios.com
Transcript
You’re listening to the Faeries and Folklore podcast by Ronel.
I’m dark fantasy author Ronel Janse van Vuuren. With over a decade of digging around in dusty folklore books, researching creatures of imagination that ignited my curiosity, I’m here to share the folklore in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing in an origin of the fae.
This is the Faeries and Folklore podcast.
Hi, I’m your host Ronel Janse van Vuuren. You can just call me Ronel. In today’s episode, we’re continuing our exploration of the fae realm.
This episode is brought to you by my Dark Court Sisters book series. Available in ebook, paperback and audiobook. Three sisters. Three destinies. Three ways to destroy the world. Go to ronelthemythmaker.com/darkcourtsistersseries for more.
You can now support my time in producing the podcast (researching, writing and everything else involved) by buying me a coffee. This can be a once-off thing, or you can buy me coffee again in the future at your discretion. Go to buymeacoffee.com/ronel to support me.
We’re continuing our exploration of Dark Fae.
Today’s Faery: Changeling
Folklore in a Nutshell by Ronel
According to most folklore, changelings are abnormal in appearance and frail. This is usually because the changeling is an ill faery infant or an elderly fae left in the care of humans, as the fae don’t have the patience to deal with anything too serious. Some tales tell of the mortal parents treating the changeling well, in the hopes that their own child would be treated well in return. In other tales, the mortal parents subject the changelings to cruel tests to make the fae return the human child and take the changeling away. Some of these tests included burning the child with a hot poker…
So the human parents suspected that a child wasn’t theirs, but a fae changeling, because of one of several reasons: the child didn’t have any language skills, the child had advanced language skills, the child was sickly, the child had an abnormal appearance such as pointed teeth or oddly coloured or textured skin, the child suddenly showed bad behaviour, the child ate more than a child that size and age should be able to, the child becomes thin and ugly despite being taken well care of. There are other reasons, but these are the ones that pop up most often. With modern science, we know that there are reasons beyond a faery kidnapping as to why some children don’t speak at all and why others have language skills beyond their years, why illness comes suddenly, why skin would discolour, why a child would suddenly act out. And we don’t have to torture the child to make it change – unless we’re in an uncivilized country, of course.
In some tales, it is possible to get the child back safely: do something odd that would make the changeling reveal itself, like cooking eggshells instead of eggs and the changeling will remark on it when it shouldn’t be able to speak yet, and the fae won’t have a choice but to return the human child and take the changeling away. Another way is to confront the changeling with the real child – which would require travelling to Faerie to retrieve the child yourself.
I like the idea, though, that the fae simply take children away from humans who tend to act in a superior way simply because they love children and seldom have any of their own. Leaving a stock in the place of the stolen child and then having it die in its crib would mimic SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome…
And now for my interpretation of the fae in an Origin of the Fae: Changeling
For the most part, changelings are only left when the faery child is too ill to survive. Because the faery parents don’t want to deal with the loss, they use and enchantment on the mortal child they’ve stolen away to look like their own so they won’t feel the loss too much. Only the humans will truly suffer. To get the human child back, the parents need to make the changeling reveal itself or have another faery help them retrieve their child.
There are times when changelings are left for the child’s own protection – usually the court fae and their life-threatening politics being at play. The changeling is left to be raised as a human, not knowing who or what they truly are. The human parents are usually oblivious to the swap as the changeling doesn’t act any differently than the mortal child had.
The only time a stock is left, an animated doll that will soon lose its glamour seemingly being a dead infant, is when a halfling is returned to Faerie without the consent of the human parent. This is usually done to protect the secrets of Faerie, as the child is too magically powerful to be kept among mortals.
As a little bonus, let’s look at this faery translated to Afrikaans: Wisselaar
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode of the faeries and folklore podcast and that you’ve learned something new about faeries.
Remember that you can get a transcript of this episode in the description. If you’re new to the podcast, why not go and grab your free copy of Unseen, the second book in the Faery Tales series, on my website ronelthemythmaker.com? Loads of folklore, magic and danger await! Take care!
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You can now support my time in producing the podcast (researching, writing and everything else involved) by buying me a coffee. This can be a once-off thing, or you can buy me coffee again in the future at your discretion.
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No-one writes about the fae like Ronel Janse van Vuuren.