July 14, 2025

Terrifying & True | The Legend of the Changeling – Dark Folklore, Superstition, and Real-Life Horror

Terrifying & True | The Legend of the Changeling – Dark Folklore, Superstition, and Real-Life Horror
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Terrifying & True

From eerie cradle-switching fairies to the tragic murder of Bridget Cleary, changeling legends have haunted folklore for centuries. In this episode, we explore the chilling mythology behind these tales—and the real-world horrors that occurred when belief blurred with brutality. Are changelings just fairy tales… or something far darker?

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👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Mark Shields, Bobbletopia.com

🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder

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🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
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Fairies, folklore and fire. For centuries, changeling legends whispered of

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babies stolen from their cradles and replaced with something eerie,

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something inhuman. But in eighteen ninety five Ireland, this myth

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turned to murder. Tonight, we're diving deep into the history

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of change lengths.

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What you were about to take is buried to be

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based on witness accounts, testimonies and public record. This is

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terrifying and truth.

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Tipperary, Ireland, eighteen ninety five. A young woman writhes in

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agony as flames rise around her. Her husband watches coldly,

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declaring that she is not his wife, but a changeling,

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a demonic fairy impostor left in her place. Across centuries

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and continents, people have whispered of such creatures. Infants swapped

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in the night, loved ones returned strangely, altered their eyes too,

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knowing their smiles just wrong. They're cold changelings, beings of

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myth and fear. But what happens when folklore is mistaken

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for fact. We'll dive into that story after this. On

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a cold March night in eight eighteen ninety five, a

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small cottage in Ballyvadley Ireland became the stage for a

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horrific drama. Neighbors huddled by the doorway as Bridget Cleary

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lay writhing on the floor, her husband, Michael, towering above her.

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He forced a foul herbal concoction between her lips and

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doused his shivering wife in urine, all the while shouting

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at the terrified twenty six year old, Are you Bridget Boland,

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the wife of Michael Cleary, answer me? Beside the hearth,

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a peat fire roared, casting wild shadows as Michael brandished

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a burning stick. Bridget, feverish from days of illness, cried

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out in confusion and pain. Her cotton chemis suddenly caught flame.

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In an instant, Michael threw lamp oil across her body,

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feeding the blaze. The witnesses would later say they weren't

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sure if Bridget was still alive when the flames engulfed her.

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They only knew Michael's face was set like stone as

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he held them back, roaring that this was not his

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wife at all, but a demonic changeling he had to destroy.

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She's not Bridget, She's a fairy, he yelled, insisting the

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real Bridget had been abducted by the fairy folk a

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week prior. As the firelight danced in his eyes, Michael

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vowed he would get his true wife back from the

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near by Ringford, even if it meant burning this thing

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to ashes. When Bridget's charred remains were found in a

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shallow grave days later, a shocked nation grappled with the story.

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The press dubbed her the last witch burned in Ireland.

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Though Bridget was no witch, Her husband's defense was chilling

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in its sincerity. He claimed he truly believed he hadn't

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killed his wife, only the fairy impostor that had replaced her.

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In the ensuing trial, neighbors and even Bridget's own father

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admitted they had assisted Michael in driving out the supposed

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changeling with brutal folk remedies. The case of Bridget Cleary,

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a modern young woman tortured and burned alive in the

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nineteenth century, became one of the most notorious incidents of

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changeling lore intruding on reality. It revealed how deeply the

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old belief in fairies and changelings still gripped rural communities,

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and how deadly the consequences could be when folklore and

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fear outweighed reason Bridget's story would echo through history as

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a grim warning of what happens when myth and reality collide.

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The legend of the changeling, a fairy's deceitful surrogate left

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in place of a stolen person, haunts the folklore of

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many lands, from the misty bogs of Celtic Ireland to

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the rugged forests of Scandinavia. Tales abound of infants whisked

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away by supernatural beings and replaced with something else. In

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European lore, a changeling could be a fairy child or

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elderly sprite, magically disguised as a human, or even an

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enchanted piece of wood carved to look like a person.

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Almost every culture had its own twist on the myth,

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but the core was the same, malicious other worldly forces

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snatching loved ones and leaving an impostor behind. Celtic traditions

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are especially rich with changeling stories. In Irish and Scottish legends,

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it was said the fairy folk the ease she coveted beautiful,

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healthy human babies to strengthen their own bloodlines. A fairy

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mother might slip into a home and leave her ailing

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fairy infant in the cradle, spiriting the human child away

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to live in the fairy realm. The changeling left behind

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was often sickly and stunted, sometimes with bizarre features, an

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infant who never grew, perhaps sprouting teeth or even a beard,

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and who cried and fed endlessly without ever thriving. In

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Irish lore, some changelings displayed uncanny intelligence beyond their years,

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or other eerie behaviors when they thought no one was watching,

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like dancing on their own or playing the fiddle in

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the crib. Such a creature was clearly not a normal child.

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In Wales, similarly, a plant in kale or changeling child

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might start out looking ordinary but gradually turned ill featured,

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malformed and ill tempered, given to constant screaming and biting.

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One Welsh test for a fairy swamp was to brew

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a family dinner in eggshells. If the wizened little changeling

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laughed and revealed his centuries of knowledge, perhaps responding to

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the strange meal by saying I have seen the acorn

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before the oak, but never saw the likes of this,

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it proved his other worldly nature. Across the sea in

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Scandinavian countries, changeling lore often featured trolls. Medieval Scandinavian villagers

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believed that rolls sometimes snatched unbaptized infants, perhaps because it

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was more respectable for a troll child to be raised

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by humans than by their own kind. In these tales,

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a troll mother might leave her own ugly newborn in

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a human cradle and take the human baby as a

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foster prize. Scandinavian parents, well aware of this threat, would

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guard newborns with iron scissors or knives placed over the cradle,

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since supernatural beings were said to dread cold iron. But

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if the swap was successful, the unlucky family would be

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left with a troll changeling, often described as a baby

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with a big head, distorted features, and an insatiable appetite.

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One Danish legend tells of a mother who returns to

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her infant's crib to find a scrawny, dark complexioned changeling

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with a huge belly and piercing eyes. Her once plump,

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fair haired baby had vanished. German folklore likewise warned of wexelbalk,

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their word for changelings left by elves or even the

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devil himself. The brother's grim collected a tale of a

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new mother near Breslau, Germany, forced to leave her weak

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old son unattended while she worked in the fields. In

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that brief time, a demonic figure supposedly slipped a swap

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into the crib. The baby she returned to was not

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her own. It bit her while nursing and howled with

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an inhuman voice. On her lord's advice, the desperate mother

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carried the creature out to the very meadow where her

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real child had been taken and beat the changeling with

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a switch, upon which the devil himself appeared, snarling and

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thrust the real child back at her, before snatching his

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screeching imp away. Such stories underscore the common themes that

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span these cultures, fairy abductions, swapped infants, and the terror

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of another in the guise of one's loved one. In

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an era before medical science, these tales offered an explanation

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for the unexplainable, why a healthy child might suddenly fall

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ill and waste away, or why a person's behavior could

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mysteriously and radically change. It was far easier to blame

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capricious fairies or trolls than to accept an inexplicable loss

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or illness. As one scholar noted, the changeling legend persisted

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as a folk belief among adults, not just a fanciful

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fairy tale for children. People truly feared that not all

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is as it seems, that a beloved child, or even

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an adult, might be taken by supernatural forces lurking just

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beyond the candlelight. How would you know if your loved

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one had been swapped with a changeling? Folklore provided plenty

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of ominous signs. A once happy baby might suddenly become

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withdrawn and constantly crying, or develop a voracious appetite, nursing greedily,

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yet never seeming satisfied. The child might not grow or

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hit milestones, perhaps remaining oddly small, unable to stand or

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speak when other children its age do. Many a medieval

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mother cradling an infant who would not stop wailing and

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failing to thrive, look down in fear and thought, this

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is not my child. In Irish tradition, a fairy changeling

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often appeared pale, wizened, and sickly, sometimes with peculiar physical

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traits like a full set of teeth, long fingernails, or

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an aged face, incongruous on a baby's body. The eyes

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were often a giveaway. A changeling might gaze at people

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with a knowing adult intelligence, or have an uncanny glint

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that sent shivers through the parents. If the creature in

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the cradle could suddenly speak or sing beyond its age,

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or caper about when alone, no further proof was needed.

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Even subtle traits raised suspicion. An aversion to iron, the

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way a fay would recoil from a horseshoe or scissors

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near the crib, or a birthmark or deformity taken as

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the mark of fairy tampering. In some locales, le left handedness,

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once considered devilish, was enough to brand a child as

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a changeling. Essentially, any deviation from the norm could be

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construed as evidence that the child was an otherworldly interloper. Tragically,

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we can recognize today what many of those changeling symptoms

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really were signs of physical or developmental disabilities. A baby

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that did not grow or walk might have had congenital

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illness like rickets or cerebral palsy. A child who screamed

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and did not respond to comfort could have been suffering

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from colic or even autism. In centuries past, such conditions

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were mysteries with no name. The changeling myth became a

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convenient label for children who were developmentally different. For example, autism,

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which can manifest in toddlers as a loss of speech,

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social withdrawal, repetitive behaviours, or unusual reactions maps uncannily on

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to changeling lore. Families have long told of children who

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developed normally at first, then around age two, regressed into

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their own world. In earlier eras, this heartbreaking regression might

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be explained as the fairies stealing the healthy child and

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leaving a strange double in its place. Neurodivergent traits like fidgeting, hypersensitivity,

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or lack of eye contact were interpreted as the changelings

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witchy misbehavior. A nineteenth century idiot or imbecile child, terms

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then used for intellectual disabilities was often presumed to be

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a changeling or elf child. In fact, the very term

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changeling had a very different use later in history. The

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term changeling was sometimes used colloquially to mean a person

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of limited mental capacity. The historical record shows even learned

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men subscribed to this notion. Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformation

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leader once described a to say twelve year old boy

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as a changeling quote with no soul, only a piece

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of flesh, and chillingly advised that the child be drowned

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quote to rid us of the devil's imposture, since no

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amount of prayer could redeem such a creature. While extreme

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Luther's view reflected a grim reality, children who today would

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receive medical care and education were in past centuries often

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seen as supernatural changelings to be fixed or eliminated. Modern

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historians and psychologists suspect that countless cases of autism, down syndrome,

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metabolic disorders like phenal kidanuria, and other genetic conditions lie

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behind changeling folklore. The myth provided a perverse comfort to

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parents racked with guilt or grief. It allowed them to

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believe their real child was perfect and had been stolen away,

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rather than accept that their beloved child was permanently different

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or disabled. But that comfort came at a terrible price

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if the family then turned on the changeling in their midst.

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For those who feared a changeling had infiltrated their home,

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folklore prescribed drastic remedies. The foremost goal was to get

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the supernatural impostor to reveal itself, or to punish it

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so severely that the fairies would return the real person

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to spare their child further harm. Many of these cures

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ranged from bizarre rituals to outright cruelty, often crossing the

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line into tragic abuse. Some methods were relatively harmless tricks.

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One famous ploy was the eggshell brew. The worried parent

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would boil water in eggshells instead of a pot. This

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nonsensical act was supposed to make a sly fairy changeling

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laugh or comment blowing its cover. In Welsh lore, a

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changeling watching its mother boil eggshells might cackle and comment,

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I have seen the acorn before the oak, but never

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such a brew, as this a sure sign that an

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ancient fairy, not an infant, was in the cradle. According

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to tales, upon this outburst, the spell would break, the

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elderly fairy would vanish, and the true child would be

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miraculously returned, as if by waiting elves just outside the door. Similarly,

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benign ruses included tricking the changeling with music or mystery,

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anything to provoke an out of character reaction. In Ireland,

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one story tells of a mother who suspected her toddler

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was a fairy. She started feigning a dance with an

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empty shawl as if cradling an invisible baby, singing that

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she had a fairy child of her own. The changeling,

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unable to resist, sneered that she was a foolish woman

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to dance with nothing. At that the mother knew her

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true child was gone. While these gentle tricks sometimes feature

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in folklore with happy endings, the reality was far darker

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when mere trickery failed. Traditions sanctioned painful trials by fire

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and water. It was widely believed that iron and fire

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were anathema to fairy folk. Thus heat could torture the

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changeling or drive the fairy spirit out. One prescribed remedy

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in multiple cultures was to heat a shovel or poker

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in the fire and then hold the changeling on it

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or near it. The idea was to literally scorch the

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fairy out of the victim. In Whales, a mother might

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shove the suspected changeling into a hot oven briefly as

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grotesque as that sounds, or boil herbs like foxglove to

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bathe the child in a scalding tub. Foxglove was a

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poisonous plant associated with fairy magic. Its name even comes

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from folks and glove i e. The little folk's glove,

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referring to fairies. An infamous case in eighteen fifty seven

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Whales saw a baby killed after being dunked in a

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foxglove bath meant to dispel the fairy influence. Likewise, in

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the Irish countryside, fairy doctors sometimes prescribed dunking or dragging

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children through rivers or lakes. Drowning could result, whether intended

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or not. In eighteen twenty six, an irishwoman named Anne

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Roche was charged with the death of four year old

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Michael Lady, a boy who couldn't speak or stand. Anne

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had immersed the child in the icy river flesk three times,

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trying to wash the fairy out of him. On the

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third immersion, the little boy drowned. At her trial, Anne

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swore she had only been attempting a cure for the changeling. Remarkably,

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the jury acquitted her of murder, implicitly accepting that she

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acted out of sincere, albeit misguided belief. Such acquittals were

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not uncommon in communities where fairy loyd was part of life.

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Ordinary people might sympathize with those who used brutal methods

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to save a loved one from a supposed changeling. After all,

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if one truly believed a malignant fairy had taken hold

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of a child, almost any action could be justified in

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order to defeat it. Of all the remedies, fire was

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the most extreme. Fire was also the remedy that left

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the most indelible records of horror. The reasoning was simple

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and stark. If you burn the changeling, the fairies will

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be forced to return the human, since presumably they wouldn't

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want their own kind to die. Countless folk tales culminate

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in a child being held over a roaring hearth, or

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even tossed in, only for a fairy to screech and

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fly up the chimney as the unharmed real child is

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suddenly restored on the doorstep. In practice, however, real children

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and adults suffered grievously from attempts to smoke out a changeling.

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A nineteenth century Scottish account from Kerr Laverac describes a

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desperate father distraught at his infant's constant screaming and illness,

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who heaped hot coals from the fire on to the

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baby's bare stomach. The baby tragically died from the burns,

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a victim of what to day we would recognizes as

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abusive violence, but which the father may have rationalized as

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a last resort to expel a fairy. In rural Ireland,

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those claiming expertise in fairy matters, often called fairy doctors

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or wise folk, sometimes orchestrated such rituals. They would insist

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the family not intervene, no matter how the child cried,

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until the changeling yielded. Scholar Carol Silver notes instances of

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fairy doctors killing children with these ordeals. One case in

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Donegal involved a foxglove poison bath in the eighteen seventies.

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Another in Ulster had a blacksmith applying red hot iron

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to a toddler. In one haunting anac recorded by classical

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00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:07.759
scholar Gilbert Murray, a supposed changeling boy was beaten and

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burned with hot irons by a faery doctor while the

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mother was locked outside the room. The child succumbed to

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the abuse, and tellingly, no one was prosecuted. These happenings

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were often kept secret or passed off as accidents, meaning

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we likely only know a fraction of such cases. Even

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when these violent measures caused obvious harm, authorities sometimes struggled

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with how to punish the perpetrators. A remarkable trial in

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Kilkenny in eighteen fifty six came to light only by chance.

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A police patrol stumbled upon a life laborer's family surreptitiously

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carrying the corpse of their nine year old son for

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a secret burial. Under questioning, an astonishing tale emerged. The

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boy had been bedridden by illness later determined to be

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a brain tumor and hydrosyphalus. A local faery, doctor Thomas Donovan,

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declared the child was not actually the parent's son at all,

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but that the boy was quote being gradually carried off

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by the fairies. In order to save the real child,

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Donovan and a helper subjected the boy to a horrific test.

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They forced a potion of herbs, and then dragged the

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weak child out of the house at midnight. When the

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boy couldn't answer their demands to cough up the fairy

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or reveal the truth, they beat and strangled him in

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the yard. All in an attempt to drive out the

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changeling or induce the fairies to return the true son.

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The poor child died from his injuries within hours. In court,

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Donovan still insisted on the fairy rationale. The judge firmly

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rejected it, emphasizing that such supernatural delusions were no excuse

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for murder. Yet, even then, perhaps out of pity or incredulity,

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Donovan was convicted only of manslaughter and given a mere

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one year of hard labor. Cases like this laid bare

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a gulf between educated officials and the rural poor. The

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00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:07.480
court noted how odd it was that the family had

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also consulted two licensed doctors, but when the boy didn't improve,

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they turned to folklore and magic as a last hope.

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To the modern eye, the chilling truth is evident. The

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changeling myth provided cover and justification for what we now

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label as child abuse or even infanticide. As folkloreist Katherine

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Briggs wrote, countless children suffered dreadful harm from being beaten,

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exposed on hillsides, or thrown into fires on the mere

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suspicion of being changelings. Only occasionally did a wiser voice

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suggest treating the afflicted child kindly. Instead, Far more often

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violence was the recommended cure to quote, send the fairy packing.

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Most changeling tales involve infants or children, but the legend's

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terror wasn't confined to the nursery. Adults too could be

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taken by the fairies with a changeling left in their stead.

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Nowhere is this more infamously demonstrated than in the case

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of Bridget Cleary, the young Irish wife whose gruesome death

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brought to this podcast, The Truly Deadly Side of Change lays.

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Bridget's story shows how changeing lore could turn from superstition

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to scapegoating, especially against a woman who didn't fit the

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mold of her community. Bridget Cleary was, by all accounts,

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a vibrant and independent woman. In eighteen ninety five, she

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was twenty six years old, a dressmaker and egg seller

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who had her own income and a singer, sewing machine,

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modern luxuries in her small County Tipperary village. She dressed

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stylishly in feathered hats rather than the usual shawls, and

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was childless after eight years of marriage, an unusual circumstance

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that set her apart. Some neighbors whispered that Bridget was different.

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She sometimes walked alone near the old fairy Ringfort on

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the hill, perhaps to enjoy the view or seek a

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bit of freedom after caring for her elderly father. In

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local folklore that Ringford was known as a fairy dwelling,

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a place where the veil between worlds was thin. It's

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easy to imagine how gossip might swirl a pretty assertive,

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childless woman visiting fairy haunts. Perhaps the fairies fancied her.

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Perhaps if she fell ill, people might wonder if the

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good folk had designs on Bridget. Indeed, in March eighteen

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ninety five, Bridget came down with a sudden illness, likely

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bronchitis or pneumonia, that left her bedridden with fever. A

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doctor was summoned on March thirteenth, and a priest delivered

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last rites. But as days passed and Bridget remained delirious,

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her family grew anxious. Into this tense atmosphere stepped an

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older local man, Jack Dunn, a neighbor reputed to be

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a shan key or story teller knowledgeable about fairy lore.

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Dunn eyed the ailing Bridget and proclaimed what must have

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sent chills through the entire room. This wasn't Bridget at all,

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but a fairy changeling. The real Bridget, he claimed, had

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been snatched away by the fairies after her walk in

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the Ringford, and a fairy put in her place. In

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the days that followed, Bridget's husband, Michael Cleary, her father Patrick,

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and several cousins became entangled in a series of increasingly

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frantic folk treatments to get the real Bridget back. They

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boiled herbs in new milk and forced Bridget, already weak

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and nauseated, to swallow the concoction. They shouted questions and

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prayers at her, trying to get the changeling to admit

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its identity. At one point, they picked up Bridget's frail

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body and carried her before the kitchen fireplace, hoping to

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drive the fairy out with the heat, a ritual known

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in local lore as trying the changeling. Bridget was terrified,

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thrashing and pleading, but her husband and relatives persisted. Witnesses

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later described how Michael egg dawn by Jack Dunn, doused

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her with urine, another folk remedy, and threatened her with

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hot irons while demanding are you Bridget Cleary answer in

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the name of God. At one moment of respite, Bridget,

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perhaps fed up or delirious, reportedly shouted back something cutting

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that the only person going off with fairies was Michael's mother,

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who had died years before. This retort sent Michael into

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a fury. The torture escalated until that final act of

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immolation we've already recounted. By March fifteenth, Bridget was dead,

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burned on her own kitchen flo and Michael truly believed

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he had killed a fairy, not his wife. The legal

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aftermath showed just how strong the changeling belief was. Eleven

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people were arrested for Bridget's death, including her husband, father,

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and cousin who had been present at the trial. All

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of them still insisted they thought they were attacking a fairy,

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not Bridget. It was dubbed the Tipperary fairy murder in newspapers,

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and the sensational details were reported as far away as London.

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The case caused a scandal in late Victorian society. How

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could such medieval beliefs persist in modern Ireland? Some British

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papers cynically used the story to argue the Irish were

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too superstitious and savage for self governance. This was the

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era of the home rule debate. Scholars later noted that

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the Crown prosecutors treated the defendant's fairy explanation with a

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measure of gravity likely to undermine any kind of insanity defense.

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They needed to show the accused understood their actions, even

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if motivated by bizarre beliefs. In the end, Michael Cleary

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was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder. The jury, perhaps

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reluctant to utterly condemn a man who appeared genuinely deluded,

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spared him the hangman. He was sentenced to twenty years

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00:39:56.400 --> 00:40:02.400
in prison, but only served fifteen, reportedly emigrating to Canada

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00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:11.440
upon release. The others received lesser sentences for assault. The community, meanwhile,

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00:40:12.079 --> 00:40:15.719
was left grappling with the reality that everyone knew why

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00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:21.480
it happened. Many locals quietly shared the belief that Bridget

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had indeed been taken by fairies. A children's rhyme later

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00:40:27.320 --> 00:40:32.599
sung in Tipperary encapsulated the macabre lore are you a

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00:40:32.679 --> 00:40:35.679
witch or are you a fairy? Or are you the

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00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:41.760
wife of Michael Clary? A dark taunt ripped from the headlines.

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Bridget's case was not an isolated incident of changeling mythology

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leading to violence, but it was the most publicized. Its

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00:40:59.840 --> 00:41:04.360
starkly demonstrated that even on the cusp of the twentieth century,

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ancient folklore still held a lethal grip on the imagination.

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Here was a young, educated woman effectively sacrificed to a

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fairy tale. The incident prompted widespread soul searching in Ireland.

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Some saw it as a clash between modernity and myth.

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Bridget owned a sewing machine and read fashion magazines, yet

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died in a manner reminiscent of the witch burnings of old.

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00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:46.079
Others interpreted Michael Cleary's motives in a less sympathetic light,

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suggesting he may have used the changeling excuse as a

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00:41:51.320 --> 00:41:58.360
cover for simple domestic cruelty and rage. After all, Bridget

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00:41:58.440 --> 00:42:02.119
had insulted his manhood in front of others, and she

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00:42:02.239 --> 00:42:06.880
was more financially independent than he was, which could have

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stoked such resentment. It remains debatable how much Michael truly

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believed in the fairy explanation versus how much it conveniently

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00:42:19.199 --> 00:42:23.760
absolved him of murdering his wife in a fit of anger.

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What is clear is that the changeling lore provided a

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ready made narrative for him to latch onto, one that

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00:42:34.079 --> 00:42:40.679
many in his community were predisposed to accept. Bridget Cleary

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thus lives on in infamy in ballads, books and plays

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as quote the last witch or fairy burned in Ireland.

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Her story serves as a grim benchmark, a final tragic

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00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:06.360
eruption of folkloric violence in an era that was otherwise

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00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:12.480
turning towards science and reason. Why did the changeling legend

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00:43:12.599 --> 00:43:18.199
exert such power over people, enabling and even encouraging acts

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00:43:18.599 --> 00:43:24.199
that seemed to us to be unthinkable. The answer lies

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00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:29.880
in a confluence of medical ignorance, psychological need, and social

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00:43:29.960 --> 00:43:35.480
control that spanned for centuries. At its heart, the changeling

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00:43:35.559 --> 00:43:39.679
myth can be seen as a culturally sanctioned coping mechanism

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00:43:40.199 --> 00:43:47.199
for parents and communities facing inexplicable tragedy. In modern times,

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infant and child mortality were crushingly common. Diseases like influenza, meningitis,

439
00:43:55.559 --> 00:44:01.119
or genetic disorders could turn a thriving baby into a feeble,

440
00:44:01.760 --> 00:44:09.159
unresponsive one almost overnight. Lacking any scientific framework, grief stricken

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00:44:09.280 --> 00:44:15.079
parents reached for the explanation their culture provided. The fairies

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00:44:15.239 --> 00:44:19.760
did it believing that their true child had been stolen

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00:44:20.320 --> 00:44:25.559
offered a bizarre sort of comfort. It externalized the blame.

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As folklorus. Carol Silver observed, the changeling belief conveniently shifted

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00:44:32.559 --> 00:44:39.079
responsibility for a child's affliction quote into a separate, supernatural

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00:44:39.159 --> 00:44:45.360
realm beyond human control. The parents were absolved of fault.

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It wasn't their bad genes or a failure to care properly.

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It was the fairies. And there was even hope, however, faint,

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that the real child might be recovered if the correct

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ritual was performed. Susan Eberley, a scholar who studied changeling cases,

451
00:45:08.559 --> 00:45:13.159
noted that parents often harbored anger and guilt toward a

452
00:45:13.199 --> 00:45:19.320
disabled child, anger at the burden and disruption, guilt for

453
00:45:19.400 --> 00:45:24.000
the feeling of that anger. The changeling myth gave those

454
00:45:24.159 --> 00:45:29.280
conflicting emotions an outlet. A parent could project their anger

455
00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:34.119
onto the impostor, leading to abusive attempts to drive it out,

456
00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:39.159
while clinging to the guilt easing belief that their actual

457
00:45:39.480 --> 00:45:46.480
beloved child was blameless and could still be saved. In

458
00:45:46.559 --> 00:45:50.480
a perverse way, some of the very cruelty inflicted on

459
00:45:50.639 --> 00:45:57.400
changelings was driven by love for the missing child. As

460
00:45:57.480 --> 00:46:01.960
one writer put it, quote, even as they tormented these

461
00:46:02.079 --> 00:46:08.360
supposed changelings, parents were projecting their own familial love onto

462
00:46:08.440 --> 00:46:13.440
fairyland and acting out of desperate hope for a reunion.

463
00:46:14.599 --> 00:46:20.039
It's a heartrending paradox. The changeling fantasy allowed parents to

464
00:46:20.119 --> 00:46:26.000
express devotion to an idealized absent child, even as it

465
00:46:26.119 --> 00:46:30.519
drove them to abuse the flesh and blood child in

466
00:46:30.599 --> 00:46:35.880
front of them. Yet belief in changelings was not purely

467
00:46:35.960 --> 00:46:41.679
a private family matter. It was reinforced by community and

468
00:46:41.800 --> 00:46:47.239
authority figures. At times, village healers or wise women. The

469
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:54.239
fairy doctors could gain status by diagnosing changelings and prescribing

470
00:46:54.360 --> 00:46:58.440
cures which might feed their own sense of importance or

471
00:46:58.920 --> 00:47:04.719
even bring materisurial reward. And as seen, even prominent religious

472
00:47:04.719 --> 00:47:09.679
figures like Martin Luther lent theological weight to the idea

473
00:47:10.199 --> 00:47:15.480
that some children or soulless fairy or demon spawn that

474
00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:22.480
deserved death. In Luther's sixteenth century context, a changeling might

475
00:47:22.559 --> 00:47:27.960
equally be called a devil's changeling. The concept overlaps with

476
00:47:28.320 --> 00:47:34.320
demonic possession, declaring a child inhuman could remove moral qualms

477
00:47:34.360 --> 00:47:40.159
about extreme treatment. It's a disturbing early example of how

478
00:47:40.280 --> 00:47:45.920
dehumanization can justify violence. If a child is not truly

479
00:47:45.960 --> 00:47:50.920
a child lacking a soul, as Luther claimed, then killing

480
00:47:50.960 --> 00:47:55.599
that child might be seen not as murder but as

481
00:47:56.199 --> 00:48:02.159
a kind of spiritual pest control. Indeed, some changeling trials

482
00:48:02.199 --> 00:48:07.199
in the nineteenth century reveal that defendants were genuinely shocked

483
00:48:07.519 --> 00:48:11.679
to be accused of crime. In their minds, they hadn't

484
00:48:11.760 --> 00:48:24.559
killed a person at all. The changeling myth also intersected

485
00:48:24.599 --> 00:48:31.719
with issues of social control and conformity, especially regarding women's roles.

486
00:48:32.519 --> 00:48:38.039
While most changeling victims were children, the folklore implicitly threatened

487
00:48:38.079 --> 00:48:44.320
women too, particularly mothers. A woman who lost multiple infants

488
00:48:44.440 --> 00:48:49.280
to miscarriage or illness might herself be suspected of harboring

489
00:48:49.320 --> 00:48:54.599
a malevolent fairy spirit as an explanation for her failure

490
00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.239
to produce a living child. In Nigeria, for instance, there's

491
00:49:00.280 --> 00:49:05.039
a striking parallel in the belief in obanjay, or child's

492
00:49:05.039 --> 00:49:10.480
spirit that repeatedly dies and returns to torment a mother.

493
00:49:11.679 --> 00:49:16.480
This was likely an explanation for recurring still births or

494
00:49:16.679 --> 00:49:22.000
sickle cell anemia, but it led families to ritualistically scar

495
00:49:22.400 --> 00:49:28.079
or even kill suspected obanjay children in order to break

496
00:49:28.119 --> 00:49:34.960
the cycle. In Europe, a mother's behavior could invite changeling rumors.

497
00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:38.800
If a mother was seen as negligent, falling asleep and

498
00:49:38.920 --> 00:49:42.360
letting her baby out of sight, even if from sheer

499
00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:47.320
exhaustion and the child then sickened, tongues might wag that

500
00:49:47.400 --> 00:49:52.280
she had literally allowed the fairies in. Thus the myth

501
00:49:52.519 --> 00:49:56.840
enforced a kind of vigilance on mothers. Don't ever let

502
00:49:56.880 --> 00:50:01.559
your guard down, or the fairies will come. New mothers

503
00:50:01.599 --> 00:50:06.280
were cautioned not to leave a newborn unattended, even for

504
00:50:06.400 --> 00:50:10.239
a few minutes, and to always keep iron or holy

505
00:50:10.400 --> 00:50:16.199
relics near the cradle. In the Bridget Cleary case, although

506
00:50:16.239 --> 00:50:20.599
she was an adult, some scholars have read subtexts of

507
00:50:20.719 --> 00:50:27.280
patriarchal control. Bridget was independent and childless, attributes that made

508
00:50:27.360 --> 00:50:33.039
her troublesome when she fell ill, possibly with something along

509
00:50:33.119 --> 00:50:38.159
the lines of pneumonia. Instead of caring for her with patience,

510
00:50:38.840 --> 00:50:42.880
the men in her life, her husband and the local storyteller,

511
00:50:43.480 --> 00:50:46.800
reached for a narrative that put her under their control.

512
00:50:46.960 --> 00:50:51.440
In the most extreme of ways. By casting Bridget as

513
00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:57.280
a fairy changeling, Michael Cleary could reassert dominance. He literally

514
00:50:57.360 --> 00:51:01.880
objectified her into a non human thing that he had

515
00:51:01.920 --> 00:51:07.320
the right to punish. It's telling that in the folklore

516
00:51:07.760 --> 00:51:11.679
the process of curing a changeling often involves a group

517
00:51:11.800 --> 00:51:16.519
overpowering an individual, holding them down, force feeding, et cetera.

518
00:51:17.480 --> 00:51:20.880
This can be viewed through a sociological lens as well.

519
00:51:21.760 --> 00:51:26.440
It was a sanctioned occasion for the community, usually led

520
00:51:26.480 --> 00:51:33.440
by men, to enforce norms through violence. Anyone who was other,

521
00:51:34.280 --> 00:51:38.760
whether a disabled child or a non conforming adult, could

522
00:51:38.760 --> 00:51:44.039
be socially punished under the guise of battling fairies. In

523
00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:49.320
a sense, the changeling myth was a tool for enforcing homogeneity.

524
00:51:50.559 --> 00:51:55.239
Children who could not contribute to agrarian labor or wives

525
00:51:55.320 --> 00:51:59.920
who did not conform to expected behavior were at risk

526
00:52:00.119 --> 00:52:07.039
of being branded changelings, which in effect marked them as expendable.

527
00:52:08.440 --> 00:52:13.679
It is no coincidence that in famine stricken or impoverished communities,

528
00:52:14.119 --> 00:52:18.000
a child who was a severe drain on resources might

529
00:52:18.079 --> 00:52:23.920
be more readily labeled a fairy and quietly removed. An

530
00:52:23.960 --> 00:52:31.880
awful calculus driven by survival historian William Alberry noted that

531
00:52:31.920 --> 00:52:36.920
as societies moved into the industrial Age, the changeling archetype

532
00:52:36.920 --> 00:52:41.519
in popular culture morphed into new forms, similar to how

533
00:52:41.599 --> 00:52:47.199
alien abduction narratives did, but the underlying theme remained the same.

534
00:52:48.119 --> 00:52:54.400
They are stories we tell to negotiate our anxieties about dependence, difference,

535
00:52:55.079 --> 00:53:01.960
and identity. Modern medicine and psychology have thankfully dispelled literal

536
00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:07.199
belief in changelings, but the legacy of these stories lingers

537
00:53:07.239 --> 00:53:12.239
in how we talk about kids with differences. Until the

538
00:53:12.280 --> 00:53:17.639
twentieth century, terms like elf child and fairy struck were

539
00:53:17.719 --> 00:53:23.119
sometimes used in rural Europe to describe developmentally disabled people,

540
00:53:23.960 --> 00:53:28.639
a last echo of the old idea. Even today, some

541
00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:34.400
autistic individuals find a resonance in the changeling narrative minus

542
00:53:34.440 --> 00:53:38.480
the stigma, viewing themselves as feeling out of place or

543
00:53:38.719 --> 00:53:44.920
alien in a neurotypical world. In a tragic psychological phenomenon

544
00:53:45.440 --> 00:53:50.440
known as Capgrass syndrome, a person often suffering from schizophrenia

545
00:53:50.559 --> 00:53:54.760
or dementia, becomes deluded that a loved one has been

546
00:53:54.800 --> 00:54:00.039
replaced by an impostor. This is essentially the changeling and

547
00:54:00.719 --> 00:54:05.239
playing out in a clinical setting, the patient is utterly

548
00:54:05.360 --> 00:54:12.000
convinced their spouse or child isn't really them. Such cases

549
00:54:12.159 --> 00:54:18.519
can lead to violence even now. In twenty ten, for example,

550
00:54:19.079 --> 00:54:24.079
a mother with severe postpartum psychosis in Texas drowned her

551
00:54:24.119 --> 00:54:29.519
baby daughter because she believed the child was an evil impostor,

552
00:54:30.320 --> 00:54:34.679
a modern parallel to Anne Rosch's case in eighteen twenty six.

553
00:54:35.719 --> 00:54:41.320
These instances are exceedingly rare, but they remind us that

554
00:54:41.360 --> 00:54:45.960
the human mind can still fall back on archetypal fears

555
00:54:46.360 --> 00:54:53.119
of replacement and possession when found to be in extreme distress.

556
00:54:54.639 --> 00:54:58.800
Though we no longer attribute illness to fairy swaps, the

557
00:54:58.920 --> 00:55:04.519
changeling continue used to fascinate and frighten us through literature, film,

558
00:55:04.880 --> 00:55:08.880
and art. The tales, themes the loss of a loved

559
00:55:08.920 --> 00:55:13.320
one to an uncanny force, the dread that something familiar

560
00:55:13.599 --> 00:55:19.880
is secretly alien are timeless storytelling fuel. In fact, modern

561
00:55:19.960 --> 00:55:24.880
horror and fantasy have reimagined changelings in ways that speak

562
00:55:25.039 --> 00:55:31.800
to contemporary anxieties. One of the earliest literary reflections comes

563
00:55:31.840 --> 00:55:36.159
from the Irish poet W. B. Yates, who in eighteen

564
00:55:36.280 --> 00:55:42.000
eighty six wrote The Stolen Child. In that poem, Fairies

565
00:55:42.119 --> 00:55:45.960
lure a human child away with promises of a care

566
00:55:46.039 --> 00:55:51.800
free life, whispering come away, o human child, to the

567
00:55:51.880 --> 00:55:56.199
waters and the wild with a fairy hand in hand.

568
00:55:57.239 --> 00:56:01.599
The poem captures both the seductive illue and the sorrow

569
00:56:01.960 --> 00:56:06.719
of the changeling myth, the idea of escape from pain,

570
00:56:07.719 --> 00:56:19.079
but at the cost of abandoning reality. Yates and other

571
00:56:19.239 --> 00:56:25.280
folklorists of his generation helped preserve changeling stories even as

572
00:56:25.320 --> 00:56:31.320
the belief was waning. As the twentieth century progressed, changelings

573
00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:36.559
found new life in fiction as metaphors. Authors began to

574
00:56:36.719 --> 00:56:42.239
use the concept to explore themes of identity, otherness, and

575
00:56:42.320 --> 00:56:47.239
the fear of not recognizing one's own kin. Science fiction

576
00:56:47.480 --> 00:56:52.440
notably gave us alien versions of the changeling. The motif

577
00:56:52.599 --> 00:56:59.719
of extraterrestrials abducting humans and planting lookalikes or hybrids owes

578
00:57:00.400 --> 00:57:05.199
to the old fairy lore. Indeed, some scholars have pointed

579
00:57:05.239 --> 00:57:09.199
out that alien abduction narratives in the late twentieth century

580
00:57:09.719 --> 00:57:15.559
are strikingly similar to changeling legends. Eerie lights at night,

581
00:57:16.280 --> 00:57:21.519
missing time, returned people who are not quite the same.

582
00:57:22.719 --> 00:57:26.599
Classic films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers from nineteen

583
00:57:26.719 --> 00:57:31.679
fifty six play on exactly that terror of loved ones

584
00:57:31.800 --> 00:57:38.519
being replaced with emotionless doubles, essentially an updated changeling scenario

585
00:57:38.639 --> 00:57:43.239
for the Cold War era, tapping into fears of conformity

586
00:57:43.760 --> 00:57:48.639
and loss of self. In the horror genre, child centric

587
00:57:48.760 --> 00:57:54.760
fear has repeatedly revisited changeling themes, because few things unsettle

588
00:57:54.840 --> 00:57:59.000
us more than a creepy kid who isn't what they seem.

589
00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:05.079
Eighteen seventies brought the Omen nineteen seventy six, technically about

590
00:58:05.079 --> 00:58:09.199
the Antichrist as a child, but again the idea of

591
00:58:09.239 --> 00:58:14.920
an evil entity swamped into a family. A direct nod

592
00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:18.920
to the myth came with the film The Changeling nineteen

593
00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:24.760
eighty starring George C. Scott, which, while actually a ghost story,

594
00:58:25.360 --> 00:58:28.719
leveraged the title to evoke the dread of a child's

595
00:58:28.760 --> 00:58:34.239
spirit in limbo. More recently, a wave of Irish horror

596
00:58:34.239 --> 00:58:39.679
films has explicitly drawn on the changeling folklore of that country.

597
00:58:40.559 --> 00:58:44.760
The Hole in the Ground twenty nineteen, for example, tells

598
00:58:44.800 --> 00:58:48.559
of a mother in rural Ireland who becomes convinced her

599
00:58:48.639 --> 00:58:53.000
young son is not really her son after he wanders

600
00:58:53.079 --> 00:58:57.320
near a sinkhole in the woods. The film uses the

601
00:58:57.440 --> 00:59:02.480
changeling premise as an uncanny exploration of parental mental illness

602
00:59:02.840 --> 00:59:08.880
and psychosis, blurring whether the threat is supernatural or in

603
00:59:08.960 --> 00:59:14.039
the mother's mind. Similarly, You Are Not My Mother twenty

604
00:59:14.159 --> 00:59:18.280
twenty one flips the script by depicting a teenage girl

605
00:59:18.360 --> 00:59:24.639
whose mother disappears and returns strangely altered, leading the girl

606
00:59:24.760 --> 00:59:30.239
to suspect a fairy substitution amidst her mother's mental health crisis.

607
00:59:31.239 --> 00:59:35.519
These films, steeped in Irish fairy lore and even local

608
00:59:35.599 --> 00:59:40.880
songs about infanticide, show how the myth still resonates in

609
00:59:40.920 --> 00:59:46.159
a modern setting. They channel the very contemporary fear of

610
00:59:46.280 --> 00:59:50.440
not recognizing those closest to us, and the horror that

611
00:59:50.480 --> 00:59:55.199
the monsters we battle might actually be our own inner demons,

612
00:59:55.920 --> 01:00:02.199
like depression or psychosis given shape. Even outside of horror,

613
01:00:02.559 --> 01:00:07.559
the changeling idea appears in fantasy literature and media, from

614
01:00:07.599 --> 01:00:11.719
the changeling beings in Neil Gaiman's stories to the shape

615
01:00:11.719 --> 01:00:16.320
shifting changelings of Star Trek Deep Space nine. Here, the

616
01:00:16.440 --> 01:00:20.840
term is applied to alien impostors able to shape shift

617
01:00:20.880 --> 01:00:25.119
at will. One of the most acclaimed recent uses of

618
01:00:25.159 --> 01:00:30.440
the myth is Victor Lavelle's novel The Changeling two thousand seventeen,

619
01:00:31.199 --> 01:00:34.320
a dark urban fairy tale set in New York City.

620
01:00:35.199 --> 01:00:40.639
Lavaille explicitly frames his story around the classic definition quote,

621
01:00:41.280 --> 01:00:45.000
if you know what a changeling is, a substitute child

622
01:00:45.119 --> 01:00:48.880
swapped for a real one by fairies or trolls, you

623
01:00:48.960 --> 01:00:51.760
are already two thirds of the way to the meet

624
01:00:52.320 --> 01:00:57.159
of the changeling. His tale starts with new parents and

625
01:00:57.239 --> 01:01:01.679
then spirals into a nightmarish quest involving witches and a

626
01:01:01.719 --> 01:01:07.119
secret island of stolen children, and while examining very real

627
01:01:07.239 --> 01:01:13.679
themes of postpartum depression, fatherhood fears, and racial heritage in America.

628
01:01:14.760 --> 01:01:18.760
The novel was successful enough to spawn a twenty twenty

629
01:01:18.800 --> 01:01:24.719
three streaming series adaptation. Its popularity suggests that the changeling legend,

630
01:01:25.119 --> 01:01:30.400
stripped of overt fairy trappings, still has compelling power as

631
01:01:30.440 --> 01:01:34.920
a metaphor for the uncertainties of parenthood and the fragility

632
01:01:35.400 --> 01:01:41.760
of family. When Lavaille's narrator in tones this fairy tale

633
01:01:41.880 --> 01:01:46.559
begins in a library in Queens, he reminds us that

634
01:01:46.599 --> 01:01:51.400
these are not just old time rural superstitions. They are

635
01:01:51.519 --> 01:01:55.880
living narratives that can be transplanted even to the bustling

636
01:01:56.000 --> 01:02:01.320
heart of a modern metropolis. Why does the changeling myth

637
01:02:01.480 --> 01:02:06.360
continue to captivate us, Perhaps because it touches on primal

638
01:02:06.519 --> 01:02:10.559
human fears that are just as potent now as in

639
01:02:10.639 --> 01:02:14.280
the dark ages. The fear of losing a child is

640
01:02:14.480 --> 01:02:19.079
universal and timeless. So is the fear of the unknown

641
01:02:19.639 --> 01:02:24.320
masquerading as the familiar, that the face we see across

642
01:02:24.360 --> 01:02:28.440
the breakfast table might not truly be the person we

643
01:02:28.559 --> 01:02:34.280
think it is. These anxieties have simply taken new forms. Today.

644
01:02:34.440 --> 01:02:38.679
A parent might fear autism or mental illness stealing their

645
01:02:38.800 --> 01:02:44.000
child's personality, or worry that technology and the Internet are

646
01:02:44.079 --> 01:02:48.440
creating a stranger out of their once innocent kid. The

647
01:02:48.599 --> 01:02:53.280
changeling legend, with its vivid imagery of doubles and doppelgangers,

648
01:02:53.719 --> 01:02:59.039
provides a dramatic framework to explore those feelings. Additionally, the

649
01:02:59.119 --> 01:03:04.239
narrative of others worldly intervention let storytellers grapple with themes

650
01:03:04.280 --> 01:03:09.239
of blame and guilt in an allegorical way. In a

651
01:03:09.280 --> 01:03:12.440
horror movie, it might not really be a fairy causing

652
01:03:12.480 --> 01:03:15.599
the child to change. It could be a stand in

653
01:03:15.880 --> 01:03:21.159
for abuse, trauma, or neglect. By the story's end, whether

654
01:03:21.199 --> 01:03:26.199
the threat is vanquished or tragically realized, we've confronted that

655
01:03:26.360 --> 01:03:31.159
nebulous dread through the safe or not so safe filter

656
01:03:31.840 --> 01:03:37.360
of folklore. Meanwhile, on a lighter note, the changeling has

657
01:03:37.440 --> 01:03:41.840
been reclaimed in some fantasy works as a figure of empathy,

658
01:03:42.599 --> 01:03:45.800
the idea of a child of two worlds who doesn't

659
01:03:45.840 --> 01:03:51.400
fully belong in either. This interpretation flips the script to

660
01:03:51.519 --> 01:03:55.199
ask what it's like for the changeling itself growing up

661
01:03:55.280 --> 01:04:00.840
among humans. Modern authors have imagined sympathetic change and characters

662
01:04:01.280 --> 01:04:08.159
who yearn for acceptance, reflecting the outsider experience in society. Thus,

663
01:04:08.239 --> 01:04:12.880
the changeling endures not only as a monster in our stories,

664
01:04:13.440 --> 01:04:16.920
but also as a poignant symbol for anyone who feels

665
01:04:17.000 --> 01:04:22.599
different or displaced. From chilling true cases like Bridget Cleary's

666
01:04:22.719 --> 01:04:27.840
Murder to eerie horror films and haunting fairy tales, the

667
01:04:27.960 --> 01:04:32.440
legend of the changeling has proven to be remarkably tenacious.

668
01:04:33.360 --> 01:04:37.360
It is a story shape shifted over time, much like

669
01:04:37.519 --> 01:04:43.960
the fairies themselves, adapting to our cultural needs. In medieval cottages,

670
01:04:44.480 --> 01:04:48.679
it was a literal belief that explained misfortune in a

671
01:04:48.760 --> 01:04:52.760
twenty first century film or novel. It is a metaphor

672
01:04:53.400 --> 01:04:57.719
that illuminates our inner turmoils. Yet the fear at its

673
01:04:57.840 --> 01:05:03.000
core remains the same, the fear of the other that

674
01:05:03.159 --> 01:05:08.360
wears a loved one's face. We are still, it seems,

675
01:05:09.039 --> 01:05:13.559
haunted by the possibility that just beyond the warm glow

676
01:05:14.159 --> 01:05:20.800
of our home, something uncanny watches and covets what we

677
01:05:21.239 --> 01:05:26.000
cherish most, And if we gaze too long into the

678
01:05:26.079 --> 01:05:31.800
cradle or the mirror, we might yet catch a glimpse

679
01:05:32.719 --> 01:05:39.559
of a stranger staring back. Terrifying and True is narrated

680
01:05:39.599 --> 01:05:43.119
by Enrique Kuta. It's executive produced by Rob Fields and

681
01:05:43.199 --> 01:05:46.960
bobble Topia dot com and produced by Dan Wilder, with

682
01:05:47.000 --> 01:05:50.000
original theme music by Ray Mattis. If you have a

683
01:05:50.039 --> 01:05:52.840
story you think we should cover on Terrifying and True,

684
01:05:53.119 --> 01:05:57.000
send us an email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com,

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and if you want to support us for as little

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as one dollar a month, go to Weekly Spooky dot

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com slash join. Your support for as little as one

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dollar a month keeps the show going. And speaking of

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I want to say an extra special thank you to

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our Patreon podcast boosters, folks who pay a little bit

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more to hear their name at the end of the show,

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and they are Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller, Johnny Nix,

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Jenny Green, Amber Hansford, Brent mccaullough, Karen We met, Jack

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Kerr and Craig Cohen. Thank you all so much, and

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thank you for listening. We'll see you all right here

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next time on Terrifying and True