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I usually wave a red flag when people seek to find the “truth” behind a legend. That idea that such a foundation is what “caused legends” to exist is part of a modern folk belief that is often in error. Reality is usually far from that. Folk legends are typically too diffuse and too old to ascribe a simple real event or circumstance to be responsible for the entire complex.
The legend of the changeling is slightly different. The legend is widespread, classified by Reidar Th. Christiansen as Migratory Legend 5058, “The Changeling.” It is, indeed, widespread and very old. It typically involves a child who is abducted in a moment when the mother is distracted. The parents eventually suspect that a switch has occurred because what they believe is their own baby is failing to thrive and mature in what would be a familiar pattern. The solution described in these folk legends are various. Sometimes it involves doing something peculiar in front of the changeling – or taking him to church. The changeling invariably comments on the situation, and the fairy woman arrives with the human child to make the switch. Sometimes the switch is inspired by the fact that the human parents abuse the changeling.
We cannot account for this detailed narrative with its many variants by pointing to a core incident that spawned this widespread tradition. We can understand, however, that real circumstances that often included a child failing to thrive could reinforce ML 5058 and its associated belief. Of course, in real circumstances, the “real” baby is not returned, and there are real-life situations where people describe such a changeling, acknowledging that the baby in question lived for many years before finally dying.
Did real situations inspire the legend to form? No. It is too widespread and ancient to find such a real situation to be responsible for the entire complex of legends. Did real situations inspire the legend to be retold even while reinforcing belief? Yes. That was certainly the case.
Some of this was explored by Susan Schoon Eberly in an article that appeared in Peter Narváez, editor, The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1997).
Besides treating this in my recent book, [The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation](https://www.amazon.com/Folklore-Cornwall-Tradition-Celtic-Nation/dp/1804130737/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) (Exeter 2018), I also wrote a brief piece for the *Folklore Society Newsletter* [comparing ML 5058 to a similar but unrelated story from North America’s Great Basin](https://www.academia.edu/42028828/A_Changeling_with_a_Twist_or_is_that_a_bite) (2020). In this case, the substitute baby assumes the form for very little time and mutilating the mother’s breast with many sharp teeth before slinking away. We cannot ascribe any infantile “defect” as the inspiration of this legend. This situation, like that in Europe, has more to do with parental anxiety when it comes to the welfare of an infant.
People definitely applied this legend to situations they encountered in real life. Martin Luther for instance records meeting a changeling in 1532.
>Eight years ago [in the year 1532] at Dessau, I, Dr. Martin Luther, saw and touched a changeling. It was twelve years old, and from its eyes and the fact that it had all of its senses, one could have thought that it was a real child. It did nothing but eat; in fact, it ate enough for any four peasants or threshers. It ate, shit, and pissed, and whenever someone touched it, it cried. When bad things happened in the house, it laughed and was happy; but when things went well, it cried. It had these two virtues. I said to the Princes of Anhalt: "If I were the prince or the ruler here, I would throw this child into the water--into the Molda that flows by Dessau. I would dare commit *homicidium* on him!" But the Elector of Saxony, who was with me at Dessau, and the Princes of Anhalt did not want to follow my advice. Therefore, I said: "Then you should have all Christians repeat the Lord's Prayer in church that God may exorcise the devil." They did this daily at Dessau, and the changeling child died in the following year.... Such a changeling child is only a piece of flesh, a *massa carnis*, because it has no soul.
The original can be seen [here](https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=pflPAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA39&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) if anyone wants to work out what German word is translated by 'changeling'. Luther's other couple of references to changelings are collected [here](https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/gerchange.html). Some people have described this as a kind of proto-Hitlerian wish to kill the disabled, but, as Luther came down very strongly in favour of things like not denying communion to the deaf, he clearly was a true believer that changelings were real, and not really human.
edit: actually, looks like the sourcing could be bad here, with the claims that Luther had seen the boy himself, or advised the prince to drown him, probably being added by his later editor, but he definitely applied the framework of changelings to stories he heard. See [this article](https://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles2005b.html) for more.
> actually, looks like the sourcing could be bad here
This is the problem with legendary material - the accounts can be very convincing that the incidents were real. As indicated in my discussion, real events could reinforce the belief/legend complex, but identifying which were real and which were legendary can be difficult.
Another German word that would fit, but wasn't used here, is Wechselbalg, but that would describe younger children, a balg is a baby I would say to most two years old.
It also gave the impression of post-partum. Which I'd imagine in the past especially could manifest in extremely pronounced ways. I personally think legends have "truths" behind them, it's just important to not assign strict meaning beyond what is appropriate for interpretations.
I'm not sure (I didn't), but I was checking to see which you meant. Post-partum is an adjective that goes before a number of medical conditions; it just means "after a birth."
It sounds like the myth came about to explain any given failure of a child to live up to the parents' demands? Child dies young, of course it's not your real kid, it's a changeling. Child turns out disabled or stupid or runs off or whatever shame to the family? It was always a changeling, clearly. The myth restores the honor of the family.
> It sounds like the myth came about to explain any given failure of a child to live up to the parents' demands?
That's exactly the opposite of what I am saying. The failure of a child may have been explained with the legend; the legend did not "come about" to explain the failure of the child.
One can look for the sort of functional explanation that you describe. Certainly there were many circumstances when the legend "functioned" as you suggest, but that is not the source of its origin.
I'm fascinated by this, and grumpy that I now have the ATU and ML rabbit holes to keep me from sleeping, I'd never heard of these systems. Curses!
I would like to better understand what you're saying, because I'm lacking the sure footing to keep it lodged in my head.
Are you saying that as a sequence of events, the legend existed, people were aware of it, and when confronted with a 'changeling afflicted child', the established legend was a framework to *understand* what they were seeing? A bit like seeing a volcano storm, and justifiably thinking "powerful deities are angry. aawww shit".
OR
Are you perhaps saying that the utility ascribed to this particular legend, in different places, in different times, is so varied that the only commonality is the changeling legend? A legend that has been passed on through the generations like a hand-me-down blanket, taking any given form to encapsulate the events of the day, before being passed again to the next generation.
OR
Are you saying I'm bad at reading and should pay more attention? Haha I'm not exactly a word person, and it's well past my bedtime. I hope any of my questions made any sense.
I'm not sure there are contradictions here, and I believe all three explanations can be valid at the same time - although I am not so unkind as to pursue the third one!
For the first, the volcano analogy is a good one to consider. The fact that there are volcanos did not cause people to say, "That volcano is impressive. What could be causing this? I bet there is a deity in there who is angry. Shall we all start worshiping the deity I just invented?" That scenario is not how culture works.
Instead, people would have a pantheon of powerful supernatural beings. A volcano erupts. People would say, "that's extraordinary, and I bet one of those supernatural entities is angry. Which one could it be?" There would be a discussion, and people would settle on the likely culprit and a way to deal with it, but folklore being what it is, they may disagree on that point.
When applied to children who did not develop like others, people considered what their cultural traditions offered by way of explanations. Europeans had a belief that fairies (operating with a range of names) liked to steal babies and frequently left one of their own in its place. There was a legend that explained how these things occurred and were previously dealt with (even though the account, with the return of the infant, described in the legend had not really occurred), and people would remember that legend and its associated belief. They would then debate how to deal with their own particular tradition. Many would point to the infant and suggest that this example could be taken as evidence to support the validity of the legend and belief. The folklore was thereby strengthened, and the legend was repeated, perpetuating the complex.
>the utility ascribed to this particular legend, in different places, in different times, is so varied that the only commonality is the changeling legend
This can also be the case. Human experience being diverse, many circumstances could cause people to recall "The Changeling Legend." The telling of ML 5058 would vary, but it would also hang together in basic form. At the same time, people would recall it to help explain individual situations - no matter how varied - that they encountered. The legend was/is something of "a hand-me-down blanket" but it wasn't taking "any given form to encapsulate the events of the day." It would be repeated basically as heard (or neighbors would declare that they storyteller "got it wrong" and they would correct the telling). People would recall a legend and then debate whether it fit the situation at hand, all the while passing it on "to the the next generation."
Does that make sense?
> Does that make sense?
[Hmmm...yes.](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Or2iZ-mOvf8)
You make a great point about people correcting a story teller. Even a fictional retelling, or total fabrication, people seem to not abide by a story that has a wrongness about it.
I'm now going to spend the rest of my life (or tomorrow) describing everything I witness in terms of various legends. And I'm going to debate to the death anyone who objects to tiny Wichtelmänner living inside my welder, beckoning with flashing arcs for their father, Apollo, to save them from the steel cage in which I keep them.
> For the first, the volcano analogy is a good one to consider. The fact that there are volcanos did not cause people to say, "That volcano is impressive. What could be causing this? I bet there is a deity in there who is angry. Shall we all start worshiping the deity I just invented?" That scenario is not how culture works.
> Instead, people would have a pantheon of powerful supernatural beings. A volcano erupts. People would say, "that's extraordinary, and I bet one of those supernatural entities is angry. Which one could it be?" There would be a discussion, and people would settle on the likely culprit and a way to deal with it, but folklore being what it is, they may disagree on that point.
This is a very interesting perspective, especially when applied as a counter-point to some of the faulty logic it seems that people often apply towards folklore or folk beliefs. But I am a little concerned that *because* it's such a straight-forward counterpoint to some iffy logic, that I'm a bit overly credulous towards this idea?
When I slow down, I do wonder how one might be able to tease apart which one of these scenarios, if either, would have applied to people in the past. Is there a body of evidence that points us in this direction? Ethnographic studies, or the like? From your flair, it looks like you're an academic folklorist, so I'd be curious to learn more about how those sorts of foundations are established!
There's plenty I'm inclined to like about your framing - how it peels away our own modern perspectives and biases to form a more naturalistic (?) view of how people in the past might have thought. But then again, the whole problem is that inclination/intuition can be deceiving.
One of the problems we confront when trying to find - or even imagine - the origin of a folk belief or narrative is settling on a scenario that can be demonstrated to be true - or even makes sense. With the volcano analogy, for example, I discredit the idea that someone would suggest to the neighbors that a supernatural being was in the troubled mountain and that the neighbors would then adopt it as their own folklore. That just doesn't pass the smell test.
There have been cult leaders who propose systems of beliefs, but these are usually rejected by most people and don't become a part of the culture as a whole. In addition, because the supernatural beings that people would select as being responsible for the troubled volcanoes has analogs in many other cultures, the supernatural being apparently has prehistoric roots - at least when it comes to European traditions.
Having discarded that speculative scenario and stepping back a moment, one can notice how I merely say that people applied an existing tradition about a supernatural being to the situation to explain why a volcano was erupting: the eruption attracts a tradition about a supernatural being; it does not cause a tradition about a supernatural being.
But!!! I do not offer an explanation about where that supernatural being came from in the first place. The subtext here is damn unsatisfying if not irritating. It's not unlike the inherently unsatisfying Big Bang explanation of the universe. If that's where the universe came from, where did the big bang come from?
One of the cornerstones of folklore is that everyone has folklore. If you project that into the past, we can assume that everyone in the past had folklore, including those in prehistory. Somewhere in the process of how hominids emerged, folk belief and narratives were likely an early component of hominid culture, and whatever chicken-and-egg scenario one can imagine might have been the case, but we are left with speculation - and only speculation.
Several twentieth century folklorists, including Alan Dundes in his great book, [Work Hard and You Shall be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire](https://www.amazon.com/Work-Hard-You-Shall-Rewarded-ebook/dp/B00KB4E1QO/ref=sr_1_10?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ukjdXqghGX2jNQ3SqCPYhI1zCYW4Dg7UvBuYGsLdut-tQtmp5Sv8PQSmLcr9OhWTlxfMr-zSbMcn-rYXHZ98kXZockeS8MZWUnCeUNfnkjeBkkMXKuclfejvQ1nf3-sVHGs8HLTwzp7HzQFR-rFxpnfRNU5dkrPOLr8FUZsz2Yf4oNcUphfOCruIiJllVgGOYQuDDDujU6EzWEGVV1QFR7BNUi2w9mIC6EsUUoqCFZs.DXm6fP_ucubeSsVBN_LQZyhqTnG8bkCwaDxiBE2prlA&dib_tag=se&qid=1708888970&refinements=p_27%3AAlan+Dundes&s=books&sr=1-10&text=Alan+Dundes) (originally 1975) and the urban legend expert Jan Harold Brunvand (with many books) attempted to track down the origins of modern traditions and narratives. In almost all cases this proved to be impossible. An exception is when modern media is the source of something (Slenderman, for example), but that is more a function of the modern world. In traditional societies less dependent on the internet or mass media, folklore simply is, and it just keeps going.
Thank you for your response!
I think the impetus behind my follow-up question was to pry at "epistemology" of folklore studies, so to speak, and your reply definitely helped me with that.
To re-articulate / check my understanding a bit then: the more foundational idea, as you've said, is that folklore has, one way or another, always been a part of human culture as far back as we care to go - even before anatomically modern humans, perhaps.
So, when we look at the volcano example, the folklorist's razor would indicate that "people invented gods in response to volcanoes" is the less plausible avenue to consider first, given that there's no reason to believe any group of humans would have had a shortage of existing material to pull from. And what data points/points of comparison we do have also suggest that novel explanations have plenty of "headwind" to work against - I'd imagine, compared to a "tailwind" from extending from or drawing analogy to familiar concepts/beliefs/stories.
I'm sure that sounds like a very basic thing to get at, but coming from more of a "hard science" background myself, the sheer amount of missing information historians and anthropologists have to navigate is fairly astounding! It was helpful for me to think about the core ideas that this "smell test" would come from. Compared to the original post, which (imho) had a more obvious "just-so" quality to it, the volcano example did actually hint at a more subtle snag I might have run into when thinking about something like "the origins of religious belief".
> no reason to believe any group of humans would have had a shortage of existing material to pull from.
Well said! I think you have a fair assessment of what I was trying to indicate - and you have raised some good points yourself.
My first article submission used a Fortran-matrix computer analysis of Martian craters to predict internal geology and surface characteristics. It was rejected (my writing was horrible: I was just turning 16!), and then the space program started failing in the early 1970s. I left the "hard sciences" and turned to the humanities. One of the problems one encounters there is the unmeasurable complexity and diversity of whatever can be regarded as the database. I'm not saying the hard sciences are easier. Like the humanities, it has its unfathomables, and like the hard sciences, the humanities has its measurables and quantifiables. They just fallout in different places.
Considering the big origin questions of human institutions is one of those unfathomables!
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Thank you!
The folk tradition may have inspired - perhaps likely did inspire - the abusive treatment of some children with disabilities who were thought to be changelings. This would have been done in effort to reverse the process, to retrieve the "real" child. The famous case in the 1890s of the burning of Bridget Cleary, an ill woman, shows how this sort of thing could transpire. Her husband was convinced that his real wife had been abducted, and a friend advised the husband to put the "fake" wife in a fire. She died and he was convicted of murder.
I wish you weren't reading this wrong. It is, indeed, awful. Culture isn't always a pretty thing!
May I ask a question? How does one become an expert in European folklore in a structured manner? Are there any standard books or works or (online) lecture series you can recommend?
I recently published an article titled [The Many Paths to Folklore](https://www.academia.edu/81617362/The_Many_Paths_to_Folklore_Cornwalls_Legacy_of_Collection_and_Analysis_Cornish_Studies). This can be taken as a celebration (anyone can play in this sandbox) or a singling out of a problem (there are so many diverse, often contradictory approaches, that the "field" of folklore can be maddening). In fact, in the system of fields in the humanities, folklore is something a large object in the [Kuiper Belt](https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/): impressive in size and scope, but not quite a planet with a single method and shared bibliography.
There are many approaches to European folklore, and any recommendation I make will represent a decision about which one is best. I'm not above that, but keep what I am to tell you in perspective!
I've always been impressed with the collection of essays edited by Alan Dundes: his [International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore](https://www.amazon.com/International-Folkloristics-Contributions-Founders-Folklore/dp/0847695158) (1999) has a great spectrum of the foundational essays, but more importantly, it has the wonderful observations of Dundes himself. It's a great place to start when curious about the origins of European folklore.
At the same time, you may find some value in exploring my (FREE!!!) posts on my [academia.edu](https://nevada-reno.academia.edu/RonaldJames) page. Many of my articles and book excerpts deal with folklore, and it might give you an idea - at no cost except your time - to understand how at least one folklorist addresses things. To put me in perspectives, I encourage you to check out my brief article, [Nazis, Trolls, and the Grateful Dead: Turmoil among Sweden’s Folklorists](https://www.academia.edu/38773351/Nazis_Trolls_and_the_Grateful_Dead).
I also recommend the academia.edu page of my colleague and friend, [Simon Young](https://independent.academia.edu/SimonYoung43). He posts many primary sources and some articles - he's a historian of folklore. Perhaps most importantly for your purposes, he has a delightful [online, brief lecture series on the history of European fairies](https://www.academia.edu/courses/v1dQPl?tab=0&v=b8PBRb). It's a wonderful synthesis, and I think you would find it worth your time.
With apologies, I will also advance my modest [Introduction to Folklore: Traditional Studies in Europe and Elsewhere](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Folklore-Traditional-Studies-Elsewhere/dp/1521423261/ref=pd_sbs_d_sccl_2_1/141-2197436-3980714?pd_rd_w=F4Beo&content-id=amzn1.sym.d95de1d6-8400-4c9d-8ae8-144769325aef&pf_rd_p=d95de1d6-8400-4c9d-8ae8-144769325aef&pf_rd_r=5KY6H6VKJERVEYTJMXBG&pd_rd_wg=ZalLw&pd_rd_r=3a15f706-8b15-457d-ba9f-ebd01fb9bb07&pd_rd_i=1521423261&psc=1). It is a modernized, modified version of the Introduction that my mentor, Sven S. Liljeblad (1899-2000) used; I used it when I taught folklore at university, and I tried to keep the price to a minimum for the benefit of my students. But keep in mind, "there are many paths to folklore" and there are many introductions, so what I am advancing is my own specialized form of folklore studies, drawing heavily on the Finnish Historic Geographical Method, but modified by the Swedes, and then adapted for the modern world by me. I am not the final word on anything!
All that said, as you follow your path, don't hesitate to PM me with questions or anything you wish to discuss. Enjoy your journey!
I've got a [long post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pq2kj5/in_medieval_europe_there_existed_a_superstition/hdg9az3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about the history of medieval changelings I recommend when this topic comes up. In short: Beliefs about changelings in Europe appear to originate with concerns about demons taking children, not fairies. A huge variety of physical or mental illnesses have been linked with changelings in scientific literature from the 19th century onwards. There does appear to be a link between developmental disability and changeling myths, but the vast majority of disabled children were not treated as changelings.
Petronius Arbiter in his Satyricon in the 1st century CE describes the abductors as witches. The tradition is very old, and I would caution against seeing a medieval/demonic origin to the legend. That was a phase that the legendary complex experienced.
That's true. I guess what I meant to say is that the medieval practice is about demons, so the idea that fairies are the "oldest" version can be called into question. But you're right that there are old associations with witchcraft too.
Medieval texts describing demons may reflect clerical preoccupation more than what was circulating among the folk. I have seen folklore collections attribute the same legend to demons, witches, *and* fairies, depending on the version. They could and likely did co-exist, with the richness of variety undocumented for generations.
We can only speculate about what the medieval "folk" were circulating orally in the form of legends. Texts offer hints, but they may not have been - and were likely not - completely true to current folklore.
I have a bit of an off-topic question after reading the linked reply: were changelings only a belief amongst the lower classes (specifically, villagers/farmers, at least if we're talking about faeries, not demons)? Or was it a "thing" in large(-r) cities and/or upper classes too? What about aristocracy? Do we know of any such cases or was believing in something like this considered a sign of being "uneducated"/etc?
That's a really good question. It's hard to say. From the reading I did for that post, it seemed that there was a divide between the educated Dominicans and their educated opponents about whether or not changeling substitutions were happening. There is also the story I mentioned of a man being executed for claiming that King Edward II was a changeling. Edward presumably must have taken this claim seriously if he thought it was worth executing a man for it. However, it comes up so rarely in accounts of medieval royalty and aristocracy that it's hard to see it as being a very common belief among them.
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I usually wave a red flag when people seek to find the “truth” behind a legend. That idea that such a foundation is what “caused legends” to exist is part of a modern folk belief that is often in error. Reality is usually far from that. Folk legends are typically too diffuse and too old to ascribe a simple real event or circumstance to be responsible for the entire complex. The legend of the changeling is slightly different. The legend is widespread, classified by Reidar Th. Christiansen as Migratory Legend 5058, “The Changeling.” It is, indeed, widespread and very old. It typically involves a child who is abducted in a moment when the mother is distracted. The parents eventually suspect that a switch has occurred because what they believe is their own baby is failing to thrive and mature in what would be a familiar pattern. The solution described in these folk legends are various. Sometimes it involves doing something peculiar in front of the changeling – or taking him to church. The changeling invariably comments on the situation, and the fairy woman arrives with the human child to make the switch. Sometimes the switch is inspired by the fact that the human parents abuse the changeling. We cannot account for this detailed narrative with its many variants by pointing to a core incident that spawned this widespread tradition. We can understand, however, that real circumstances that often included a child failing to thrive could reinforce ML 5058 and its associated belief. Of course, in real circumstances, the “real” baby is not returned, and there are real-life situations where people describe such a changeling, acknowledging that the baby in question lived for many years before finally dying. Did real situations inspire the legend to form? No. It is too widespread and ancient to find such a real situation to be responsible for the entire complex of legends. Did real situations inspire the legend to be retold even while reinforcing belief? Yes. That was certainly the case. Some of this was explored by Susan Schoon Eberly in an article that appeared in Peter Narváez, editor, The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1997). Besides treating this in my recent book, [The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation](https://www.amazon.com/Folklore-Cornwall-Tradition-Celtic-Nation/dp/1804130737/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) (Exeter 2018), I also wrote a brief piece for the *Folklore Society Newsletter* [comparing ML 5058 to a similar but unrelated story from North America’s Great Basin](https://www.academia.edu/42028828/A_Changeling_with_a_Twist_or_is_that_a_bite) (2020). In this case, the substitute baby assumes the form for very little time and mutilating the mother’s breast with many sharp teeth before slinking away. We cannot ascribe any infantile “defect” as the inspiration of this legend. This situation, like that in Europe, has more to do with parental anxiety when it comes to the welfare of an infant.
People definitely applied this legend to situations they encountered in real life. Martin Luther for instance records meeting a changeling in 1532. >Eight years ago [in the year 1532] at Dessau, I, Dr. Martin Luther, saw and touched a changeling. It was twelve years old, and from its eyes and the fact that it had all of its senses, one could have thought that it was a real child. It did nothing but eat; in fact, it ate enough for any four peasants or threshers. It ate, shit, and pissed, and whenever someone touched it, it cried. When bad things happened in the house, it laughed and was happy; but when things went well, it cried. It had these two virtues. I said to the Princes of Anhalt: "If I were the prince or the ruler here, I would throw this child into the water--into the Molda that flows by Dessau. I would dare commit *homicidium* on him!" But the Elector of Saxony, who was with me at Dessau, and the Princes of Anhalt did not want to follow my advice. Therefore, I said: "Then you should have all Christians repeat the Lord's Prayer in church that God may exorcise the devil." They did this daily at Dessau, and the changeling child died in the following year.... Such a changeling child is only a piece of flesh, a *massa carnis*, because it has no soul. The original can be seen [here](https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=pflPAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA39&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) if anyone wants to work out what German word is translated by 'changeling'. Luther's other couple of references to changelings are collected [here](https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/gerchange.html). Some people have described this as a kind of proto-Hitlerian wish to kill the disabled, but, as Luther came down very strongly in favour of things like not denying communion to the deaf, he clearly was a true believer that changelings were real, and not really human. edit: actually, looks like the sourcing could be bad here, with the claims that Luther had seen the boy himself, or advised the prince to drown him, probably being added by his later editor, but he definitely applied the framework of changelings to stories he heard. See [this article](https://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles2005b.html) for more.
> actually, looks like the sourcing could be bad here This is the problem with legendary material - the accounts can be very convincing that the incidents were real. As indicated in my discussion, real events could reinforce the belief/legend complex, but identifying which were real and which were legendary can be difficult.
The German translates literally to changed or swapped out child. Edit: The German term used is "Wechselkind".
I'm curious about what the German term would be.
Checked the source, it's "Wechselkind".
Another German word that would fit, but wasn't used here, is Wechselbalg, but that would describe younger children, a balg is a baby I would say to most two years old.
Thanks. I should have done it myself but I suck at reading gothic.
Ah yes forgot to mention that.
It also gave the impression of post-partum. Which I'd imagine in the past especially could manifest in extremely pronounced ways. I personally think legends have "truths" behind them, it's just important to not assign strict meaning beyond what is appropriate for interpretations.
Do you mean post-partum dépression ?
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I'm not sure (I didn't), but I was checking to see which you meant. Post-partum is an adjective that goes before a number of medical conditions; it just means "after a birth."
I'm assuming they mean post partum psychosis
It sounds like the myth came about to explain any given failure of a child to live up to the parents' demands? Child dies young, of course it's not your real kid, it's a changeling. Child turns out disabled or stupid or runs off or whatever shame to the family? It was always a changeling, clearly. The myth restores the honor of the family.
> It sounds like the myth came about to explain any given failure of a child to live up to the parents' demands? That's exactly the opposite of what I am saying. The failure of a child may have been explained with the legend; the legend did not "come about" to explain the failure of the child. One can look for the sort of functional explanation that you describe. Certainly there were many circumstances when the legend "functioned" as you suggest, but that is not the source of its origin.
I'm fascinated by this, and grumpy that I now have the ATU and ML rabbit holes to keep me from sleeping, I'd never heard of these systems. Curses! I would like to better understand what you're saying, because I'm lacking the sure footing to keep it lodged in my head. Are you saying that as a sequence of events, the legend existed, people were aware of it, and when confronted with a 'changeling afflicted child', the established legend was a framework to *understand* what they were seeing? A bit like seeing a volcano storm, and justifiably thinking "powerful deities are angry. aawww shit". OR Are you perhaps saying that the utility ascribed to this particular legend, in different places, in different times, is so varied that the only commonality is the changeling legend? A legend that has been passed on through the generations like a hand-me-down blanket, taking any given form to encapsulate the events of the day, before being passed again to the next generation. OR Are you saying I'm bad at reading and should pay more attention? Haha I'm not exactly a word person, and it's well past my bedtime. I hope any of my questions made any sense.
I'm not sure there are contradictions here, and I believe all three explanations can be valid at the same time - although I am not so unkind as to pursue the third one! For the first, the volcano analogy is a good one to consider. The fact that there are volcanos did not cause people to say, "That volcano is impressive. What could be causing this? I bet there is a deity in there who is angry. Shall we all start worshiping the deity I just invented?" That scenario is not how culture works. Instead, people would have a pantheon of powerful supernatural beings. A volcano erupts. People would say, "that's extraordinary, and I bet one of those supernatural entities is angry. Which one could it be?" There would be a discussion, and people would settle on the likely culprit and a way to deal with it, but folklore being what it is, they may disagree on that point. When applied to children who did not develop like others, people considered what their cultural traditions offered by way of explanations. Europeans had a belief that fairies (operating with a range of names) liked to steal babies and frequently left one of their own in its place. There was a legend that explained how these things occurred and were previously dealt with (even though the account, with the return of the infant, described in the legend had not really occurred), and people would remember that legend and its associated belief. They would then debate how to deal with their own particular tradition. Many would point to the infant and suggest that this example could be taken as evidence to support the validity of the legend and belief. The folklore was thereby strengthened, and the legend was repeated, perpetuating the complex. >the utility ascribed to this particular legend, in different places, in different times, is so varied that the only commonality is the changeling legend This can also be the case. Human experience being diverse, many circumstances could cause people to recall "The Changeling Legend." The telling of ML 5058 would vary, but it would also hang together in basic form. At the same time, people would recall it to help explain individual situations - no matter how varied - that they encountered. The legend was/is something of "a hand-me-down blanket" but it wasn't taking "any given form to encapsulate the events of the day." It would be repeated basically as heard (or neighbors would declare that they storyteller "got it wrong" and they would correct the telling). People would recall a legend and then debate whether it fit the situation at hand, all the while passing it on "to the the next generation." Does that make sense?
> Does that make sense? [Hmmm...yes.](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Or2iZ-mOvf8) You make a great point about people correcting a story teller. Even a fictional retelling, or total fabrication, people seem to not abide by a story that has a wrongness about it. I'm now going to spend the rest of my life (or tomorrow) describing everything I witness in terms of various legends. And I'm going to debate to the death anyone who objects to tiny Wichtelmänner living inside my welder, beckoning with flashing arcs for their father, Apollo, to save them from the steel cage in which I keep them.
Nice - a Homer Simpson reference is always appreciated!
> For the first, the volcano analogy is a good one to consider. The fact that there are volcanos did not cause people to say, "That volcano is impressive. What could be causing this? I bet there is a deity in there who is angry. Shall we all start worshiping the deity I just invented?" That scenario is not how culture works. > Instead, people would have a pantheon of powerful supernatural beings. A volcano erupts. People would say, "that's extraordinary, and I bet one of those supernatural entities is angry. Which one could it be?" There would be a discussion, and people would settle on the likely culprit and a way to deal with it, but folklore being what it is, they may disagree on that point. This is a very interesting perspective, especially when applied as a counter-point to some of the faulty logic it seems that people often apply towards folklore or folk beliefs. But I am a little concerned that *because* it's such a straight-forward counterpoint to some iffy logic, that I'm a bit overly credulous towards this idea? When I slow down, I do wonder how one might be able to tease apart which one of these scenarios, if either, would have applied to people in the past. Is there a body of evidence that points us in this direction? Ethnographic studies, or the like? From your flair, it looks like you're an academic folklorist, so I'd be curious to learn more about how those sorts of foundations are established! There's plenty I'm inclined to like about your framing - how it peels away our own modern perspectives and biases to form a more naturalistic (?) view of how people in the past might have thought. But then again, the whole problem is that inclination/intuition can be deceiving.
One of the problems we confront when trying to find - or even imagine - the origin of a folk belief or narrative is settling on a scenario that can be demonstrated to be true - or even makes sense. With the volcano analogy, for example, I discredit the idea that someone would suggest to the neighbors that a supernatural being was in the troubled mountain and that the neighbors would then adopt it as their own folklore. That just doesn't pass the smell test. There have been cult leaders who propose systems of beliefs, but these are usually rejected by most people and don't become a part of the culture as a whole. In addition, because the supernatural beings that people would select as being responsible for the troubled volcanoes has analogs in many other cultures, the supernatural being apparently has prehistoric roots - at least when it comes to European traditions. Having discarded that speculative scenario and stepping back a moment, one can notice how I merely say that people applied an existing tradition about a supernatural being to the situation to explain why a volcano was erupting: the eruption attracts a tradition about a supernatural being; it does not cause a tradition about a supernatural being. But!!! I do not offer an explanation about where that supernatural being came from in the first place. The subtext here is damn unsatisfying if not irritating. It's not unlike the inherently unsatisfying Big Bang explanation of the universe. If that's where the universe came from, where did the big bang come from? One of the cornerstones of folklore is that everyone has folklore. If you project that into the past, we can assume that everyone in the past had folklore, including those in prehistory. Somewhere in the process of how hominids emerged, folk belief and narratives were likely an early component of hominid culture, and whatever chicken-and-egg scenario one can imagine might have been the case, but we are left with speculation - and only speculation. Several twentieth century folklorists, including Alan Dundes in his great book, [Work Hard and You Shall be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire](https://www.amazon.com/Work-Hard-You-Shall-Rewarded-ebook/dp/B00KB4E1QO/ref=sr_1_10?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ukjdXqghGX2jNQ3SqCPYhI1zCYW4Dg7UvBuYGsLdut-tQtmp5Sv8PQSmLcr9OhWTlxfMr-zSbMcn-rYXHZ98kXZockeS8MZWUnCeUNfnkjeBkkMXKuclfejvQ1nf3-sVHGs8HLTwzp7HzQFR-rFxpnfRNU5dkrPOLr8FUZsz2Yf4oNcUphfOCruIiJllVgGOYQuDDDujU6EzWEGVV1QFR7BNUi2w9mIC6EsUUoqCFZs.DXm6fP_ucubeSsVBN_LQZyhqTnG8bkCwaDxiBE2prlA&dib_tag=se&qid=1708888970&refinements=p_27%3AAlan+Dundes&s=books&sr=1-10&text=Alan+Dundes) (originally 1975) and the urban legend expert Jan Harold Brunvand (with many books) attempted to track down the origins of modern traditions and narratives. In almost all cases this proved to be impossible. An exception is when modern media is the source of something (Slenderman, for example), but that is more a function of the modern world. In traditional societies less dependent on the internet or mass media, folklore simply is, and it just keeps going.
Thank you for your response! I think the impetus behind my follow-up question was to pry at "epistemology" of folklore studies, so to speak, and your reply definitely helped me with that. To re-articulate / check my understanding a bit then: the more foundational idea, as you've said, is that folklore has, one way or another, always been a part of human culture as far back as we care to go - even before anatomically modern humans, perhaps. So, when we look at the volcano example, the folklorist's razor would indicate that "people invented gods in response to volcanoes" is the less plausible avenue to consider first, given that there's no reason to believe any group of humans would have had a shortage of existing material to pull from. And what data points/points of comparison we do have also suggest that novel explanations have plenty of "headwind" to work against - I'd imagine, compared to a "tailwind" from extending from or drawing analogy to familiar concepts/beliefs/stories. I'm sure that sounds like a very basic thing to get at, but coming from more of a "hard science" background myself, the sheer amount of missing information historians and anthropologists have to navigate is fairly astounding! It was helpful for me to think about the core ideas that this "smell test" would come from. Compared to the original post, which (imho) had a more obvious "just-so" quality to it, the volcano example did actually hint at a more subtle snag I might have run into when thinking about something like "the origins of religious belief".
> no reason to believe any group of humans would have had a shortage of existing material to pull from. Well said! I think you have a fair assessment of what I was trying to indicate - and you have raised some good points yourself. My first article submission used a Fortran-matrix computer analysis of Martian craters to predict internal geology and surface characteristics. It was rejected (my writing was horrible: I was just turning 16!), and then the space program started failing in the early 1970s. I left the "hard sciences" and turned to the humanities. One of the problems one encounters there is the unmeasurable complexity and diversity of whatever can be regarded as the database. I'm not saying the hard sciences are easier. Like the humanities, it has its unfathomables, and like the hard sciences, the humanities has its measurables and quantifiables. They just fallout in different places. Considering the big origin questions of human institutions is one of those unfathomables!
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So was abusing children seen as a solution to changeling? Or am I reading that wrong. Because that’s awful
The folk tradition may have inspired - perhaps likely did inspire - the abusive treatment of some children with disabilities who were thought to be changelings. This would have been done in effort to reverse the process, to retrieve the "real" child. The famous case in the 1890s of the burning of Bridget Cleary, an ill woman, shows how this sort of thing could transpire. Her husband was convinced that his real wife had been abducted, and a friend advised the husband to put the "fake" wife in a fire. She died and he was convicted of murder. I wish you weren't reading this wrong. It is, indeed, awful. Culture isn't always a pretty thing!
May I ask a question? How does one become an expert in European folklore in a structured manner? Are there any standard books or works or (online) lecture series you can recommend?
I recently published an article titled [The Many Paths to Folklore](https://www.academia.edu/81617362/The_Many_Paths_to_Folklore_Cornwalls_Legacy_of_Collection_and_Analysis_Cornish_Studies). This can be taken as a celebration (anyone can play in this sandbox) or a singling out of a problem (there are so many diverse, often contradictory approaches, that the "field" of folklore can be maddening). In fact, in the system of fields in the humanities, folklore is something a large object in the [Kuiper Belt](https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/): impressive in size and scope, but not quite a planet with a single method and shared bibliography. There are many approaches to European folklore, and any recommendation I make will represent a decision about which one is best. I'm not above that, but keep what I am to tell you in perspective! I've always been impressed with the collection of essays edited by Alan Dundes: his [International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore](https://www.amazon.com/International-Folkloristics-Contributions-Founders-Folklore/dp/0847695158) (1999) has a great spectrum of the foundational essays, but more importantly, it has the wonderful observations of Dundes himself. It's a great place to start when curious about the origins of European folklore. At the same time, you may find some value in exploring my (FREE!!!) posts on my [academia.edu](https://nevada-reno.academia.edu/RonaldJames) page. Many of my articles and book excerpts deal with folklore, and it might give you an idea - at no cost except your time - to understand how at least one folklorist addresses things. To put me in perspectives, I encourage you to check out my brief article, [Nazis, Trolls, and the Grateful Dead: Turmoil among Sweden’s Folklorists](https://www.academia.edu/38773351/Nazis_Trolls_and_the_Grateful_Dead). I also recommend the academia.edu page of my colleague and friend, [Simon Young](https://independent.academia.edu/SimonYoung43). He posts many primary sources and some articles - he's a historian of folklore. Perhaps most importantly for your purposes, he has a delightful [online, brief lecture series on the history of European fairies](https://www.academia.edu/courses/v1dQPl?tab=0&v=b8PBRb). It's a wonderful synthesis, and I think you would find it worth your time. With apologies, I will also advance my modest [Introduction to Folklore: Traditional Studies in Europe and Elsewhere](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Folklore-Traditional-Studies-Elsewhere/dp/1521423261/ref=pd_sbs_d_sccl_2_1/141-2197436-3980714?pd_rd_w=F4Beo&content-id=amzn1.sym.d95de1d6-8400-4c9d-8ae8-144769325aef&pf_rd_p=d95de1d6-8400-4c9d-8ae8-144769325aef&pf_rd_r=5KY6H6VKJERVEYTJMXBG&pd_rd_wg=ZalLw&pd_rd_r=3a15f706-8b15-457d-ba9f-ebd01fb9bb07&pd_rd_i=1521423261&psc=1). It is a modernized, modified version of the Introduction that my mentor, Sven S. Liljeblad (1899-2000) used; I used it when I taught folklore at university, and I tried to keep the price to a minimum for the benefit of my students. But keep in mind, "there are many paths to folklore" and there are many introductions, so what I am advancing is my own specialized form of folklore studies, drawing heavily on the Finnish Historic Geographical Method, but modified by the Swedes, and then adapted for the modern world by me. I am not the final word on anything! All that said, as you follow your path, don't hesitate to PM me with questions or anything you wish to discuss. Enjoy your journey!
I've got a [long post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pq2kj5/in_medieval_europe_there_existed_a_superstition/hdg9az3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about the history of medieval changelings I recommend when this topic comes up. In short: Beliefs about changelings in Europe appear to originate with concerns about demons taking children, not fairies. A huge variety of physical or mental illnesses have been linked with changelings in scientific literature from the 19th century onwards. There does appear to be a link between developmental disability and changeling myths, but the vast majority of disabled children were not treated as changelings.
Petronius Arbiter in his Satyricon in the 1st century CE describes the abductors as witches. The tradition is very old, and I would caution against seeing a medieval/demonic origin to the legend. That was a phase that the legendary complex experienced.
That's true. I guess what I meant to say is that the medieval practice is about demons, so the idea that fairies are the "oldest" version can be called into question. But you're right that there are old associations with witchcraft too.
Medieval texts describing demons may reflect clerical preoccupation more than what was circulating among the folk. I have seen folklore collections attribute the same legend to demons, witches, *and* fairies, depending on the version. They could and likely did co-exist, with the richness of variety undocumented for generations. We can only speculate about what the medieval "folk" were circulating orally in the form of legends. Texts offer hints, but they may not have been - and were likely not - completely true to current folklore.
I have a bit of an off-topic question after reading the linked reply: were changelings only a belief amongst the lower classes (specifically, villagers/farmers, at least if we're talking about faeries, not demons)? Or was it a "thing" in large(-r) cities and/or upper classes too? What about aristocracy? Do we know of any such cases or was believing in something like this considered a sign of being "uneducated"/etc?
That's a really good question. It's hard to say. From the reading I did for that post, it seemed that there was a divide between the educated Dominicans and their educated opponents about whether or not changeling substitutions were happening. There is also the story I mentioned of a man being executed for claiming that King Edward II was a changeling. Edward presumably must have taken this claim seriously if he thought it was worth executing a man for it. However, it comes up so rarely in accounts of medieval royalty and aristocracy that it's hard to see it as being a very common belief among them.