CHANGELING

This article appears in Volume V05, Page 840 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: CAU-CHA

CHANGELING , the

term

TERM

used of a child substituted or changed for another, especially in the

case

CASE
CASE, JOHN (d. 1600)

of substitutions popularly supposed to be through fairy agency. There was formerly a widespread superstition that infants were sometimes stolen from their cradles by the fairies. Any specially peevish or weakly baby was regarded as a changeling, the word coming at last to be almost synonymous with imbecility. It was thought that the elves could only effect the exchange before christening, and in the highlands of

Scotland

SCOTLAND
SCOTLAND,
CHURCH
- CHURCH
- CHURCH (according to most authorities derived from the Gr. Kvpcaxov [&wµa], " the Lord's [house]," and common to many Teutonic, Slavonic and other
  languages
  - LANGUAGES
  under various forms—Scottish
  kirk
  - KIRK, SIR JOHN (1832- )
  , Ger. Kirche, Swed. kirka, Dan. kirke, Russ. tserkov, Buig. cerk
- CHURCH, FREDERICK EDWIN (1826-1900)
- CHURCH, GEORGE EARL (1835–1910)
- CHURCH,
  RICHARD
  WILLIAM (1815–189o)
- CHURCH, SIR
  RICHARD
  (1784–1873)
OF
SCOTLAND, EPISCOPAL
CHURCH
- CHURCH
- CHURCH (according to most authorities derived from the Gr. Kvpcaxov [&wµa], " the Lord's [house]," and common to many Teutonic, Slavonic and other
  languages
  - LANGUAGES
  under various forms—Scottish
  kirk
  - KIRK, SIR JOHN (1832- )
  , Ger. Kirche, Swed. kirka, Dan. kirke, Russ. tserkov, Buig. cerk
- CHURCH, FREDERICK EDWIN (1826-1900)
- CHURCH, GEORGE EARL (1835–1910)
- CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM (1815–189o)
- CHURCH, SIR RICHARD (1784–1873)
OF

babies were strictly watched till then. Strype states that in his time midwives had to take an oath binding themselves to be no party to the

theft

THEFT

or exchange of babies. The belief is referred to by Shakespeare, Spenser and other authors. Pennant, writing in 1796, says: " In this very

century

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

a poor cottager, who lived near the spot, had a child who

grew

GREW, NEHEMIAH (1641-1712)

uncommonly peevish; the parents attributed this to the fairies and imagined it was a changeling. They took the child, put it in a cradle, and left it all night beneath the " Fairy Oak " in hopes that the tylwydd leg or fairy family would restore their own before morning. When morning came they found the child perfectly quiet, so went away with it, quite confirmed in their belief " (Tour in

Scotland

, 1796, p. 257).
See W. Wirt Sikes, British Goblins (188o).

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