A wise old man, a friend of the smith, set about brewing beer in eggshells. The changeling burst out laughing, exclaiming, “I have lived 800 years and I have never seen the like of that before!” The smith threw it on the fire and it flew through the roof, but the boy wasn’t immediately returned.
The wise man instructed the smith to visit the fairy hill on a full moon, when the entrance would be open.
Taking a Bible, a cross, a dirk (dagger), and a cockerel, the last of which he hid in his coat, the smith went to the fairy mound, where he heard the sound of pipes, dancing, and merriment. Sticking his dirk in the earth as he crossed the threshold, he ventured inside, to find the fairies enjoying their revels while his son was slaving away at a forge.
The fairies became very agitated with the smith for intruding on their festivities, but couldn’t approach him because he carried the Bible and cross. When he demanded they return his son, they shouted and made such a noise that the cockerel crowed.
The smith grabbed his boy and they left through the door wedged open by the dirk just as the fairy mound closed and all became dark once more.
At first the boy was silent and pale and wouldn’t go about his work, but a year and a day after his rescue he made a rapid recovery, took up his tools, and went on to prosper as one of the land’s finest smiths.
The metal dagger, Bible, cross, and cockerel in this tale are common examples of items used as protection against malicious fairies. The Bible and cross are allied with Christian beliefs that equate fairies with demons. The crowing of the cockerel is a sign that dawn is imminent and therefore that fairy revels must end, for fairies are believed to be afraid of the light. Metal, specifically iron, was widely used to ward off the unwanted attention of fairies. Metal objects were often placed in babies’ cradles as protection against the children being snatched by the fairies. An open pair of scissors or a pair of tongs was considered particularly effective. They had the added benefit of forming the shape of the cross—considered a protective symbol even before the advent of Christianity. An item of the father’s clothing such as a waistcoat or a pair of trousers served the same function. According to E. S. Hartland’s The Science of Fairy Tales (1891), a right shirt sleeve or a left stocking was particularly favored, though quite why this should be so is not clear.
In Sweden it was said that the fire must be kept burning in the room of a baby who had not yet been baptized—unbaptized children being particularly at risk from the incursions of fairies was a common theme across many cultures. As protection, a piece of steel such as a needle should be attached to the child’s swaddling—the preferred color of which was red, to simulate fire—and the water the child was washed in should not be thrown out. In China, the ash of dried banana skin was used to draw the sign of a cross on an infant’s forehead and a fisherman’s net placed over the cradle to guard against evil spirits. In Egypt, it was widely believed that a human child left unattended was at risk of being swapped with a djinn child.
Many tales across cultures stated that babies were particularly at risk of being taken by fairies during the first six weeks of life and were most vulnerable during the first three days. It was advocated that a fire be kept lit near the child at all times and that the parents keep constant watch. This had obvious practical benefits in safeguarding the child against accident, injury, and disease. Of course, in modern-day childcare it is still important to keep a baby warm and under the watchful gaze of its parents—not for fear of fairies, but to ward off illness and because infants cannot conserve heat for the first four weeks of life.
Accounts of changelings continued to be reported into the late nineteenth century. In 1895 in Ireland a woman named Bridget Cleary was killed by her husband, family, and neighbors, who claimed that she was a fairy changeling. The ordeals she was subjected to in order to cast out the fairy and return the “real” Bridget resulted in her death.
Though reports of this type are thankfully a thing of the past, changelings continue to capture the imagination and appear in many works of art and literature. A famous example is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which revolves around a squabble between Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies, over a changeling boy. W. B. Yeats’ poem “The Stolen Child” was inspired by Irish tales of children spirited away to fairyland. More recently, Maurice Sendak, children’s author and illustrator and creator of Where the Wild Things Are (1963), drew on changeling lore in his book Outside Over There (1981), in which Ida’s baby sister is taken by goblins and replaced with a changeling made of ice. Ida must go the goblin realm and rescue her sister by playing her horn. Jim Henson’s film Labyrinth (1986), developed in conjunction with renowned fairy artist Brian Froud, acknowledges Sendak as an influence. Featuring David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin King, it tells the story of Sarah, who must rescue her baby brother from the domain of the goblin king.
Changeling stories deal with themes that continue to resonate, such as panic when a child goes missing, the fear that a child is sick or weak, or—from the point of view of the changeling—the feeling of not fitting in. Perhaps this is why changelings continue to be a source of inspiration for films, art, and literature today.
Chin Chin Kobakama
Japanese fairies. A Japanese fairy tale, written down by T. Hasegawa in Chin Chin Kobakama (1903), tells the story of a lazy little girl who ate plums and hid the stones under the matting on her bedroom floor. Eventually this angered the fairies and they punished her. Every night at 2 a.m., known in Japan as the Ox Hour, the fairies rose up from the matting as tiny women dressed in bright red robes, singing:
Chin-chin Kobakama,
Yomo fuké soro,
Oshizumare, Hime-gimi!
Ya ton ton!
“We are the Chin-chin Kobakama, the hour is late, sleep, honorable noble darling!”
Though the words were kind enough, they were sung to taunt the little girl and the fairies pulled faces as they sang.
After many nights of this, the girl became tired and frightened. So, one night her mother sat up with her to see the fairies. When the little women appeared, she struck at them and they fell to the floor—as plum stones. So, the girl’s laziness and naughtiness were discovered. After that she was a very good little girl and never dropped plum stones on the floor again.
Churnmilk Peg
Guardian of Yorkshire nut thickets and orchards, she disapproves of laziness in humans, but takes a fairly laid-back approach to her duties, passing the time by smoking her pipe while protecting nuts and fruit from human hands. Melsh Dick carries out the same task.
Cipenapers
Welsh version of the word “kidnappers,” sometimes used to talk about fairies.
Clap Cans
Lancashire bogie that can be heard but not seen, so-called because of the sound it makes, like that of banging together cans or pots. It is one of the less frightening of the bogies.
Cloud Master, the
See Nuberu, El.
Cloud People, the
Spirits of the clouds in the mythology of the Pueblo peoples of North America. According