Across Germanic and Norse tradition, supernatural beings were believed to steal unbaptized human infants and replace them with their own kind — sickly, deformed, or simply 'other'. The substituted creature would eat endlessly without growing, scream inconsolably, and seem somehow wrong. Identifying and removing the changeling was a matter of desperate urgency.
Looks like the stolen infant but somehow wrong — too thin, too heavy, eyes too knowing, features not quite right. It cries more than normal, refuses to be comforted, eats far more than a human infant could, and fails to grow.
The changeling's presence indicated the theft of the real child. If the changeling was tricked into revealing itself (by performing an impossible task in front of it), it would typically vanish, and the real child might be returned.
Weaknesses
- ritualTricking it into speech or action beyond infant capacity forces it to reveal itself and vanish
Wards
- ritualBaptism immediately after birth
- substanceSteel placed in the cradle
- symbolOpen scissors placed over cradle
- [1]Deutsche Mythologie. Grimm, Jacob. 1835. Deutsche Mythologie, Vol. 2. Frankfurt.folk
- [2]Strange and Secret Peoples. Silver, Carole G. 1999. Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness. Oxford University Press.academic