Inside the Legend: The Kids Are Alright

On our recent hunt Sam and I ran into Changelings.

This time the hunt got personal when the changeling targeted Ben, a kid I believed to be my son.

WHAT IS A CHANGELING?

Changelings are creatures that can perfectly mimic a person, often coming in the form of monster babies or creepy stare at you like your lunch kids. They climb into the window and snatch the kid then changes its form and joins the happy family to feed on the Mom’s novial fluid. Anyone who gets between the changeling and its food source ends up dead. Fire is the only way to waste them. The real children are stashed underground somewhere.

Theologian Martin Luther once stated that he believed changelings to be the children of the devil without a soul, “only a piece of flesh.” There are three different types of changelings an actual fairy child, old fairies disguised as children and “stock” which refers to inanimate objects such as wood that have been transformed to resemble the appearance of a child through fairy magic. A family cursed with a changeling will never have good luck because it drains away all the good fortune, which would normally attend the household.

A creature’s motivations of replacing the children with changelings are numerous. Some desire to have a human servant, others the love of a human child or malice. It is also believed, in Scottish folklore, that some children replace fairy children in payment to the devil. Fairies often target human children, especially male, and young blonde women.

THE LOOK AND ACT

So now that you know what they are, you’re probably wondering what these freaks of nature look like and how they act…

At first the changeling resembles a wiser version of the child it replaced, but over time it becomes hideous. Dark coal burnt eyes; wrinkly parchment textured skin, and clawed hands. Some even have physical deformities such as a crooked back. There is no way anyone in their right mind would see this beast of burden as being their child, but that doesn’t prevent it from coming up numerous times in changeling folklore. Such as the following Germanic folktale recounted by the Brothers Grimm:

"At Hessloch near Odernheim in the Gau the servant and the cook of a clergyman were living together as man and wife, although they had not been able to have their relationship publicly consecrated. They had a child together, but it failed to grow and gain weight. It cried day and night, always demanding to be fed.

Finally the woman sought advice, and was told that the baby would improve if she would take it to Neuhausen on the Cyriak Meadow, have it weighed there, and give it water from the Cyriak Spring. At that time it was believed that in such cases a child thus would be restored to health or would die within nine days.

As the woman approached the millrace near Westhofen, the child, whom she was carrying on her back, became so heavy that she began to pant, and the sweat began running from her face. At that moment a traveling student approached her, saying: ‘Woman, what sort of wild creature are you carrying? It will be a miracle if it doesn't break your neck!’

She answered that it was her own dear child that would neither grow nor gain weight, and that she was therefore taking it to Neuhausen to have it weighed.

He replied: ‘That is not your child! It is the devil! Throw him into the brook!’

She did not want to do this, insisting that it was her child while kissing it.

He continued: ‘Your child is at home in a new cradle behind the chest in the side room. Throw this monster into the brook!’

Crying and sobbing she did has she had been told. Immediately there issued a great cry and commotion from beneath the bridge she was standing on, like the howling of wolves and bears. And when the mother arrived home, she found her baby, hearty and healthy, laughing in its new cradle.”

Changelings are wiser than human children, but they cause such an uproar that that is really hard to believe. They are ill-tempered and foul-mouthed critters that are given to temper tantrums that include screaming, whining, screeching, crying and even biting! Not to mention their voracious appetite, which explains why no matter how much food they eat they are still hungry. So if your kid continuously begs you for more and more ice cream to the point of abnormality, you’ve got a changeling on your hands!

Now that I scared all of you, some of who may even be parents, let us give you some handy parental advice:

THE WINCHESTERS HANDY GUIDE TO PARENTHOOD

So, you want to know if your child is really your child pay close attention to the following:

1. If you start seeing glimpses of your child looking like something that just stepped out of a horror movie, you’re dealing with a changeling.
2. If your child is prone to playing bagpipes more than a typical child, you’re dealing with a changeling.
3. If you child eats all the time, and we literally mean all the time, you’re dealing with a changeling.
4. And finally if after cooking in an eggshell and your child claims to have lived for hundreds of years, being “as old as the Wester Wood,” you are definitely dealing with a changeling! But, following which it will often laugh, disappear and be replaced by your normal child… so at least you’ll get that happy fairytale ending.

How can you protect your child from being replaced with a changeling? Here are some helpful tips:

1. Place a key or something made out of steel next to the infant.
2. Lay a pair of men’s pants over the cradle. And when unsupervised place articles of the father’s clothing over the child.
3. All women during the first six weeks of childbirth should never be left alone because the devil has a greater power over them. Mothers should never go to sleep until someone arrives to watch the child.

And if worse comes to worse, you’ll need to know how to handle these ugly creatures. There are various methods of retrieving your kid alive without having to vanquish the changeling, this often involves treating the changeling cruelly such as heating a red-hot shovel and casting it into a burning fireplace, and forcing foxglove tea down it’s throat and waiting till it burns out its intestines. The only way to kill a Changeling is torching the sucker.

So, saving the day- once again- we drove off into the sunset on our way to the next hunt making this world a safer place. Because, well, that’s my life. The life of a hunter.

 

Inside the Legend by Dean5339