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fayyaad

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Aug 13, 2001
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I know we've all heard of the lore surround changelings, but has anyone had any real (or even realistic) experiences regarding changelings?
 
certainly. when my cat Moscow was a kitten he was such a playful, adorable little thing. now he's a evil little git who delights in causing me pain, the little darling! ;)
 
I note that this thread is (well, it won't be after my post bumps it, but still) just above the "Autism and MMR" thread...

realistic explanation for "changelings" anyone?
 
I seem to recall reading something many years ago - can't remember where - suggesting that changeling lore arose from the misidentification of Down's Syndrome babies.

That's about all I can contibute to this thread.

PB
 
From Wikkipedia. Some descriptions of changelings I have found, vacant eyes, thick heads and other, certainly sound like deformed children. Just imagine what people in ancient times felt like when having a Down children, a baby with ictiosis or an autistic kid. Magical explanations where certainly used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling
 
Williams syndrome has been posited as the source of stories re: elves and pixies. Quite possibly changelings too...
 
it depends on the particular belief about changelings, i think...

on the "autism and mmr" thread, there was discussion about children with some forms of autism appearing "normal" until about the age of 18 mths - 2 yrs, hence the mmr being blamed... i can see how in former eras instead of a vaccine, such an apparent change from a normal human child into an "otherworldly" one whose behaviour was inexplicable could have been blamed on the "switch and bait"...

of course, there's also the more "cryptoanthropological" possibility that relict communities of Picts or similar indigenous peoples existed, who had trouble with inbreeding, and, in order to increase their gene pool, sometimes actually did swap their "defective" children for healthy children from the outside community by kidnapping, if you believe that's what "fairies" are/were... if such things did actually happen (or were alleged to happen as part of some propaganda campaign) between different ethnic groups at one point historically, it would be easy imo for the changeling concept to enter folklore, and when the indigenous peoples had been mythologised into Fae type creatures, capable of disappearing, teleporting, etc, for that legend to be used as an explanation for things like autism... the Welsh quote from wikipedia certainly sounds a lot like it...
 
Brown_Forever said:
"I seem to recall reading something many years ago - can't remember where - suggesting that changeling lore arose from the misidentification of Down's Syndrome babies."

But the Down's Syndrome individuals I've met, as well as merely read about, tend to be very sweet-natured, the polar opposite of the traditional changeling.
 
A Christian View of Changelings?

I once asked a highly-educated Baptist minister (he had a Ph. D. in English literature besides his theological training) the age of the youngest person he'd ever baptized. (His religion of course practices "adult baptism.")

His answer: "Two."

He then explained to me how closely he'd questioned this young boy to see if his decision for Christ was clearly his own rather than something urged upon him (even if unconsciously) by his parents or older siblings.

"I even threw him trick questions, but he passed all the tests. I then had no excuse to refuse him immersion."

The minister added: "But there's also a genuinely chilling side to all of this - if a two-year-old child can make a clear decision for Christ, he could also have made a clear decision for Evil."

Gives one pause.
 
GadaffiDuck said:
"Williams syndrome has been posited as the source of stories re: elves and pixies. Quite possibly changelings too..."

Williams Syndrome individuals have such markedly "elfin" features - including pointy ears - that the connection with elves, fairies and pixies is understandable. (Bit remember also that the considition was not recognized as such until 1961 (!!), so the connection can't have been all THAT obvious.)

But the most marked "symptoms" of Williams Syndrome are genuine sweetness, outgoing friendliness and "unfailing politeness." Again, that's an 180 degree opposite of the traditional changeling.
 
nataraja said:
"of course, there's also the more 'cryptoanthropological' possibility that relict communities of Picts or similar indigenous peoples existed, who had trouble with inbreeding, and, in order to increase their gene pool, sometimes actually did swap their 'defective' children for healthy children from the outside community by kidnapping, if you believe that's what 'fairies' are/were..."

Nataraja, that's an absolutely brilliant speculation and one I'd not considered before. Thank you for posting it.

The only caveat I can think of is that it's difficult to believe that the "regular" British were stupid enough not to realize what was going on.

Back during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries it was (unfairly) believed by most middle-class Americans that Gypsies stole babies from the towns their itinerent travels took them through. But Gypsy travel routes and camping places were well-known, so if a baby HAD been stolen from Breezetown the authorites would simply have traveled to Jonesport, rescued the baby, and arrested a lot of Gypsies for kidnapping.
 
Reviving this because i just found a highly interesting archive of changeling stories:

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/britchange.html
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/gerchange.html
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/scanchange.html

Reading the British ones, several of the descriptions sound very much like various degenerative physical disabilities... some of them remind me of pictures of the kids in those horrific "orphanages" in places like Romania and Serbia... :(

sort of makes me think that maybe having a child with one of those conditions (especially if it came from inbreeding) was considered "shameful", and a family might have another child to replace the "defective" one, kill the "defective" child, and cover it up with a changeling story, and say the new child was the "real" first child...
 
nataraja said:
sort of makes me think that maybe having a child with one of those conditions (especially if it came from inbreeding) was considered "shameful", and a family might have another child to replace the "defective" one, kill the "defective" child, and cover it up with a changeling story, and say the new child was the "real" first child...

But wouldn't that work only with a family unit living in strict isolation many miles from any other humans? Otherwise wouldn't that first pregnancy have been noticed and remembered?

Nataraja, many thanks for rejuvenating this thread.
 
Brown_Forever said:
I seem to recall reading something many years ago - can't remember where - suggesting that changeling lore arose from the misidentification of Down's Syndrome babies.

The problem I have with this is that most of the Downs Syndrome children I've either met or read about tend to be genuinely sweet and loving (the current literature speaks of being "blessed" with a DS child) while many of the old chimney corner stories posit changelings as simon-pure EVIL.
 
OTR,

You've now taken the time and trouble to post twice dismissing any suggestion of a connection between undiagnosed Down's Syndrome and the stories of changelings from bygone days. For my part, I don't have an axe to grind one way or the other regarding this particular idea - I merely mentioned it because I was aware of it. Consequently I'm bemused as to why you've felt it necessary to kick this one back into play after all this time.
Your latest posting certainly hasn't brought us any closer to apprehending the true nature of the changeling!

Nor will this one, I fear, but you clearly feel strongly about this so I hope you won't mind if I briefly explain why I disagree with your reasoning:

I think you have to acknowledge that we in the UK and US (mostly) live in more compassionate and enlightened times than that which produced the changeling tales. Down's Syndrome adults and children (well at least the ones you know and have read about) have had the good fortune to be raised by decent, loving and supportive families, and this will be reflected in their own characters and demeanours.

In harsher, bygone times, however, the lot of these individuals would have been far less rosy. Assuming the child were suffered to live once their 'difference' became apparent, they would quickly be perceived as of little or no economic value to the family/community and their treatment might well be cruel and neglectful, leading to who-knows-what form of maltreatment. Under such deeply traumatic circumstances there is no predicting how a person will turn out (Down's Syndrome or not), and I think that the inherent saintliness of a Down's Syndrome child that you appear to be positing would be sorely tested.

So there you have it. I don't intend the above as an argument in favour of Down's Syndrome = Changeling, but rather as an objection to your firm belief that the connection can't be made.

Best

PB
 
Brown_Forever said:
Consequently I'm bemused as to why you've felt it necessary to kick this one back into play after all this time.

That one's easy to answer. I don't regard Fortean mysteries as being merely for the day or the week or the month but for the ages, or at least until they are fully explained.

However, I DO NOT necessarily reject a Downs Syndrome-changelings connection! What I actually wrote was that I have "a problem" with it.
 
I think it would be asking a lot for all changelings to be attributable to the same phenomenon.

For one thing, some changelings were adults. In the case of the burning of Bridget Cleary in 1895, both the defendant - her husband, Michael Cleary - and the victim's own family either believed, or expected their neighbors to believe, that the Bridget who died might not have been Bridget at all, but a breathing, moving, speaking ringer brought in by fairies who had abducted her. This case demonstrates the flexibility of the changeling concept, which could be used to cover a wide variety of mental, social, and physical states; much the same way that vague medical diagnoses (Irritable Bowel Syndrome! Hysteria! Nervous disorders! SIDS! PMS! Mid-life crisis! Stress!) have been called upon to render unmanageable situations less intimidating by applying a label ever since the Enlightenment.

In the Cleary case, after the burning and his arrest, Michael became passionately insistent that he must be released in order to go rescue his wife from the fairies - having killed the imposter, he must be in the right place at the right time and perform the right actions in order to free her. It's not hard to imagine yourself into his shoes at this point - whatever he, in his heart, believed at the moment he took the actions that led to Bridget's death, once she was dead she had to be a changeling, because otherwise, he was a wife-murderer. Had the case occurred in 1395 instead of 1895, we would now have a version of it in which Bridget's behavior and physical condition fully justified this belief.

Similarly, if ill-treatment or neglect (easily prompted by stress, ignorance, or postpartum depression) causes the death of a child, the child's relatives will be anxious to justify their own behavior in their own eyes. A little exagerration here, a little memory burp there, a little cooperation from people who want to believe because not believing is unbearable - anything from Down's Syndrome to ADHD, Munchhausen's by Proxy to Shaken Baby Syndrome, can become a changeling story, complete with Evil Imposter Baby.
 
I dont think changelings would neccisary be examples of rare disorders.

Something like damage caused by alcoholism or syphilis would have been much more common in the past.

or simple malnutrition.

As for the dying race theory...has there ever been any historical examples of this?

Its well known people in decline suffer a loss of fertility...do they do anything about it?

Females sallying forth in search of stronger sires would make better sense than swapping children....We know many people have pictish blood in them them, even though there are no cultural picts left
 
It might not be the 'changelings' that have something wrong with them - Capgras delusion is a belief that one or more close friends or family members have been replaced by imposters - the comedian Tony Rosato , who was convicted of harassment last year, believed that his wife and daughter had been kidnapped and replaced by doubles.
 
It might not be the 'changelings' that have something wrong with them - Capgras delusion is a belief that one or more close friends or family members have been replaced by imposters - the comedian Tony Rosato , who was convicted of harassment last year, believed that his wife and daughter had been kidnapped and replaced by doubles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Rosato

On May 5, 2005, Rosato was arrested and charged with criminal harassment of his wife Leah, who asserted that his deteriorating mental health had caused her to fear for her safety and that of the couple's infant daughter.[2] The charge was laid after Rosato complained repeatedly to Toronto and Kingston police that his wife, who had recently left him, and daughter had been abducted and replaced by impostors, a belief characteristic of Capgras delusion, a delusional misidentification syndrome with which the Crown's expert psychiatrist had diagnosed Rosato, according to Rosato's lawyer, Daniel Brodsky. It was alleged that the harassment occurred from December 28, 2003 and escalated until April 21, 2005. In spite of the diagnosis, Rosato, who denied mental illness and refused to plead insanity, was held for over two years without bail at a maximum-security detention centre. Brodsky, who called his client's two-year detention awaiting trial "shocking," asserted that Rosato "spent more time in custody on a harassment charge" than anyone ever convicted of the offence in Canada, estimating that "on average, someone convicted of criminal harassment spends one day in jail and two years on probation." The trial finally commenced on August 7, 2007, in Kingston and it ended on September 5. Prosecutors downgraded the charge to a summary offence from an indictable offence, handing Rosato a conditional discharge, including a psychiatric hospital residence order, of which he ended up serving 19 months of a maximum of three years. Rosato was released from the hospital in March 2009 but remained on probation until September 2010.[13]
 
Good find @Naughty_Felid . I like the way the legal system handled it - ordinary gaol-time isn't suitable but Something Needed to be Done.

I hope it worked :/
 
Just a point about Capgras. People with it remain pretty unshakeable in their beliefs. However, they are not all dangerous and don't spend all their time stalking their imposters. Some show a distinct lack of interest when discussing their, (fake), family.
 
Good points @Naughty_Felid Too easy to extrapolate worst case for all cases.

Do you know, is there any suggestion is has an organic cause? or a genetic predeliction?
 
Good points @Naughty_Felid Too easy to extrapolate worst case for all cases.

Do you know, is there any suggestion is has an organic cause? or a genetic predeliction?

Been years since I read about it but from memory, it was felt to be an organic issue in some of the cases. However, I believe it can manifest itself over several diagnoses and in some cases can respond to anti-psychotics.

I reckon have a google as I only have a very limited understanding of it and most of my knowledge was picked up years ago.
 
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