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CHANGELING

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 840 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHANGELING , the See also:

term used of a See also:child substituted or changed for another, especially in the See also:case of substitutions popularly supposed to be through See also: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 See also:exchange before christening, and in the See also:highlands of See also:Scotland babies were strictly watched till then. See also:Strype states that in his See also:time midwives had to take an See also:oath binding themselves to be no party to the See also:theft or exchange of babies. The belief is referred to by See also:Shakespeare, See also:Spenser and other authors. See also:Pennant, See also:writing in 1796, says: " In this very See also:century a poor cottager, who lived near the spot, had a child who See also:grew uncommonly peevish; the parents attributed this to the fairies and imagined it was a changeling. They took the child, put it in a See also:cradle, and See also:left it all See also:night beneath the " Fairy See also:Oak " in hopes that the tylwydd See also:leg or fairy See also:family would restore their own before See also: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, See also:British Goblins (188o).

End of Article: CHANGELING

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