Changelings

The most interesting fairy I learned about are the changelings. A changeling is a fairy or stock (wooden figure) made to exactly resemble a human and left in their place, while the real human is abducted and taken to the land of fairies. Fairies most often take children, either to raise or to make work as slaves, or young women to be servants, midwives, or wives. Many people never returned to the land of humans, although some stories relate successful rescues of the fairy captives. The human mothers on the other hand are left with a fairy baby  and they usually find out because the child is usually sickly, disfigured or of poor temperament. The changeling myth was mostly used to forewarn expecting mothers to properly take care of their children. A child that was not properly taken care of was believed to be kidnaped by a fairy and then become a changeling.  The Fairies in place of the human were ofter described as abnormal and the changeling myth was a way to explain why certain children didn't fit in. "many changelings are so called merely because of some bodily deformity or because of some abnormal mental or pathological characteristics capable of an ordinary rational explanation" (Tim) This usually meant that these odd children who were thought to be changelings were subject to cruel and bizarre treatment

References

Ashliman, D. L. "Changelings." Changlings An Essay by D. L. Ashliman. N.p., 3 Sept. 1997. Web. 06 Dec. 2012.Stainton,

Jimmy, Joe. "Faeries." Timeless Myths. N.p., 1999. Web. 06 Dec. 2012.

MacKillop, James. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.
Rose, Carol. Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998. Print.

 Tim. "Changeling." Encyclopedia of Disability. Ed. Gary L. Albrecht. Vol. 1. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference,      2006. 235-236. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.