University of Exeter Press
The Exeter Companion to Changeling Lore
The West Eurasian and Mediterranean Tradition
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- 320 Pages
For centuries, people across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East believed that supernatural beings—fairies, jinn, trolls, or demons—could steal a human child and leave a lookalike in its place. These stories offer fascinating insights into how different cultures made sense of disability, illness, and unexplained transformations.
The Exeter Companion to Changeling Lore is the first multi-author volume dedicated to changelings and the most comprehensive study of these beliefs across West Eurasia and the Mediterranean. Bringing together leading historians, literary scholars, and folklorists, it considers changeling legends from Britain to Armenia and from the Arctic Circle to the Maghreb. Individual chapters uncover new archival material in Hungary, previously undocumented folklore motifs in Ireland, and changeling traditions in countries where they had gone unnoticed—such as Italy and Spain. The book even examines how changeling beliefs have persisted into modern UFO-lore.
Challenging long-held assumptions, this volume overturns the idea that changeling beliefs are to be found in all corners of the globe and that no such tales predate the medieval period. Instead, it reveals that the vast majority of changeling accounts belong to a distinct West Eurasian-Mediterranean tradition, with records stretching back to ancient Greece and Rome. This book is essential reading for folklorists, historians, anthropologists, disability studies and criminal studies scholars, and anyone fascinated by myths, legends, and the supernatural. It concludes with a revised list of changeling motifs, providing an invaluable resource for future research.
Introduction: Changeling Whats, Wheres, and Whens Davide Ermacora and Simon Young
DOI: 10.47788/VLIC1971
1. The Child Kidnapped through the Window: Considerations on an Irish Changeling Motif Audrey Robitaillié
DOI: 10.47788/TQCM4693
2. English Changelings across the Ages Rose A. Sawyer
DOI: 10.47788/WCBI1292
3. ‘A Little Folk-Lore Is a Dangerous Thing’: Edward Clodd, the Folk-Lore Society, and the Bridget Cleary Case (1895) Stephen Miller
DOI: 10.47788/BFNC2714
4. Medieval Iceland: Changelings on the Margins Andrea Maraschi
DOI: 10.47788/VVYJ7973
5. Scandinavia: Folklore, Families, and Changelings Tommy Kuusela
DOI: 10.47788/CFYX8157
6. Martin Luther and the Evolution of Changeling Lore in German-Speaking Europe Janin Pisarek and Florian Schäfer
DOI: 10.47788/HQGK6901
7. Changelings in Iberian and Ibero-American Folklore Óscar Abenójar
DOI: 10.47788/INHT9632
8. From Alpine Tales to Pirandello’s Fiction: Mapping Changeling Beliefs across Italy Riccardo Castellana and Davide Ermacora
DOI: 10.47788/GWXL3857
9. Burnt in an Oven: An 1803 Changeling Trial in Transylvania Éva Pócs
DOI: 10.47788/JNXH1182
10. ‘Old and Taken’: The South Slavic Changeling Dorian Juric
DOI: 10.47788/INUN1598
11. The Emergence of Changelings in Post-Classical Greece Tommaso Braccini
DOI: 10.47788/HDEW6450
12. Giants, Gluttons, and Blocks of Wood: Changeling Stories in Ukraine and Russia Natalie Kononenko and Alevtina Tsvetkova
DOI: 10.47788/FALD2743
13. Artavazd and the Armenian Changeling Davide Ermacora
DOI: 10.47788/TEEX1921
14. Stoves, Stocks, and Shovels: North American Changeling Beliefs and Murders Chris Woodyard
DOI: 10.47788/FAFC7317
15. Human Changelings in the Long Nineteenth Century: Baby Swaps, Picnics, and Maternity Wards Simon Young
DOI: 10.47788/OJZP8812
16. Missing Changelings? UFOs, Alien Abductions, and Conspiracy Narratives Erik A.W. Östling
DOI: 10.47788/BCJN1097
Epilogue Jean-Claude Schmitt
DOI: 10.47788/LVZC5604