It's Midsummer, a time of fairies and lowering of the veil. There is a very old belief in Changelings, who are fairies in the form of children. These were originally the infants of supernatural creatures like elves, fairies and trolls who were swapped with human babies. While the creatures whisked away human babies, they replaced them in the cots with their own children that were deliberately picked, those that were frail and sickly. Or sometimes they left pieces of wood behind in cots. The unfortunate parents never knew this until later on when they noticed something wasn't right about their children.
People used to find the changeling children badly behaved compared to other children. The parents never knew that their own children were stolen by the fairies, assuming the changelings were their own. Sometimes changelings were not quite human and caused trouble at home. However they looked human but they didn't always act normal. For this reason people protected their babies from the fairies by using mistletoe, iron, horseshoes, scissors left inside blankets and charms. Baptising the babies were believed to help protect them from fairies. Sometimes they made rituals to get their own children back.
It seems now that everyone doesn't believe in such fairy tales about changelings anymore. Such a folkish magical idea really does happen in nature though. These are usually among animals like fish, insects and birds. Officially the term is "brood parasite" when a host egg is put in the nest of a different species to trick the parents. Cuckoo birds are well known for doing this and there are many types of cuckoos. The most scariest of all is the Channel-billed cuckoo that is a ruthless brood parasite, and it also makes chilling sounds. So if anyone needs to experience the horror of a changeling then do check out the Channel-billed cuckoo. It's one of many of nature's own cruel changelings.
Links:
12 groups of brood parasite birds at Planet of Birds
Eerie sound of the Channel-billed cuckoo on Youtube
Read "Channel-billed cuckoo, the largest brood parasite" HERE at Cool Green Science
She Wolf Night
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