Little Darlings

by Melanie Golding

The child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast; Yet it lies in my little one’s cradle And sits in my little one’s chair, And the light of the heaven she’s gone to Transfigures its golden hair. From The Changeling by James Russell Lowell

Come away, O, human child To the waters and the wild With a faery hand in hand For the world’s more full of weeping than You can understand From The Stolen Child by W.B. Yeats

A beam of the slant west sunshine Made the wan face almost fair Lit the blue eyes’ patient wonder And the rings of pale gold hair She kissed it on lip and forehead She kissed it on cheek and chink And she bared her snow-white bosom To the lips so pale and thin From The Changeling by John Greenleaf Whittier

Those who are carried away are happy, according to some accounts, having plenty of good living and music and mirth. Others say, however, that they are continually longing for their earthly friends. Lady Wilde gives a gloomy tradition that there are two kinds of fairies—one kind merry and gentle, the other evil, and sacrificing every year a life to Satan, for which purpose they steal mortals. W. B Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland

How to Protect Your Child 1. Placing a key next to an infant will prevent him from being exchanged. 2. Women may never be left alone during the first six weeks following childbirth, for the devil then has more power over them. 3. During the first six weeks following childbirth, mothers may not go to sleep until someone has come to watch the child. If mothers are overcome by sleep, changelings are often laid in the cradle. Jacob Grimm

A branch of mountain ash tied over the cradle protects girls against fairy abduction, as according to ancient superstition the first woman was created from the mountain ash. A branch of the alder tree protects boys, as the first man was created from the alder tree. Irish traditional

When his first child was a few weeks old they found it on three different nights lying crossways and uncovered in its cradle, even though the cradle stood immediately next to the mother’s bed. The father therefore resolved to stay awake during the third night and to pay close attention to his child. He persisted a long while, staying awake until after midnight. Nothing happened to the child, because he had been keeping a watchful eye on it. But then his eyes began to close a little. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

The Nickert is a small grey person that lives in the water and has a great desire for human children. If they have not yet been baptised, he will steal them, leaving his own children in their place. Kuhn/Schwartz

If they are changed, what am I to do? You must throw them into the river.

I’m a four-loom weaver as many a one knows I’ve nowt to eat, and I’ve worn out me clo’es Me clogs are both broken and stockings I’ve none They’d scarce give me tuppence for all I’ve got on

Is it said that River Mumma lives in the cool depths of water. She sometimes comes up to sit on a rock and comb her long black hair. If you see her, do not look at her. If you catch her eye, she may draw you down with her, where she may live but you may not. If she catches hold of you, all manner of terrible things will happen. No one knows exactly what, because no one she’s got hold of has ever come back to tell the tale. Traditional Jamaican

“It’s a brewery of eggshells, you need, to trick them. That’s what you need. That’s what the book said. Then she’ll know for sure.”

Fairies, however, when bent upon mischief, are not always baulked so easily. They effect the exchange, sometimes in the house, and sometimes when the parent is at work in the fields and incautiously puts her offspring down the while. In these circumstances, grievous as may be the suspicion arising from the changed conduct of the nursling, it is not always easy to be sure of what has taken place. Edwin Sidney Hartland

A woman, as she heard tell, had a child changed, and one, a poor thing, left in his place, but she was very kind to it, and every morning on getting up she found a small piece of money in her pocket. My informant firmly believes in their existence, and wonders how it is that of late years no such things have been seen. Hollingworth