SOLVED. Changeling child in medieval village, doesn't fit in, goes looking for her true fairy mother? [s]

[Amanda]

I read this book as a child, probably around 2007. Given some of the themes, I think it was more of a young adult novel than a children's book. I believe the cover was an illustration of a girl with long hair and pointed ears in a medieval peasant dress. I thought the book was called "The Changeling" but a search under this titled hasn't brought it up.

The book was set in a medieval village, presumably in England or Ireland. The protagonist was a young girl born to peasant parents. She didn't fit in and was generally a very frustrated and mischievous child. She and her father would harvest honey together, and after she left he missed her fearlessness.

At some point the girl realizes that her parents aren't really her own, and she manages to travel to the world of the fairies underneath a hill. She goes there and finds the girl she was exchanged for being made to work as a slave, as well as her real mother. Her mother pretty much ignores her, and the girls discovers her father was a human who accidentally wandered in. She figures out he is an old hermit in the village and goes to see him toward the end, revealing that he is her "Pa". She realizes that she was made a changeling because her father was human and that she doesn't belong among the fairies. Somehow she manages to escape with the real human girl, returning her to her true human parents. The real human girl is extremely timid and stays inside all day, the complete opposite of the changeling girl.

The changeling leaves the village, and she meets a shepherd boy her age along the way. He follows her and they presumably make a life for themselves together.

[Krista]

The Moorchild?

[Summer]

Definitely The Moorchild! I love that book.

[Amanda]

Krista wrote: "The Moorchild?"

Thanks!

[Kris]

That's a popular book. It's been requested and found eight times in this group.