Paper short abstract:

This presentation discusses the illnesses and conditions which could have resulted in legends about changelings in Estonian and Swedish folklore – stories about human children that supernatural beings exchanged with their own.

Paper long abstract:

In Estonian and Swedish legends from the 18th and 19th century we hear about many different supernatural beings and how they affected people's everyday lives. This presentation focuses on changelings - human children that supernatural beings exchanged with one of their own. In Sweden the change was made by fairies, in Estonia it was the Devil who took the baby and left the humans with a chunk of wood in the crib. Changelings are described as abnormal, with physical disabilities, often with limbs that are too long and with a large head. Changelings would age by years, but didn't grow in size, only the head was growing. A typical legend describes some method how to make the fairy or the Devil to come and bring the human child back; many of these methods were rather violent. Sometimes the child was returned, though often it remained ill and died after a while. It was said that the fairy woman's breast milk had affected the child.

These legends are most likely based on different illnesses that children were suffering from, but which at that time were unknown to medicine, the most common being Down syndrome and simple malnutrition. Both manifest many of the symptoms described above. In addition there are many more or less common illnesses that can easily lie behind the belief in changelings. In my presentation I will shed more light on some of these illnesses and the conditions which could have resulted in legends about changelings.