Of Changelings and Fairy Doctors

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Are you a witch, or are you a fairy, 

Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?

For if ye be a changeling in turn,

into the bon fire you shall burn.

The practices of folk healers can be viewed as a beautiful and mysterious art of old. The wise men and women that sought to heal people through their folkish means. However, the practices of the Fairy Doctors hold a not so friendly side. More specifically, their practices involving fairy Changelings.

"a child believed to have been secretly substituted by fairies for the parents' real child in infancy."
Along with the fairy faith, the belief of changelings was a held belief in both the common folk and the fairy doctors. The different beliefs and definitions of changelings varied among the fairy faith. The most common being a child replaced by a fairy. 

However, it is much more gruesome than it sounds, "We could not love the child. We were repelled by the puckered face that would not flesh out into plump and rosy like the doctor said it would, but remained yellow and the same texture as parchment," (Cornelle Forest Greene). The more common of the changeling folklore beliefs held that the changeling was an old and deformed fairy that sought to leech off of the human parents like a parasite. Unfortunately, the changeling belief had most likely spawned from people of that day being unable to understand such things as birth defects, mental illnesses, and so on. 

It was often used as excuse to treat these individuals poorly, " Nothing short of fire is often deemed sufficient for the purpose. There were various methods of applying it. Sometimes we are 'told of a shovel being made red-hot and held before the child's face; sometimes he is seated on it and flung out into the dung-pit, or into the oven or again, the poker would be heated to mark the sign of the cross on his forehead, or the tongs to take him by the nose. Or he is thrown bodily on the fire, or suspended over it in a creel or a pot, and in the north of Scotland the latter must be hung from a piece of the branch of a hazel tree. In this case we are told that if the child screamed it was a changeling, and it was held fast to prevent its escape," ( Edwin Sidney Hartland). 

Fairy Doctors were [are] tied closely with Changelings. They were often seeked by the peasantry to explain why a child was deformed or why a member of the family had changed so much.

These tortures were not excluded to just infants and children, but often women were dealt these things as well, as was the case with Bridget Clearly, "rhyme invokes fear of the gruesome fate of women in the past labelled as witches. Bridget, the unfortunate wife of Michael Cleary, was not burnt for witchcraft but for being a fairy changeling," (Julia Reddy). 

Michael had seen a fairy doctor prior to the murder of his wife. The fairy doctor had only encouraged the thought of Bridget being a changeling, and gave Michael the means in which to deal with her, "Why would the prosperous, clever Bridget Cleary be considered a changeling? Bridget was very ill with bronchitis or pneumonia along with fits of delirium prior to her death. The change in her behaviour, likely accompanied by the manipulative Jack Dunne, convinced Michael Cleary of his wife’s fairy state. Jack Dunne is also believed to have told Michael that his wife has one leg longer than the other, which was a definite sign of a fairy...The murder of Bridget Cleary was a result of her misinterpreted illness, Michael’s frustration and his mental disturbance," (Julia Reddy)

Even today, the horrendous tales of people believing their family or friends to be changelings still occur. One of them, that I remember, being a woman killing her baby by placing it into her oven.

Often, those accused of being a changeling were individuals that had depression, autism, genetic illnesses or deformities, or were those who were seen as outsiders. In the case with Bridget, individuals who were outcasts of society (or ignored the norms of the society) were suspected of being changelings themselves (and in some cases also being accused of witchcraft). 

The topic of changelings is an example of what happens when ignorance and prejudice mix with faith and superstition. It shows the importance of how not all acts within a belief or religion should be allowed to continue or flourish in that way. Its the reason why I must update and somewhat modernize my practice as a Fairy Doctor. I am horrified by the idea of killing someone for how they looked or what illness they may or may not have. 

Work Cited

Correll, Timothy Corrigan. "Away with the Fairies": Wise Folk, Healing, and the Otherworld in Irish Oral Narrative and Belief. N.p.: n.p., 2003. Print.

Forest-Greene, Cornell. The Field Guide to Fairies and Other Frights. N.p.: n.p., 2013. Print.

Hartland, Edwin S. "The Science of Fairy Tales." Index. N.p., 1891. Web. 13 Aug. 2014.

Reddy, Julia. "Are You a Witch or Are You a Fairy Or Are You the Wife of Michael Cleary?" Celtic                    Lore (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 2009.