Changeling

"I think Elena may be a changeling. Inhabited by a fairy at birth."

- Gaius to Merlin

Changelings are individuals inhabited by a Sidhe. They are frequently unaware of their condition until the Sidhe emerges and possesses them entirely.

History
The Sidhe Elder made Princess Elena of Gawant a changeling as part of a plot to one day gain control over the throne of Camelot. He also had his pixie servant, Grunhilda, disguise herself as a human and pose as Elena's nanny. In this role, she was able to care for Elena and keep her oblivious to the fairy inside her.

Twenty years later, the Sidhe Elder's scheme nearly came to fruition when a marriage was arranged between Elena and Prince Arthur of Camelot. However, Merlin and Gaius quickly realized that something was not right with Elena. They discovered her condition and Grunhilda's true identity and put together a plan to rid Elena of the Sidhe's possession.

The morning of the wedding, Merlin and Gaius made Elena drink a potion that would force the Sidhe out of her. When the fairy exited her body, Merlin destroyed it with his magical staff, freeing Elena from its influence. She later chose to call off the wedding when Arthur admitted that he had no feelings for her (The Changeling).

Behaviour
People inhabited by a Sidhe have been shown to quite clumsy and inelegant. Elena, for example, was constantly tripping over her own feet, had few social graces, and suffered from an excess of flatulence. She also developed a taste for living creatures, such as frogs and toads.

Grunhilda often used pixie dust to control the fairy inside Elena. She usually sprinkled Elena with the dust while she slept, soothing and strengthening the Sidhe while they waited for the right time for it to emerge and possess her entirely.

The only known way to free a changeling from possession is to make them drink a potion invented by the Witches of Meredor. Drinking the potion caused Elena to pass out and convulse until the Sidhe left her body. Getting rid of the fairy cured her of her earlier afflictions and became notably more elegant and graceful (The Changeling).

Folklore
Changelings are creatures found throughout Western European folklore. They are typically believed to be a fairy left in the place of a stolen human child. The theme of swapped children in common in medieval literature and reflects concern over infants afflicted by as-then unknown diseases, disorders, or mental disabilities.

A human child might be taken due to many factors: to act as a servant, the love of a human child, or malice. Most often it was thought that fairies exchanged the children. Some Norwegian tales tell that the change was made to prevent inbreeding: to give trolls and humans new blood, humans were given children with enormous strength as a reward. In some rare cases, the very elderly of the Fairy people would be exchanged in the place of a human babe, and then the old fairy could live in comfort, being coddled by its human parents. Simple charms, such as an inverted coat or open iron scissors left where the child sleeps, were thought to ward them off; other measures included a constant watch over the child.

In Scottish folklore, the children might be replacements for fairy children in the tithe to Hell. Also, according to common Scottish myths, a child born with a caul (head helmet) across their face is a changeling, and of fey birth.

Some folklorists believe that fairies were memories of inhabitants of various regions in Europe who had been driven into hiding by invaders. They held that changelings had actually occurred; the hiding people would exchange their own sickly children for the healthy children of the invaders.

In other folklore, the changelings are put in place of the child to feed off of the mother of the child. The kidnapped child then becomes food for the changeling's mother. This is done for the survival of their kind. Once the changeling mother and the changeling have drained the life from the human mother and child, the changeling and its mother begin to search for a new suitable food source. Other sources[2] say that human milk is necessary for fairy children to survive. In these cases either the newborn human child would be switched with a fairy babe to be suckled by the human mother, or the human mother would be taken back to the fairy world to breastfeed the fairy babies. It is also thought that human midwives were necessary to bring fairy babes into the world.

Some people believed that trolls would take unbaptized children. Once children had been baptized and therefore become part of the Church, the trolls could not take them. One belief is that trolls thought that being raised by humans was something very classy, and that they therefore wanted to give their own children a human upbringing.

Beauty in human children and young women, particularly blonde hair, attracted the fairies.

Some changelings might forget they are not human and proceed to live a human life. Changelings which do not forget, however, may later return to their fairy family, possibly leaving the human family without warning. As for the human child that was taken, he or she may often stay with the fairy family forever.

Historical Cases
Two 19th century cases reflected the belief in changelings. In 1826, a woman named Anne Roche bathed Michael Leahy, a four-year-old boy unable to speak or stand, three times in the Flesk; he drowned the third time. She swore that she was merely attempting to drive the fairy out of him. The jury acquitted her of murder.

In the 1890s in Ireland, a woman named Bridget Cleary was killed by several people, including her husband and cousins, after a short bout of illness (probably pneumonia). A local storyteller, Jack Dunne, had accused Bridget of being a fairy changeling. It is debatable whether her husband, Michael, actually believed her to be a fairy; many believe he concocted a "fairy defence" after he murdered his wife in a fit of rage. The killers were convicted of manslaughter rather than murder. Even after the death they claimed that they were convinced they had killed a changeling, not Bridget Cleary.