I stumbled across this recently, and the subject seems to relate to mental health - or at least how mental health issues have evolved over the centuries.
- Click here for the Wikipedia entry on changelings:
A changeling, also historically referred to as an auf or oaf, is a human-like creature found in folklore throughout Europe. A changeling was believed to be a fairy that had been left in place of a human (typically a child) stolen by other fairies.
. . . A changeling is typically identifiable via a number of traits; in Irish legend, a fairy child may appear sickly and will not grow in size like a normal child, and may have notable physical characteristics such as a beard or long teeth. They may also display intelligence far beyond their apparent years, as well as possess uncanny insight. A common way that a changeling could identify itself is through displaying unusual behaviour when it thinks it is alone, such as jumping about
. . . Medical experts now believe some changeling tales developed in an attempt to explain deformed, developmentally disabled, or neurodivergent children. Among the diseases or disabilities with symptoms that match the description of changelings in various legends are spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, PKU, progeria, Down syndrome, homocystinuria, Williams syndrome, Hurler syndrome, Hunter syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, Prader-Willi Syndrome, and cerebral palsy. The greater incidence of birth defects in boys correlates to the belief that male infants were more likely to be taken by fairies. Psychologist Stuart Vyse writes that modern parents have higher expectations of childbirth and when "children don't meet these expectations, parents sometimes find a different demon to blame." A condition known as regressive autism, where children appear to develop normally in their early years and then start to show symptoms of autism, can also be compared to marks of a changeling child.
In particular, it has been suggested that autistic children would be likely to be labeled as changelings or elf-children due to their strange, sometimes inexplicable behavior. For example, this association might explain why fairies are often described as having an obsessive impulse to count things like handfuls of spilled seeds. This counting preoccupation has found a place in autistic culture. Some autistic adults have come to identify with changelings (or other replacements, such as aliens) due to their experiences of feeling out of place in the world.
In other words, the myth of the changeling was developed to make sense of things that we can now explain scientifically.
