History Main / ChangelingTale

* A [[https://dycefic.tumblr.com/post/681090034954371072/writing-prompt-s-two-identical-infants-lay-in-the Tumblr prompt]] has a variant where the woman is presented with two babies, one her own and one a fairy, and told to choose between them. [[TakeAThirdOption She takes them both and raises them as twins]].

* Happens to Bloom, the protagonist of ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub:'' First she learns that she's a fairy, and then is revealed that her parents aren't her real parents, and that she's a [[ChangelingFantasy princess of another world]].

* ''WebOriginal/LoomingGaia'': Changelings are a type of monster created by the divine Allmother that takes the form of a normal-looking baby, which constantly cries without sleep and is always hungry, while the real baby is taken away to be raised by Allmother.

* This is implied to have taken place in ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' when it's revealed that someone has been sending letter's to Luz's mother Camila to make her think that she's at camp like she's supposed to be rather than on the Boiling Isles. [[spoiler:This ultimately turns out to be far less sinister than it appears at first glace. The {{Doppelganger}} (a shapeshifting [[BasiliskAndCockatrice basilisk]] by the name of Vee) was on the run from the Emperor's Coven, snuck through Eda's portal a few minutes after Luz first came through, took on Luz's form due to her having been the only human she had seen up to this point, and was immediately mistaken as the real Luz by Camila. The only reason she's been keeping up the charade for so long is because Camila was the first person to ever be nice to her. Camila is understandably shocked when she learns the truth, but tells Vee that she's free to stay in her home as long as she'd like.]]

* ''Myth/NorseMythology: Trolls in Scandinavia were fond of switching their own children for human babies. The way to get rid of the changeling, however, was to treat it horribly and beat it frequently. The changeling's true mother would see the way its child was being treated and rush to undo the swap.

* ''Literature/TheEnchantmentEmporium'' has Joe the Leprechaun. He live in the human realm because his family wanted a mortal child "for entertainment". At the beginning of the book, Joe is taking a portion to prevent "fading away" -- also known as "being called home" -- since the Human side of the trade died and the potion keeps him anchored; he ''really'' doesn't want to go back to a family that abandoned him. (And the human may have died of old age. Even if that means Joe [[YoungerThanTheyLook looks 30 and may be 80-90]], he still has spent most of his life among people and not Leprechauns.)

* Creator/MargeryLawrence's supernatural detective stories featuring sleuth-mystic Miles Pennoyer include ''The Case of the Leannabh Sidhe'', wherein Pennoyer undertakes an investigation of a child whose personality has suddenly shifted. The child, Patrick, [[spoiler:turns out to be a changeling who was left in place of the ''real'' Patrick when his nurse left him sleeping in a fairy glen belonging to the "Shee" -- the same fairy glen Patrick's father had clear-cut in an ill-advised bid to construct a nine-hole golf course on his Killeen estate. Knowing that the changeling will continue to wreck havoc in the human realm if left alone, Pennoyer enlists the help of the child's Aunt and her chauffeur to "exorcise" the changeling and demand the Shee return the real Patrick. When they succeed, the real Patrick is restored with no memory of his years spent amongst the fairies.]] It was published with Lawrence's other Miles Pennoyer stories in the 1945 collection ''Literature/NumberSevenQueerStreet''.

* ''Mytg/NorseMythology: Trolls in Scandinavia were fond of switching their own children for human babies. The way to get rid of the changeling, however, was to treat it horribly and beat it frequently. The changeling's true mother would see the way its child was being treated and rush to undo the swap.

* Trolls in Scandinavia were also fond of switching their own children for human babies. The way to get rid of the changeling, however, was to treat it horribly and beat it frequently. The changeling's true mother would see the way its child was being treated and rush to undo the swap.
** Myth/SlavicMythology features boginki (water spirits) and their children, odmience, with much the same MO.

* In German fairy-tales there are generally two possibilities to get rid of them: 1) treat them horribly (as described above), or 2) doing something really stupid (e.g. boiling water in egg shells), the changeling then would laugh at you (sometimes even taunt you with a rhyme), which broke the spell and forced the fairy to take the changeling back and return the real child.
* In the fairy tale "Literature/ChildeRowland", Childe Rowland's sister Burd Ellen is kidnapped by elves when she inadvertently runs around a church "widdershins" (i.e., counterclockwise to the sun's path).

* In the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "The Kids Are Alright"...they're not. They've been replaced by changelings, who kill their human fathers and feed on their mothers. Meanwhile, the Changeling mother feeds on the replaced children.
* The ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "Small Worlds" involved a girl who was a changeling (unbeknownst to her or her family), and the fairies came to get her back.
* An episode of Creator/TheBBC's ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' has a variation on this one, in which a princess is not replaced, but is possessed by a Sidhe in infancy, as part of a plot to put a Sidhe on the throne of Camelot. The princess doesn't know the Sidhe is inside her, although its presence makes her very clumsy and uncoordinated. The plot is that once she's married Prince Arthur the Sidhe will take her over completely.

* ''ComicBook/WitchDoctor'' features "cuckoo faeries", but the guise is so [[UncannyValley horrifyingly]] [[PaperThinDisguise unconvincing]] you almost wonder why they even bother. [[spoiler:And no, they don't get less creepy as they age.]]

* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' [[spoiler:Kilia]] is this. [[spoiler:The party returns to Palmacosta only to discover that Governor-General Dorr has been working with the Desians in order to acquire a cure for his wife, who has been transformed into a monster]] prompting a ReasonYouSuckSpeech from Lloyd. [[spoiler:Dorr]] is then stabbed in the back by [[spoiler:Kilia, who reveals herself as a doppleganger.]] leading to his death after the ensuing boss fight. [[spoiler:It turns out the real Kilia died some time ago, and the fake one replaced her in order to keep an eye on Dorr, and monitor the experiments at the ranch from behind the scenes.]]

* In the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "The Kids Are Alright"...they're not. They've been replaced by changelings, who kill their human fathers and feed on their mothers.

* ''ComicBook/{{Hilda}}'': At the end of ''Hilda and the Stone Forest'', Hilda and the troll child Baba are put through one of these that involves not just the two of them being switched, but [[BalefulPolymorph fully transformed into the other species as well]] (Hilda becomes a Troll and Baba a human). They spend a large part of the next story, ''Hilda and the Mountain King'', in their altered states and lives [[spoiler:before the changeling spell was broken, and returned to their original forms]].

* In Creator/PoulAnderson's fantasy novel ''Literature/TheBrokenSword'', the protagonist is taken by the elves and replaced with a changeling. [[FromBadToWorse It goes badly]] [[KillEmAll for everyone]].

** Cowbirds, whydahs, honeyguides and indigobirds also practice this mode of egg-laying. In many cases, this habit has allowed the adult birds to maintain a more nomadic lifestyle than would be possible if they had to rear their own young in place. Many other bird species will opportunistically lay eggs in the nests of others of their ''own'' species, but in those cases it's mostly a response to intensive competition for nest sites.

* The closest equivalent to real-world changelings is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite Brood Parasitism,]] practiced by half of the species of cuckoos. They replace another species of bird's egg with their own, tricking the parents that the impostor is their own child. This relieves the cuckoo from the investment of rearing young or building nests, enabling them to spend more time foraging, producing offspring, etc. Despite the cuckoo chick not resembling the "parents" at all (and are sometimes even ''bigger'' than the "parents"), the strategy works fairly often since most birds are just that stupid. If the host birds do get a clue and remove the cuckoo egg, the adult cuckoos (who occasionally check up on their eggs) will attack them and destroy their nests. Cuckoos basically run an egg protection racket as a "cuckoo mafia, one in which you always lose since young cuckoos are well-known for hatching first and throwing the other eggs overboard.

* ''Literature/{{Oddmire}}'' opens with a goblin named Kull doing this. He puts the changeling in the crib, but gets distracted before he can take the human baby. When he turns back, the changeling has already shapeshifted into a copy of the human child, and Kull can't tell them apart. He leaves them both, and they grow up as a pair of "twins" named Cole and Tinn. If you're curious, [[spoiler:Tinn]] is the changeling.

* Like many fairy tale tropes, this is referenced in the ''Lorwyn'' expansion for ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', on the card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=143380 Crib Swap]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Hilda}}'': At the end of ''Hilda and the Stone Forest'', Hilda and the troll child Baba are put through one of these that involves not just the two of them being switched, but [[BalefulPolymorph fully transformed into the other species as well]] (Hilda becomes a Troll and Baba a human). They spend a large part of the next story, ''Hilda and the Mountain King'', in their altered states and lives [[spoiler: before the changeling spell was broken, and returned to their original forms]].

* ''ComicBook/WitchDoctor'' features "cuckoo faeries", but the guise is so [[UncannyValley horrifyingly]] [[PaperThinDisguise unconvincing]] you almost wonder why they even bother. [[spoiler: And no, they don't get less creepy as they age.]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Estranged}}'' focuses on both a fairy prince, now being raised as "Edmund" and aware of his true nature[[note]]Fairies apparently have NoInfantileAmnesia[[/note]], and his human counterpart, [[NeverGivenAName only called "the Childe"]] and treated as a sort of exotic pet. The two are forced to team up when the fairy king and queen are overthrown, putting them both in danger from the usurper's assassins.

* ''Fanfic/SpellboundLilafly'': Felix meets a changeling at the Samhain revel. She was originally human, but made a bargain, and has been a servant to the fae ever since, with magic altering her body; she can shapeshift, but her native form has ladybug traits such as additional insectoid arms. [[spoiler: She later impersonates Marinette, whom Chloe has taken into protective custody.]]

* ''Film/{{Us}}'': Red, a.k.a. [[spoiler: the original Adelaide, was kidnapped and replaced by her Tethered counterpart in 1986, and the Adelaide we've been following this whole time has actually been the replacement. Adelaide's parents raised the Tethered version of their daughter as their own and never suspected a thing. Interestingly enough, by the time the movie takes place, the Tethered Adelaide has started a family and has become a loving mother while Red has been driven insane, suggesting that Tethered [[NurtureOverNature are not inherently evil but are simply a product of the conditions they are raised in.]]]]

* Creator/MargeryLawrence's supernatural detective stories featuring sleuth-mystic Miles Pennoyer include ''The Case of the Leannabh Sidhe'', wherein Pennoyer undertakes an investigation of a child whose personality has suddenly shifted. The child, Patrick, [[spoiler: turns out to be a changeling who was left in place of the ''real'' Patrick when his nurse left him sleeping in a fairy glen belonging to the "Shee" -- the same fairy glen Patrick's father had clear-cut in an ill-advised bid to construct a nine-hole golf course on his Killeen estate. Knowing that the changeling will continue to wreck havoc in the human realm if left alone, Pennoyer enlists the help of the child's Aunt and her chauffeur to "exorcise" the changeling and demand the Shee return the real Patrick. When they succeed, the real Patrick is restored with no memory of his years spent amongst the fairies.]] It was published with Lawrence's other Miles Pennoyer stories in the 1945 collection ''Literature/NumberSevenQueerStreet''.

* Variants appear frequently in ''Literature/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'' where fairies seem pretty fond of kidnaping in general, but usually don't bother with replacements or stick to children. It comes closest to being played straight with the Raven King who learns magic after being taken as a child, and [[spoiler: Mrs.Strange]] who gets an actual replacement.

* In the ''Literature/{{Paranormalcy}}'' series, Evie and Jack are these. Jack was stolen by the faeries at a young age, and [[spoiler: Evie's mother is a human and her father is a faerie.]] Both of their stories bring some of the traditional mythos into it, with them both having blonde hair.

* In Creator/TadWilliams' novel ''Literature/TheWarOfTheFlowers'', it is revealed that [[spoiler: Theo is actually a changeling baby that the fairies replaced his parents' real son with, while the human child is taken to the fairy world and becomes an EnfantTerrible]].

* ''The Five Black Swans'' by Sylvia Townsend Warner takes place at the fairy court of Elfhame, where Queen Tiphaine has adopted humans twins Morel and Amanita and allowed them to do whatever they pleased. They cause a terrible ruckus by killing the dying queen's pet monkey, and [[spoiler: shortly after Tiphaine dies the other fairies strangle them and throw their bodies on the moor to be eaten by crows.]] The other stories by Townsend Warner taking place in Elfhame mention other changelings. They are treated as precious pets, kept as lovers by the queen and other fairies, and when they get old they are thrown out of Elfham, which leaves them confused and obsessed with the idea of going back there.

* In the claymation short ''[[http://www.foxedmovie.com/theshortfilm/ Foxed]]'', a little girl is kidnapped by fox-like creatures and forced to work in a mine. She escapes and finds a one-way window into her house, where she sees that one of the foxes has replaced her.

* [[ChangelingFantasy Both tropes]] are explored and played tragically straight in the short story "Changelings and Fairfolk" on Strange Stories About Sad people. http://strangestoriesaboutsadpeople.blogspot.com/2009/10/changelings-and-fair-folk.html

* There is another medical phenomenon that fuels this, known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capgras_delusion the Capgras Delusion]]. Basically, a person with a specific brain injury thinks that their child (or another relative) is not theirs, has been replaced by a {{doppelganger}} who [[TheOtherDarrin looks alike]], and cannot be convinced otherwise (in the age of mythology, [[HandWave elves]] would be a convenient explanation). It was referenced in ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat''.

** Rather horrifyingly, no lesser personage than Martin Luther described a "fairy child" in some of his writings with symptoms we'd now call autism. He recommended that the boy be ''drowned''. [[http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/gerchange.html#LutherTableTalks They didn't follow his advice, but it died anyway]], supposedly due to being exposed to too much prayer.

* The closest equivalent to real-world changelings is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite Brood Parasitism]], practiced by half of the species of cuckoos. They replace another species of bird's egg with their own, tricking the parents that the impostor is their own child. This relieves the cuckoo from the investment of rearing young or building nests, enabling them to spend more time foraging, producing offspring, etc. Despite the cuckoo chick not resembling the "parents" at all (and are sometimes even ''bigger'' than the "parents"), the strategy works fairly often since most birds are just that stupid. If the host birds do get a clue and remove the cuckoo egg, the adult cuckoos (who occasionally check up on their eggs) will attack them and destroy their nests. Cuckoos basically run an egg protection racket as a "cuckoo mafia, one in which you always lose since young cuckoos are well-known for hatching first and throwing the other eggs overboard.

* Spare a thought for poor, doomed Bridget Cleary, who in 1895 was murdered by her husband because he believed her to be a fairy changeling. Already a topic of contention in her small village in County Tipperary (she was proudly of independent means and had had no children in the eight years she had been married to her husband) at the age of 26 she fell deathly ill -- to the point when the priest was called in to perform the last rites. Relatives complained that the nearly-dead Bridget was "much changed" and "not herself" (apparently unfamiliar with the concept of delirium), and so her husband Michael became convinced she had been replaced by a weak and sickly changeling-- psychiatrists today believe that Mr. Cleary had a mental disorder known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capgras_syndrome Capgras Syndrome]], where the patient believes their loved ones were replaced by identical duplicants, [[note]]it was still thirty years away from being formally described at the time of the murder[[/note]] and that as he convinced others that she was really replaced by a fairy, it slowly but surely became a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/shared_psychosis shared psychosis]].\\

* ''Fanfic/{{Spellbound}}'': Felix meets a changeling at the Samhain revel. She was originally human, but made a bargain, and has been a servant to the fae ever since, with magic altering her body; she can shapeshift, but her native form has ladybug traits such as additional insectoid arms. [[spoiler: She later impersonates Marinette, whom Chloe has taken into protective custody.]]

* Somewhat akin to this, in ''Literature/{{Touch}}'' the elves come into our world and try to kidnap people with strong magical powers/potential, generally focusing on kids. Also, it's eventually revealed that [[spoiler:Sarah]] is an elf who was adopted by humans, growing up with vague memories of her origin.

* This is implied to have taken place in ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' when it's revealed that someone has been sending letter's to Luz's mother Camila to make her think that she's at camp like she's supposed to be rather than on the Boiling Isles. [[spoiler:This ultimately turns out to be far less sinister than it appears at first glace. The {{Doppelganger}} (a shapeshifting basilisk by the name of Vee) was on the run from the Emperor's Coven, snuck through Eda's portal a few minutes after Luz first came through, took on Luz's form due to her having been the only human she had seen up to this point, and was immediately mistaken as the real Luz by Camila. The only reason she's been keeping up the charade for so long is because Camila was the first person to ever be nice to her. Camila is understandably shocked when she learns the truth, but tells Vee that she's free to stay in her home as long as she'd like.]]

* ''Literature/{{Oddmire}}'' opens with a goblin named Kull doing this. He puts the changeling in the crib, but gets distracted before he can take the human baby. When he turns back, the changeling has already shapeshifted into a copy of the human child, and the goblin can't tell them apart. He leaves them both, and they grow up as a pair of "twins" name Cole and Tinn. If you're curious, [[spoiler:Tinn]] is the changeling.

* ''ComicBook/{{Estranged}}'' focuses on both a fairy prince, now being raised as "Edmund" and aware of his true nature[[note]]Fairies apparently have NoInfantileAmnesia[[/note]], and his human counterpart, [[NoNameGiven only called "the Childe"]] and treated as a sort of exotic pet. The two are forced to team up when the fairy king and queen are overthrown, putting them both in danger from the usurper's assassins.

[[folder:FanWorks]]
* ''FanFic/IntoTheHedge'' starts off with one, with the Cutie Mark Crusaders being kidnapped, and then replaced by fetches.

* In ''Fanfic/TheCrystalCourt'', Spring has a habit of collecting human babies to play with (usually till they die), and replaces them with fae babes that she felt were unfit for her court like in the case of Amethyst.
* In ''Fanfic/CuckooBird'', Izuku is a [[NonHumanHumanoidHybrid half-puca, half-elf]] switched out with the "real" Izuku Midoriya. He uses his {{Animorphism}} to make up for not having a Quirk. [[MindControl Shinso]] is also revealed to be a changeling (apparently part [[OurSirensAreDifferent siren]]). This fic also includes a dark twist in that changelings and their human counterparts are eventually forced to fight to the death.
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2504320/1/Karma-Circle-02-The-Changeling Karma Circle 02: The Changeling]]'' is an ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' fic where [[HeroAntagonist Dib]] believes that he's a changeling, thus explaining why [[NoSocialSkills he has such a hard time]] [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer relating to others]]. Based on the legends that trolls will reclaim a sufficiently abused child, he goads [[EnfantTerrible Gaz]] into beating him worse than usual. [[spoiler:It turns out that ''she'' is a changeling, not him, and when her troll parents show up they leave a nicer, [[DistaffCounterpart more Dib-like girl]] in her place]].
* Felix meets a changeling at the Samhain revel in ''{{Fanfic/Spellbound}}''. She was originally human, but made a bargain, and has been a servant to the fae ever since, with magic altering her body; she can shapeshift, but her native form has ladybug traits such as additional insectoid arms. [[spoiler: She later impersonates Marinette, whom Chloe has taken into protective custody.]]

[[folder:Film — Animation]]

* Kristoff and his reindeer sibling Sven from ''Franchise/{{Frozen}}'' were adopted by a group of trolls when they were children. In their case, they were presumed orphans and their adopted family took good care of them. Kristoff happens to fit the blond cliche, however there's no proof he was ever replaced with another kid.