What an interesting post. This tale of Saint Guinefort is so intriguing. And the second portion of the tale is such a detailed (and distressing!) changeling test.
It is! I think most changeling tests are quite distressing, though I do quite like the idea of the eggshell one (where you cook a meal in an eggshell, which prompts the changeling to cry out that they have seen an acorn before an oak, but never THAT, and disappear, with the human child returned in their stead.
A little kinder than throwing them nine times through a hedge!
Yes, the cooking in an eggshell method definitely seems much kinder than most of the other life-threatening, changeling tests I've read about while researching for the novel I'm working on. That method, though, was generally only used when the changeling was thought to be an old faerie using glamour to appear to be a baby. Cooking a meal in an eggshell would trick the faerie into speaking, thereby revealing its true age. But if the changeling was perceived to be a faerie child, then it was often believed that it was necessary to torment the changeling until the faerie parents came to take their own and return the human child. But sadly, this could result in infanticide.
Yes! There are some awful stories, including in court records, of folk torturing and mistreating small children, especially those who didn't appear 'normal', who were suspected of being changelings.
Do you know Frances Hardinge's changeling book, Cuckoo Song? It's spectacular!
I remember reading a version of this when I was a kid and being outraged at the injustice. I still am, stupid humans. Thank you for the great read, it prompted me to start thinking about my favourite cryptids, being werewolves, and how not all stories paint them in a bad light. I had read that some Irish stories seem to celebrate them as guardians to those in need, so I went in search again of the Werewolves of Ossory. Unfortunately, this led me to the Gerald of Wales Topographia Hibernica references, which seemed so promising with the gorgeous love story featuring elderly werewolves. But then it all goes and gets ruined with the "Christianising" of the werewolves, and all I can think is, for pity's sake, can we not just leave the dogs and wolves alone? Thanks for the guided rabbit hole highs and lows this evening.
Hello Claire! I agree: all these stories remind me that our relationships with nonhumans are far too often transactional, and that in them we mostly see humans enacting power-over through violence. It's heartbreaking!
I do love werewolves! Though they are far too often shown as less interesting (and less sexy) than other animal/human shapeshifters. Thanks for these references: you've sent me down a rabbithole of wonder revisiting Gerald of Wales's Topogrophy! What a delight it is: I particularly love the piece on the person with a beard who was--and isn't Gerald delighted and amazed!--nevertheless a woman <3
I have a little set of old Latin workbooks, from school, in which a werewolf appears. I cannot tell you how much this delighted me as a (very young) scholar.
This is one story I'm glad Disney made a happier ending for in Lady and the Tramp!
Ha! Yes, that certainly is a much gentler and kinder version of this paricular story <3
What an interesting post. This tale of Saint Guinefort is so intriguing. And the second portion of the tale is such a detailed (and distressing!) changeling test.
It is! I think most changeling tests are quite distressing, though I do quite like the idea of the eggshell one (where you cook a meal in an eggshell, which prompts the changeling to cry out that they have seen an acorn before an oak, but never THAT, and disappear, with the human child returned in their stead.
A little kinder than throwing them nine times through a hedge!
Yes, the cooking in an eggshell method definitely seems much kinder than most of the other life-threatening, changeling tests I've read about while researching for the novel I'm working on. That method, though, was generally only used when the changeling was thought to be an old faerie using glamour to appear to be a baby. Cooking a meal in an eggshell would trick the faerie into speaking, thereby revealing its true age. But if the changeling was perceived to be a faerie child, then it was often believed that it was necessary to torment the changeling until the faerie parents came to take their own and return the human child. But sadly, this could result in infanticide.
Yes! There are some awful stories, including in court records, of folk torturing and mistreating small children, especially those who didn't appear 'normal', who were suspected of being changelings.
Do you know Frances Hardinge's changeling book, Cuckoo Song? It's spectacular!
Yes, I've read about some of the cases involving children who were thought to be changelings. So sad!
Thank you for the book recommendation. I'm not familiar with Cuckoo Song, but I'll definitely look into it. :)
This was so amazingly strange. It screams to be retold, revisited, subverted, something!
I feel exactly the same way!
I remember reading a version of this when I was a kid and being outraged at the injustice. I still am, stupid humans. Thank you for the great read, it prompted me to start thinking about my favourite cryptids, being werewolves, and how not all stories paint them in a bad light. I had read that some Irish stories seem to celebrate them as guardians to those in need, so I went in search again of the Werewolves of Ossory. Unfortunately, this led me to the Gerald of Wales Topographia Hibernica references, which seemed so promising with the gorgeous love story featuring elderly werewolves. But then it all goes and gets ruined with the "Christianising" of the werewolves, and all I can think is, for pity's sake, can we not just leave the dogs and wolves alone? Thanks for the guided rabbit hole highs and lows this evening.
Hello Claire! I agree: all these stories remind me that our relationships with nonhumans are far too often transactional, and that in them we mostly see humans enacting power-over through violence. It's heartbreaking!
I do love werewolves! Though they are far too often shown as less interesting (and less sexy) than other animal/human shapeshifters. Thanks for these references: you've sent me down a rabbithole of wonder revisiting Gerald of Wales's Topogrophy! What a delight it is: I particularly love the piece on the person with a beard who was--and isn't Gerald delighted and amazed!--nevertheless a woman <3
I have a little set of old Latin workbooks, from school, in which a werewolf appears. I cannot tell you how much this delighted me as a (very young) scholar.