The Exeter Companion to Changeling Lore: The West Eurasian and Mediterranean Tradition(Exeter New Approaches to Legend, Folklore and Popular Belief)

For centuries, people across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East believed that supernatural beings—fairies, jinn, trolls, or demons—could steal a human child and leave a lookalike in its place. These stories offer fascinating insights into how different cultures made sense of disability, illness, and unexplained transformations. The Exeter Companion to Changeling Lore is the first multi-author volume dedicated to changelings and the most comprehensive study of these beliefs across West Eurasia and the Mediterranean. Bringing together leading historians, literary scholars, and folklorists, it considers changeling legends from Britain to Armenia and from the Arctic Circle to the Maghreb. Individual chapters uncover new archival material in Hungary, previously undocumented folklore motifs in Ireland, and changeling traditions in countries where they had gone unnoticed—such as Italy and Spain. The book even examines how changeling beliefs have persisted into modern UFO-lore. Challenging long-held assumptions, this volume overturns the idea that changeling beliefs are to be found in all corners of the globe and that no such tales predate the medieval period. Instead, it reveals that the vast majority of changeling accounts belong to a distinct West Eurasian-Mediterranean tradition, with records stretching back to ancient Greece and Rome. This book is essential reading for folklorists, historians, anthropologists, disability studies and criminal studies scholars, and anyone fascinated by myths, legends, and the supernatural. It concludes with a revised list of changeling motifs, providing an invaluable resource for future research.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Changeling Whats, Wheres, and Whens Davide Ermacora and Simon Young DOI: 10.47788/VLIC1971 1. The Child Kidnapped through the Window: Considerations on an Irish Changeling Motif Audrey Robitaillié DOI: 10.47788/TQCM4693 2. English Changelings across the Ages Rose A. Sawyer DOI: 10.47788/WCBI1292 3. ‘A Little Folk-Lore Is a Dangerous Thing’: Edward Clodd, the Folk-Lore Society, and the Bridget Cleary Case (1895) Stephen Miller DOI: 10.47788/BFNC2714 4. Medieval Iceland: Changelings on the Margins Andrea Maraschi DOI: 10.47788/VVYJ7973 5. Scandinavia: Folklore, Families, and Changelings Tommy Kuusela DOI: 10.47788/CFYX8157 6. Martin Luther and the Evolution of Changeling Lore in German-Speaking Europe Janin Pisarek and Florian Schäfer DOI: 10.47788/HQGK6901 7. Changelings in Iberian and Ibero-American Folklore Óscar Abenójar DOI: 10.47788/INHT9632 8. From Alpine Tales to Pirandello’s Fiction: Mapping Changeling Beliefs across Italy Riccardo Castellana and Davide Ermacora DOI: 10.47788/GWXL3857 9. Burnt in an Oven: An 1803 Changeling Trial in Transylvania Éva Pócs DOI: 10.47788/JNXH1182 10. ‘Old and Taken’: The South Slavic Changeling Dorian Juric DOI: 10.47788/INUN1598 11. The Emergence of Changelings in Post-Classical Greece Tommaso Braccini DOI: 10.47788/HDEW6450 12. Giants, Gluttons, and Blocks of Wood: Changeling Stories in Ukraine and Russia Natalie Kononenko and Alevtina Tsvetkova DOI: 10.47788/FALD2743 13. Artavazd and the Armenian Changeling Davide Ermacora DOI: 10.47788/TEEX1921 14. Stoves, Stocks, and Shovels: North American Changeling Beliefs and Murders Chris Woodyard DOI: 10.47788/FAFC7317 15. Human Changelings in the Long Nineteenth Century: Baby Swaps, Picnics, and Maternity Wards Simon Young DOI: 10.47788/OJZP8812 16. Missing Changelings? UFOs, Alien Abductions, and Conspiracy Narratives Erik A.W. Östling DOI: 10.47788/BCJN1097 Epilogue Jean-Claude Schmitt DOI: 10.47788/LVZC5604

About the Author :
Davide Ermacora holds a doctoral degree in anthropology from a dual program run between the University of Turin (Italy) and Lumière University Lyon 2 (France). His work explores religious history, supernatural beliefs, and folkloric traditions across different time periods. He is the author of numerous publications, including ‘Drinking Danger and “Giving Birth” to Snakes in Guðmundar saga D (and Beyond)ì and ‘Afterword: The Milk-Drinking and Milk-Suckling Snake Revisited’. He is currently completing a book on the midwife-witch stereotype. Simon Young is Cambridge-educated with a doctorate from the University of Florence. He has taught at universities in Tuscany for some fifteen years. In 2023 he was runner up for the Katharine Briggs Prize and for the Wayland Hand Prize, and won the Brian McConnell Book Award in that year. In 2023 he also won a Curran Fellowship.