Changelings in popular culture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Changeling has traditionally meant a human child exchanged for an otherworldly creature (fairy, troll, goblin, etc.) In recent times in science fiction and fantasy literature the word has undergone semantic drift and now can mean a shapeshifter, i.e. one who changes. This does not reflect the folkloric meaning of the word.
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[edit] Literature
- The central protagonist of Eloise McGraw's Newberry-winning novel The Moorchild is an inept fae who is forced to become a changeling.
- Uther Pendragon took on the appearance of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall in the King Arthur stories.
- Antonio in Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's "The Changeling" (1622), is listed in the dramatis personae as The Changeling.
- In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Nelly Dean describes Heathcliff at one point as "a changeling".[1]
- The works of H.P. Lovecraft often contains themes, sometimes directly, other times less so, as when a protagonist discovers he has nonhuman ancestors, various forms of mind transference and nonhumans disguising as specific humans. "Pickman's Model" implies that Ghouls sometimes exchange their young with human children in a similar manner, and that Pickman himself may be one of these Changelings. He occasionally used the motif of a nonhuman being passing itself off as human.
- A novel by Poul Anderson, "The Broken Sword" (1954), depicts the exchange of a mortal child with a changeling. Although near identical in appearance to the original, the changeling is a moody loner prone to fits of the berserkergang. Another Poul Anderson novel, Operation Chaos features a changeling, and an explanation, involving parallel worlds, for why such a being might be left for a child.
- In Stephen King's book Christine, Roland LeBay's brother says his mother used to say that "Rollie was a changeling" and that Puck took her good baby.
- "The Corpse" from Mike Mignola's Hellboy begins with Hellboy investigating what turns out to be a Changeling.
- Many references to the legends and folklore of faerie changelings are made throughout Raymond E. Feist's popular 1988 fantasy novel, Faerie Tale.
- Jane, the heroine of Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter, is a changeling who was stolen by the fairies to work in a factory.
- The Body Snatchers, novel which was the basis for several adaptations (see "movies and television")
- Roger Zelazny, Changeling (1981). Novel depicting the adventures of both changelings, maladapted in their respective new worlds.
- The Changeling by Robin Jenkins (1995) is about a boy who is intelligent but a horrible vitcim of his circumstances amd there is several references to a changeling ISBN 0862412285 Canongate publishers website
- Keith Donohue's novel, "The Stolen Child," (Nan Talese/2006) (see http://www.keithdonohue.com) deals with the boy Henry Day and the faery changeling who replaces him.
- Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (1999) indicates the possibility of Clara, his Cinderella character, being a "changeling child."
- The eighth book in Cate Tiernan's series Wicca (Sweep in the US) is entitled Changeling. Though there is little to nothing to do with an actual changeling within the book, Morgan is taught by her father, Ciaran, how to shapeshift into a wolf.
- Tom Deitz's contemporary fantasy David Sullivan series, David's little brother is replaced with a faerie changeling. The brother is essentially a human shell, unable to do anything but stare.
- Changelings appear now and again in the works of Caitlín R. Kiernan, where they are usually referred to as the Children of the Cuckoo and are raised to serve the ghul (also called the Hounds of Cain), a subterranean race of werewolf-like creatures. See particularly "So Runs the World Away" and "The Dead and the Moonstruck" (both from To Charles Fort, With Love), as well as her novels Low Red Moon (2003) and Daughter of Hounds (2007).
- 'The Stolen Child', by Keith Donohue alternates viewpoints between a changeling in his new life, and the stolen boy's new life as a changeling.
- In Tithe : A Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black, the protagonist, Kaye, discovers that she is a changeling glamoured to look like a human.
- In Halo: The Fall of Reach, the subjects for the Spartan-II program were secretly kidnapped at early ages (average being 6 years old) from their families, and replaced with flash-cloned copies of the subjects, which all die shortly after the operation due to neurological problems with the flash-cloning process.
- "Changeling" (2007) is the name of Mike Oldfield's autobiography.
- Theo, the main character in Tad Williams's book, The War of the Flowers, is revealed to be a changeling.
- Charlotte Mew (1869-1928), American poet, wrote "The Changeling" in 1916.
- In the second book of the Inheritance Trilogy, Saphira calls Elva a changling.
[edit] Movies and television
- Various science fiction works which feature replacement by duplicates or doubles. The archetypal and classic example stll remains Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 directed by Don Siegel, 1978, directed by Philip Kaufman), Body Snatchers, directed by Abel Ferrara), all based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney.
- Peter Medak, The Changeling. A horror film starring George C. Scott in which a crippled child is substituted with a healthy one.
- Labyrinth, a 1986 movie.
- "The Changeling" was a Star Trek episode, a title referring to this legend. At the end of the episode Captain Kirk refers to the legend to compare what occurred to Nomad.
- In one episode of the children's program So Weird, Annie, the girl who replaced Fi, is babysitting when the child is replaced by a changeling. She notices the change almost immediately, and has to make the changeling child laugh, by cooking stew in an eggshell, which forces its parents to return the child, and take back the changeling.
- In Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Anakin says to Obi-Wan, "I think she is a changeling."
[edit] Gaming
- Changeling: The Dreaming. A game in White Wolf Game Studio's "World of Darkness" role playing game line that focuses on a struggle between glamor and banality. Based on traditional tales from various world cultures. The players take the role of different Changelings, fairies and other fantastic creatures who were forced to incarnate themselves into human bodies in order to survive in a modern and dreamless world. Character types include, but are not limited to; Sidhe, Redcaps, Pooka, Trolls, Nockers, Boggans, Eshu, Selkies, Piskies, and Chulrchaun. Antagonists represent or are pawns of banality, such as Autum People, Duantain, Nightmares, Nurvosa, other Fae, mortals, Mages, Vampires, and Werewolves. White Wolf's New World of Darkness line has a new Changeling game set for a 2007 release.
[edit] Other
- There are also the reptile people posited by David Icke.
- The Doors' album L.A. Woman opens with a track called The Changeling, which includes the lyrics "I'm a Changeling. See me change".
- DJ Shadow's album Endtroducing contains a track called Changeling.
