Damn, leave it to those middle aged citizens to not read the fine print

I formaly ask all infants of changlings ...grow into adulthood...remake your world

@@glittercupcake9258 Considering most people of the age were illiterate, that's not surprising.

Yeah, the Fair Folk would give lawyers aneurysms with their contracts.

Who made Theater raven the fairy lawyer??!

I dont know why this gives me goosebumps.. that's so sad.

I don't think they cared about the result.

Earth born spirits don't know good or evil like human beings do. They're sort of chaotic, and they only obey the universe, now our laws of right and wrong.

for what i know the only moral of stories involving the fairye is you do not ever make a deal or interact with them in any way

oh I think they knew. they are tricksters. everything has a price.

And make sure you have a bargaining chip in case they do something unexpected

With the fairies it wouldn't matter how careful you were. They were worse than the Jinn when it came to granting wishes.

or rust blind the chips to fall where they may.

@@kvonkirk2340 True but Jinn were never suppose to deal with humans, its those who disobey that order that are the wish granting Jinn, I think they are also not even suppose to interact with humans but that is left to interpretation in myth and ones own beliefs.

This is just a good thing to keep in mind when dealing with anything that grants wishes. Use careful wording and ask all the important questions. Will the baby grow up? Are you gonna kill my kid to get insurance money if I ask for cash? Why is it called a Soul Gem, and where exactly do Witches come from? You may not think it matters now, but you will when you wake up in a bathtub full of ice, minus *both* kidneys and with the very essence of your being stuffed inside a piece of jewelry.

As with most other myths and even Peter Pan himself, they've been Americanized and Disney-ified to being cute and cuddly fun time creatures. This is more often than not their truest natures and why, especially when dealing with the Fey, one must be very specific in asking for favors!

most fairies are super sweet and loving beings- but not all.

If you think Tinkerbell is cuddly, you've never actually read Peter Pan. You do remember the part where she tells the Lost Boys to shoot Wendy down, don't you? I thought that was even in the Disney adaptation. It's certainly in the original book.

No, you don’t understand, the Fae are a very kind and genuine people but they don’t speak much Irish! When she asked for a baby, they gave her one, but didn’t understand she wanted a child who would grow up too! Especially because the faeries don’t grow like humans do, so they gave her a babe, but didn’t understand her request quite right

goodtoby07 Your examples are highly Americanized and have nothing to do with Irish folklore. Some of the fey are dangerous and like a good prank, like Fear Dearg, but it is always said at the beginning of the story. And no, the fey do not speak much Irish, they speak their own Fae language.

There's nothing in fairy lore to suggest that they don't understand what they're doing. It's not a matter of misunderstanding, it's either trickery for its own sake or because fairy children need human milk.

@@kooborkoala200 there is nothing to suggest that fae cant raise their own children either...

@@tobak952 Some versions of fairy lore do say that they can't, or that they prefer not to. There's a number of other explanations of why changelings happen, but, like with much fairy lore, the most common is simply that they're capricious beings that we can't understand. manchesterhistorian.com/2014/changelings-possession-and-exorcism/ This link mentions the claim that fae children need human milk, as well as a couple other traditional explanations.

It varies from story to story. In some they're innocent but completely disconnected from humanity, in some they're malicious in the same way as traditional depictions of trickster gods (ie., well, it was really funny *to them* that the baby didn't grow up; why didn't she just throw it away when she realized it was broken?), and in others, they kind of look at people like cockroaches. That last one would be my guess with this story, given how she "bargains" with them for hours and then gets ignored later. It sounds like the story of a woman who finds out about a portal to the Otherworld and takes what she believes to be reasonable precautions before going in. They'd probably try to kill her, realize they couldn't because she had some amulet/had performed some ritual/said the right words, then they'd try to scare her but realize that she hadn't just procured/done things x, y, and z accidentally and that she knew they couldn't hurt her. *Then* they would start "negotiating". Regardless of her wording, they'd twist it into something awful. In this case, I'm guessing pretending that they were so sad to lose the child and getting her to promise to take good care of it until it grew up. In a way that, of course, never implied that it would actually do that. Then they send her home where she'll be a happy mama for the first few months, they close the door she used, and they let her eternal vigil (that stretches into madness as she comes to believe, over the centuries in the Afterlife, that the baby will *totally* grow up someday and starts trying to show it to travelers) serve as a reminder for the annoying hairless apes not to interrupt the frolicking.

@ShadowQueen Skye What's your picture?

I remember that book! I read it when I was around 7 or 8, and it was such a vivid story I have never forgotten it! It plays in my head to this day, such a haunting tale of misfortune and misunderstandings. I think this song was inspired by the story.

+STiiTCH i would highly doubt she based this song off of the book, the book is pretty new, only twenty or so years old while tales of changeling children are hundreds of years old. I dont just highly doubt it, its just flat out isnt based on it and its childish to think so narrowly

I am so sorry you are having such a miserable day that you felt the need to berate somebody online. I hope it made you feel better like you intended, made you feel like you have a little more self-worth and validation lol. I pity you. For all you know, with the book being a fairly common title, it was indeed the inspiration. It is childish to think so narrowly, as you put it, assuming that is NOT the case. Anybody who has been into fantasy for a number of years considers it common knowledge that changeling stories have been around for centuries. Perhaps, instead of blatantly looking for shit to gripe about on KZfaq because you have zero control over your personal life and feel the need to take it out on random people online because it is the only time you could possibly have the courage to speak your burning thoughts, you should spend more time on Google looking for witty insults and banter to fill your personal book because yours lack originality and depth. Cheers! (Docked points for my ridiculously long run-on sentence, but I think I got the point across fairly well :D )

Apologies on spamming your thread, Venus. My comeback was obviously not to you, I hoped you would not take it as such. Sadly, KZfaq derped on me and decided not to let me actually reply to said numbnuts when clicking the Reply option under the name.

+STiiTCH perhaps you didnt deserve my previous comment before, but now you certainly do. Chill out my dude, i know you really enjoyed psych 101 but you arent as smart as you think you are

Actually I think it's, be very careful what you ask for

Some Fae are actually very nice. Just saying. But yes, be weary. They are very literal.

Don't eat the food, don't drink the wine, don't fall asleep.

Those faeries will screw you over every time. I was married to one for eighteen years.

true!

Carter Gates Or at least how you say your sentence of your wish.

You're... Immortal?

I hoped to see a Witcher quote on a song like this, wish granted, thanks.

Wow, 3. is even darker than my interpretation (it's a metaphor for a woman who got a special needs child)

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

My alternate theory, slightly similar to number 3. The Woman prayed to the fae, got pregnant and suffered a stillbirth. Endlessly rocking the babe due to guilt from the stillbirth.

Vatican's symbols are jerks

@Beatrice Johnston I found the faerie

Oh man, so true. Me too.

Ditto that, and why I post it on my FB feed. I love sharing these kinds of songs around Halloween, to get people thinking beyond the stereotypical Monster Mash and scary sound effects.

JasanQuinn yes I second that

JasanQuinn this would make an amazing and chilling horror fantasy movie!! OO

They’d ruin it with cliches and cgi things growling and crawling on the floor

Preston Estes or you could throw it into the fireplace and your child would be brought back unharmed

Or, you could cook the child. The parents would hear the screams and come to rescue it. Depends on the age, older Changelings the strangeness does not work.

Huh, never heard if that one! Most of what I got about Changelings was from Spiderwick! Placking a key on the child's bedsheets, open iron scissors where the child sleeps (NOT RECOMMENDED!), turning the father's trousers inside-out (Odd,) and hanging them over the cradle, or putting rowan and garlic on the sides of the bed.

+Preston Estes That doesn't sound so bad. Dancing and being merry for the remainder of my life sounds pretty nice to me

+Rodes Gardner But that is all your life would be. A toy with no human interaction. No family, no children.

When I was little, there was this one fairy circle in my neighbors yard, I loved playing there......and I could have been kidnapped by magical mini people xD

dancing with them: bad idea, so tempting tho

But are all of them like that i think there are also the good ones

Sarah Gray okay while this is true most people led the child to the forest/ left the kid there and was basically like “Yeah I miss my kid but they’re with the fairy’s so they’re fine”

+Transgender tidbits They often didn't wait until they were children to be led. This happened to babies. The torturous rituals as well as the abandonment in the woods

And by long ago you mean that how?? You know that still happens in some countries today right? Africa is among the worst for killing baby for being witches there was a fire that day and a baby born. Must be babies fault.

king VonKirk it’s their culture. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t give you the right to call them evil

@@thomas4723 if only we understood, fairness at the speed of joy !BINKy

Imagine if humans started to do the same in this ages ...........my mother told me to never lie so never lie I did. things that don't lie are yet harder to trust

+nerdieone1 The most positive enlightenment for those who think higher than self.

That makes sense why it makes me so emotional. I was thinking the best you can do is give the best life you can while you are lucky enough to have them.

nerdieone1 I hate the changeling myth. It's a great reminder of how people like me were fucking murdered in the past for being devil-spawn or whatever

Yeh the changeling myth is a very sad one. :(

I've thought this sounds like an almost spot-on metaphor for a child born developmentally delayed or maybe autistic. "The fairies would not answer her/The stones were dark and slept" is hte part that gets me -- very applicable to modern parents who desperately go to all the doctors seeking for help only to find out there's nothing to be done. :/

You know a bit about them?

May I ask what else you know, in private? I have my reason. Sorry and thank you. BB.

Sure, email me at witchpagan@gmail.com

I think the fae are likely used as parable. This song in particular, due to its chilling narrative, carries a very common message; be careful what you wish for. Or, perhaps, to make the best of what you have. Brave tried to modernise this kind of tale, and I think it did it well. For all the light hearted fun and cheeriness in that film, at its heart is a grim story about people who are changed into animals and become mindless beasts in pursuit of their, or someone else's desires. The only way to break the curse is to look inward, not outward. I interpret this song in much the same way. Being without child made the mother unhappy, but there were other options open to her. They could have tried to adopt a child (let's face it, in ages past people died far more often). They could have simply accepted their lot and lived happily together without a child. But instead they turn to magic to fix their problem, and for a brief time it did. And then it became a curse. I cannot imagine that woman, cradling the same baby for fifty years, was happy. Her life was likely Hel, filled with fear of what people would think if they learned of her Changeling child. How many times did they consider killing the child? How frightened were they of what the fae might do to them if they did? This, to me, is one of the things I so like about pagan folklore. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all tell stories where the moral is "Yahweh will fix it", or "Just do what Yahweh tells you and it will all be fine." Pagan stories tell you "fix it yourself," because nobody who ever demanded the Gods to solve their problems for them ever met a good end.

JasanQuinn i love your opinions on things. 😁keep writing my dude.

yeaahh. there really is no such thing as good Fey. there's the evil ones and the really rude neutral ones.

^You forgot the total nutfuk ones and the ones who mean well when they turn you into a newt.

Actually that was her fault she never asked for it to grow up, she said "I want a baby" or "I want to have a child" thus never growing up!

Kindness? She invaded their home and spent all night bargaining with their queen. It was kind to let her out alive

+Jason Trolling Level: Expert

rekt

That's an understatement

What would you call a trolling by elves? Elving? :D

How is it trolling? So it never grew up but it still lived and she loved it to keep holding it. Granted kids need to grow up but not into the shit society humans raise them into. Humans destroy their ability to dream, day dream, and have imaginations. Only ones who get robbed are the kids

Or just word it better

Yes, that's right. Of course, she obviously wanted a child who would grow up, but since she only asked for "a baby", that's what the fairies gave her. They take things literally when people ask for things (if they choose to comply at all), so the request has to be worded very carefully.

TheaterRaven thanks

+TheaterRaven lol be careful of what you wish for.

+Pie Pierrot (Eta) There are some that see it as a metaphor changeling children in the day were normally autistic or had mental difficulties and would stay mentally young so when she say would never make him grow they could mean would never make him grow mentally

Cubby Kovu that can be true. Myth gets alter here n there as it gets retold. It could even b that the fairy weren't even fairy, but human.

+Gemini Starr (GaarasBloodRose) Indeed. They CAN be loving and peaceful, but only when they feel like it. :)

Also depends if they're seelie or unseelie.

***** I think I'd trust an Unseelie faerie more than a Seelie one. Just based on the stories I've heard and read.

+Gemini Starr (GaarasBloodRose) The unseelie are more likely to be cruel and dangerous and as such, are more predictable to an extent. The Seelie are more likely to be kind, but fucking hell they can be mischievous as fuck

MrDinmaker Exactly. You can trust a jerk to be a jerk, but a jerk who pretends to be kind? Not so much. Actually, the same is true for people in general XD

In the inheritance cycle, all the elves spoke a language in which you could never lie. you can tell the truth but still be dishonest.

@@shallandavarpainterofsouls9509 sooo riddles? That is what the book " the cruel prince" is based on where the fae cannot lie but they make riddles

❣️🧚🧚‍♀️🧚‍♂️

They didn't call them tricksters for nothing.

@Centralist Australia It's entirely possible to learn a lesson from people who don't intend to teach you anything. That's often the case with the fairies.

@Centralist Australia I know. OP said, " . . . they don't *want* to teach humans anything", which is often true. I was saying that just because they don't _want_ to teach us anything doesn't mean we can't learn lessons from their unpleasant antics. In the case of this song, I guess the lesson might be "be very specific when asking for something from the fairies", or maybe even "just straight-up don't ask the fairies for anything".

Well, the lesson here was: "stay away from faeries. the will deceive you.

The faeries in this story may very well have done the best they could. Like a lot of other wish granting magical creatures, they take things very literally. They don't understand implications. If you ask for a baby you get a baby. Nothing more.

She got a child that never grew up. But she got to be a mother and a mother till the end of her natural days on earth. That is a blessing. Considering she wasn't able to become a mother naturally.

Fairies can be good and kind, but only if they choose to. They're not the ditzy, airheaded, goody-goodies that Disney's Tinkerbell and the like lead kids to believe.

God only knows

I live in America and I believe that Fairies are like humans you don't know what they are capable of until you think on it, plus the chick asked for a baby so she got a baby, she didn't say "I wish to bear a child whom of which I may watch as they grown into an intelligent being". No all she said was "I wish to have a baby" so she got one and it stayed what? A baby, so thins time its her own fault a bit

We started with honest men. Honest men who deal fairly with any and all have nothing to fear from faerie.

Um . . . we started with sexist slave-owners who kinda meant well. And Faerie wouldn't give a shit either way, because they're FAERIE. Not happy Disney elves.

twillightrose13 Have things got better with you?

Divorce him and adopt.

@@stasiaspade1169 yeah because orphanages looooove to give kids to single mothers smfh

I never expected to have children. Then one day I knew my daughter was coming no matter what, I knew she was a she immediately. I love her fiercely, she is a little over 2 and still can't form words and she is on a massive waiting list and it is breaking my heart. I will whisper a prayer to Lilith, I hope you get exactly what you want, sweetheart. Being a mother changes your view on love forever.

twillightrose13 is he open to using a surrogate?

lol

Lol

You crazy😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Dude 😂😂😂😂😂

Do you have a web link to this story?

According to their mythology, fairies are either immortal, or time passes much differently in their realm. You could step inside for what seems like all of 5 seconds, and when you leave, 100 years have gone by in the human world. It's best not to try rationalizing how the fair folk regard the passing of ages.

CraftyMaelyss I don't think it was so much the fae didn't understand. I think it understood perfectly. The woman, as TheaterRaven (I believe it was) mentioned, wanted a "baby," not a son or a daughter. The fae are apparently incredibly literal, so the woman was given a baby who would remain a baby forever. As for why they refused to answer her afterwards, I think that's just kind of what they do. They give people their hearts' desires, but with such a catch that it makes the person wish they had never asked.

Jay James That's what I meant but regardless it's still heartbreaking :(

BanPhotoRadar kinda harsh, don't you think?

remember: don't make deals with the Fae, they are smarter and crueler and far older than you will ever be, they will find a way to turn it back against you

peridot facet-2f5l cut-5xg it's theorized that the changeling legend was made as an explanation for severe autism, that a seemingly regular child would be "taken" and "replaced" and taking account certain symptoms of autism and how they correlate to the signs of a changeling (limited speech, lack of facial expression/inappropriate facial expressions in certain situations) it's not that much of a stretch.

In fact that's exactly what I thought. The way she goes to the fairies for help but "the fairies would not answer her/the stones were dark and slept" sounds a lot like someone going to doctors and finding out there's nothing they can do. It's a heartbreaking lyric.

It comes from the French word : "fae" which means false

www.etymonline.com/ this site is amazing at the meanings of words - with latin root words, and PIE

I believe (I don’t have facts, so take this with a grain of salt) that faeries is the traditional way of spelling it; fairies is the more modern version

I'm not sure it has a "moral" as such...?

The moral is: Be careful what you ask for from a fairy, at best they're going to give you exactly what you asked for and no more. Though often asking for something from a fairy is likely to end badly for the person asking.

Ak! Edit: that eating-you part is not taken from the song but is still a good lesson.

women use to put "changelings " in the woods to die or for the Fay folk to bring back the human child that was taken.

Mia Cooj The woman in this video should have done that then. Instead she'll be rocking that cradle until the day she dies.

Except the woman in the song made a bargain with the Fae folk. Usually changlings are Fae children swapped for the real, human baby. the parents would leave them in the woods in hope that the Fae would switch them back. The woman in the song had no real baby to begin with.

***** a mother's love is timeless. For my son I would walk through fire. I would have rocked that babe until the day I died

RachelisTheWendyBird changelings can also be fae elderly who need someone to take care of them

Pete of the Bread to be fair she asked for a baby.

The fey are dicks. They'll always give you what you ask for, bu never what you want.