Fairies, Children and Changelings

Carolyne Larrington and Fay Hield talk about the strange interest that fairies take in human infants, and the plight of children who stumble into this world, and can’t get home. We explore how fairies seem to have difficulty in giving birth, and they need humans midwives to help. One of the strangest medieval stories is that of the 'Green Children' who appear in the human world in twelfth-century Suffolk and can’t find their way home again. We also talk about changelings, the puny, wizened infants swapped by the fairies for healthy human children.