Ireland’s ‘changeling’ killings: when fairy folklore justified child murder and torture. In 19th-century Ireland, some families believed that illness or disability wasn’t sickness at all. Instead, the fairies had stolen the real child (or spouse) and left a changeling behind: an imposter wearing a familiar face. And if the victim wasn’t “truly human,” then violence could be reframed as salvation.

This episode reopens a true-crime history investigation into Irish changeling folklore and the real deaths it helped justify. Through two cases involving the killing of a child and the torture and murder of an adult woman, this episode examines the intersection of Irish fairy belief, poverty, medical ignorance, domestic violence, and ableism, as well as what modern medicine suggests these victims were actually experiencing.

Content Warning: child murder, domestic violence, ableism, and torture. Listener discretion is advised.

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Folklore Forensics is written and hosted by Danielle Christmas and produced by Audio Ellis.

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