Changelings were not fiction but real, documented abuse of disabled children.

Evidence

At the time of their telling, these stories were not viewed as fiction; most, including gruesome ones by the Brothers Grimm, purported to be true. Some parents, moreover, clearly understood them as how-to manuals for dealing with disabled or otherwise divergent children. D. L. Ashliman, a leading scholar of folk legends who has studied the origins and legacy of changeling mythology, writes that they were often based on actual events—sadistic ways that families, under the guidance of other community members, actually treated children with disabilities. “There is ample evidence,” he notes, “that these legendary accounts do not misrepresent or exaggerate the actual abuse of suspected changelings.” — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 675

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that folklore about fairy doubles recorded literal child abuse — not metaphor — upends how we read both myth and the doppelganger device. Klein’s use of ‘doubling’ takes on an ominous cast: the double has always been the child you are licensed to hurt.
• SEED: A possible essay angle: how communities narrate the abuse of their most vulnerable as a struggle against an imposter — from changelings to modern conspiracy theories where a loved one is ‘not really themselves.’
• BMF: This directly evokes A Very Minor Prophet by James Bernard Frost: the novel’s treatment of a child with Down syndrome amid a church conspiracy narrative — a community convinced they know ‘the truth’ about a child who is simply themselves.