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Mystic Spiral Episode 11: The Changelings · Laura and Lauren Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Mystic Spiral,
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  SPEAKER_01: the podcast where earth-rooted magic,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: animal wisdom,
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  SPEAKER_01: and ancient enchantment twist together like a serpent and a snail in the moss.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Join us as we explore the unseen, the intuitive, and the beautifully strange.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode invites you deeper into the spiral,
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  SPEAKER_00: into the myth, and into the wild magic that lives within and around all of us.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Lauren,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: crystal healer, earth-rooted mystic, and friend of snails and mossy feyfolk magic.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Laura, animal communicator, serpent kinponowich, and solitary social practitioner.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, mythlings!
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Today, settle in close.
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  SPEAKER_01: We're wandering into one of Europe's oldest and most unsettling stories, the Changelings.
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  SPEAKER_01: A tale that slips like mist across the Ireland,
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  SPEAKER_01: Germany,
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  SPEAKER_01: and Scandinavia,
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  SPEAKER_01: the Celtic Isles,
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  SPEAKER_01: anywhere the veil between worlds thins, and the fair folk are said to wander.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's a story of babies stolen from their cradles, adults lured from their hearths, and...
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  SPEAKER_01: The uncanny replacements left behind.
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  SPEAKER_01: A story that has frightened, fascinated, and shaped human imagination for centuries.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's a story that sits right at the crossroads of magic and fear.
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  SPEAKER_00: A story born from mystery, from grief, from the human need to explain what cannot be explained.
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  SPEAKER_01: As a friendly reminder,
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  SPEAKER_01: if any questions should arise during this episode,
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  SPEAKER_01: you can email them to us at Mysticspiralpodcast at gmail.com
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  SPEAKER_01: and we will address them during our next Q&A episode.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's something about changeling lore that feels like it's been living in
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  SPEAKER_00: the human nervous system for centuries.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's one of those stories that shows up everywhere,
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  SPEAKER_00: like a shared dream people kept having before they could compare notes.
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  SPEAKER_00: The idea that the child in the cradle or the person who comes back from
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  SPEAKER_00: the woods might look the same, but isn't.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's that uncanny double, the familiar made strange.
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  SPEAKER_01: And when you think about it, the time that these stories came from, it makes sense.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, parents didn't have language for development differences or sudden illness.
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  SPEAKER_01: If a baby stopped growing or if a child cried endlessly or stared past you with
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  SPEAKER_01: that far off look.
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  SPEAKER_01: It must have felt like waking up to a stranger wearing your child's face.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the fair folk were already part of the landscape.
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  SPEAKER_00: In Ireland, in Scotland, in Wales, the other world wasn't some distant fantasy.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was right there, brushing the edges of the hearth.
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  SPEAKER_00: A cold breeze in a warm room.
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  SPEAKER_00: A shadow that moved when nothing else did.
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  SPEAKER_00: So when something inexplicable happened, the story stepped in.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the stories are wild.
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  SPEAKER_01: Some are tragic.
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  SPEAKER_01: Some are eerie.
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  SPEAKER_01: And some are downright funny.
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  SPEAKER_01: But one of my favorites and one of the most famous is the Irish tale called
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  SPEAKER_01: The Brewery of Eggshells.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's such a perfect example of how people used wit to outsmart the fair folk.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tell it.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's such a good one.
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  SPEAKER_01: Oh, OK.
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  SPEAKER_01: So long ago in County Limerick,
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  SPEAKER_01: a young mother had twins, bright, rosy babies who filled the cottage with warmth.
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  SPEAKER_01: One morning she stepped out to fetch water.
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  SPEAKER_01: And when she came back, something felt wrong.
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  SPEAKER_01: The babies looked the same, but their eyes were too old.
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  SPEAKER_01: And instead of cooing, they sat stiff and silent, staring at her as if she was the stranger.
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  SPEAKER_01: Days passed and the twins grew stranger.
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  SPEAKER_01: They refused milk.
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  SPEAKER_01: They laughed at nothing.
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  SPEAKER_01: They whispered to each other in a language that no infant should know.
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  SPEAKER_01: The mother,
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  SPEAKER_01: terrified, went to the village wise woman, who told her, Those aren't your children.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're changelings.
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  SPEAKER_01: But you can trick them.
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  SPEAKER_01: She told the mother to go home, set a pot on the fire, and boil water in an eggshell.
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  SPEAKER_01: The mother thought it was ridiculous.
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  SPEAKER_01: But she did it anyways.
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  SPEAKER_01: What did she have to lose?
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  SPEAKER_01: She cracked an egg,
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  SPEAKER_01: filled the fragile shell with water,
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  SPEAKER_01: and set it over the fire like she was preparing a feast.
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  SPEAKER_01: The two strange events watched her with those ancient eyes.
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  SPEAKER_01: Finally, one croaked in a voice like an old man.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, you look at that.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm over 900 years old and I've never seen anyone brew in an eggshell.
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  SPEAKER_01: The other replied, nor I.
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  SPEAKER_01: She must be mad entirely.
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  SPEAKER_01: And with that, the spell broke.
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  SPEAKER_01: The air shimmered.
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  SPEAKER_01: The changelings vanished like smoke.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the real babies lay sleeping peacefully as if nothing had happened at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's such a perfect story.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eerie, funny, and clever all at once.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it shows how people use trickery and absurdity to expose the supernatural.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the Welsh stories have a different flavor.
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  SPEAKER_00: More musical, more wistful.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Twyleth Tag aren't just mischievous.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're seductive.
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  SPEAKER_00: They steal children because they love beauty and music.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's that one Welsh tale, the one about the mother who hears the child humming a fairy music?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: So in the Green Valleys of Wales,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Twyleth Tag were known Further music, wild, sweet, and irresistible.
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  SPEAKER_00: One evening, a farmer's wife left her baby sleeping while she stepped outside.
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  SPEAKER_00: When she returned, the child was awake, but wrong.
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  SPEAKER_00: His cry was thin and sharp, like a reed pipe.
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  SPEAKER_00: When she lifted him, he felt heavier, as though he was filled with stones.
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  SPEAKER_00: The elders whispered, the twilight tag have taken your child.
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  SPEAKER_00: She refused to believe it,
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  SPEAKER_00: until one night she heard music drifting from the hills,
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  SPEAKER_00: a tune she had never taught him.
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  SPEAKER_00: When the baby in the cradle began to hum along, perfectly in time, her heart broke.
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  SPEAKER_00: She went to an old harpist rumored to have danced with the fair folk.
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  SPEAKER_00: He told her to go to the fairy ring at moonrise, so she did.
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  SPEAKER_00: And from the mist, she heard her real child's laughter, bright and familiar.
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  SPEAKER_00: The fair folk danced in a circle, her sun glowing with otherworldly light.
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  SPEAKER_00: She called his name, the music faltered.
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  SPEAKER_00: The child looked at her and reached out, the fairy sighed.
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  SPEAKER_00: They loved him, but they couldn't deny a mother's claim.
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  SPEAKER_00: They placed him gently at the edge of the ring.
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  SPEAKER_00: Raise him well, they said.
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  SPEAKER_00: He has heard our music now.
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  SPEAKER_00: He will never forget it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: He grew into a great harpist, playing melodies no human had ever heard before.
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  SPEAKER_01: That one always gets me.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's so beautiful and so sad.
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  SPEAKER_01: The idea that the other world leaves a mark on you that you can't shake.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then the corn well comes in with its own flavor entirely.
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  SPEAKER_01: The pixies are chaotic.
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  SPEAKER_01: Little gremlins.
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  SPEAKER_01: Their changeling stories are mischievous, earthy, and full of humor.
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  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, the Cornish Pixie Boy.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes, tell that one.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so in the village near the Moors,
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  SPEAKER_01: a woman named Tamsin had a baby boy who was the pride of her life.
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  SPEAKER_01: Plump, cheerful, always laughing.
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  SPEAKER_01: But one morning, she found him changed.
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  SPEAKER_01: Thin, gray, eyes sharp and sly.
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  SPEAKER_01: And instead of babbling, he muttered to himself like a tiny old man.
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  SPEAKER_01: The neighbors whispered, Pixies!
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  SPEAKER_01: They swapped him out!
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  SPEAKER_01: Tamsin refused to believe it,
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  SPEAKER_01: until she caught the child sitting on the hearth,
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  SPEAKER_01: smoking a tiny clay pipe he had fashioned from mud.
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  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
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  SPEAKER_01: She marched to the edge of the moor and shouted, Pixies!
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  SPEAKER_01: I know you've taken my son!
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  SPEAKER_01: Bring him back this instant!
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  SPEAKER_01: The moor went silent.
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  SPEAKER_01: Then, from behind the grant boulder,
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  SPEAKER_01: A dozen pixies popped up, tiny, green-clad, grinning like mischievous cats.
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  SPEAKER_01: One said, All right, all right, no need to shout.
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  SPEAKER_01: Your boy's been a delight.
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  SPEAKER_01: But he misses you.
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  SPEAKER_01: And just like that, they returned him, rosy laughing, pipe-free, and vanished into the heather.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's such a different tone from the Irish and Welsh stories,
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  SPEAKER_00: but it shows how changeling lore adapts to the culture.
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  SPEAKER_00: In Cornwall, the pixies are pranksters, not predators.
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  SPEAKER_00: In Wales, the fair folk are seductive and musical.
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  SPEAKER_00: In Ireland, they're clever and uncanny.
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  SPEAKER_01: And all of it circles back to the same human fear.
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  SPEAKER_01: The fear of losing what you love most.
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  SPEAKER_01: The fear of the familiar becoming strange.
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  SPEAKER_01: The fear that the world is bigger and stranger than you can explain.
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  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the hope, too, that the other world is close enough to touch.
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  SPEAKER_00: Before we leave today, we're going to pull a card.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today we were called to use the Modern Witch Tarot deck by Lisa Sterl.
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  SPEAKER_00: Friendly reminder, take what resonates with you and simply leave the rest.
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  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get this little baby shuffled.
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  SPEAKER_01: Eight of Wands.
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  SPEAKER_01: That one flew out of the deck at you.
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  SPEAKER_01: It just like popped right out.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to read what the little,
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  SPEAKER_01: what
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  SPEAKER_01: this card means to the artist of this deck,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is...
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: While you're looking, that is a great little booklet.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen one that comes with a little hardcover like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it great?
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  SPEAKER_00: I know.
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  SPEAKER_00: I love when they're hardcover books because then,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know, those little
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  SPEAKER_01: tiny pamphlets just get all crunched up.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Eight of Wands.
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  SPEAKER_01: You fly across the desert,
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  SPEAKER_01: fast as hell,
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  SPEAKER_01: and looking to the horizon, the wands speeding along the sky above you.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's time to stop sitting around.
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  SPEAKER_01: You've got to take action and go, go, go.
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  SPEAKER_01: Rev the engine and stop wasting time because you've got things to do,
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  SPEAKER_01: people to see and places to go.
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  SPEAKER_01: And this is what the card looks like.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: got a person on a motorcycle, like literally with some smoke behind those wheels.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's moving fast.
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  SPEAKER_01: Beating down that desert alley, whatever road.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's a cactus.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a desert.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I said alley, but you know, that would be the city.
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  SPEAKER_00: I guess you could also be driving a motorcycle down the city.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
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  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there's the eight wands are like above her, like flying above her with some clouds.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I like the back of the car too.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this really cool turquoise blue color and it's got like all of
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  SPEAKER_01: the elementals of the like famous tarot icons on it.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like the swords, the cups, there's some keys and all sorts of cool things.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love this deck in general.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's really great.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do too.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I love the diversity of it.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's people of all shapes, sizes, colors.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is very important
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  SPEAKER_01: to me.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's, yeah, I really like this deck.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways,
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  SPEAKER_01: I will be posting this image on our socials,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: which will be a Mystic Spiral Podcast on Instagram and Facebook.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: If this episode has taught us anything, it's to guard your hearth, mythlings.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Keep the iron by the cradle and remember, the line between worlds is thinner than we think.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And next Wednesday on the Mystic Spiral, we'll be exploring the art of seeing beyond.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be talking about scrying.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Until then, mythlings, keep listening and keep your magic soft and steady.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Bye for now.