The changeling

The Changling.

Inspired by last nights events. We now have a new woman at our nursing home. She came two days ago. She was calm and quiet the first day. However last night ~ the night before the full moon~ she began to turn. It started just as dark was setting in. It started with being demanding and by sunset she was screaming and howling like nothing I have ever seen. 3 hours of high pitched wails followed by 10 minutes of exhausted sleep with her face fixed in a snarling grimace. This went on all night. Is she a changling or a were wolf. Will she change tonight the night of the full moon. Who knows but I will keep you posted.


The Changling legend
A mother had her child taken from the cradle by elves. In its place they laid a changeling with a thick head and staring eyes who would do nothing but eat and drink. In distress she went to a neighbor and asked for advice. The neighbor told her to carry the changeling into the kitchen, set it on the hearth, make a fire, and boil water in two eggshells. That should make the changeling laugh, and if he laughs it will be all over with him. The woman did everything just as her neighbor said. When she placed the eggshells filled with water over the fire, the blockhead said:
Now I am as old
As the Wester Wood,
But have never seen anyone cooking in shells!
And he began laughing about it. When he laughed, a band of little elves suddenly appeared. They brought the rightful child, set it on the hearth, and took the changeling away.
* * * * *
The following true story took place in the year 1580. Near Breslau there lived a distinguished nobleman who had a large crop of hay every summer which his subjects were required harvest for him. One year there was a new mother among his harvest workers, a woman who had barely had a week to recover from the birth of her child. When she saw that she could not refuse the nobleman's decree, she took her child with her, placed it on a small clump of grass, and left it alone while she helped with the haymaking. After she had worked a good while, she returned to her child to nurse it. She looked at it, screamed aloud, hit her hands together above her head, and cried out in despair, that this was not her child: It sucked the milk from her so greedily and howled in such an inhuman manner that it was nothing like the child she knew.
As is usual in such cases, she kept the child for several days, but it was so ill-behaved that the good woman nearly collapsed. She told her story to the nobleman. He said to her: "Woman, if you think that this is not your child, then do this one thing. Take it out to the meadow where you left your previous child and beat it hard with a switch. Then you will witness a miracle."
The woman followed the nobleman's advice. She went out and beat the child with a switch until it screamed loudly. Then the Devil brought back her stolen child, saying: "There, you have it!" And with that he took his own child away.
This story is often told and is known by both the young and the old in and around Breslau

The Werewolf
Before the ways someone can become a werewolf are examined, it is important to know that there are two metamorphosis theories concerning werewolves. In other words, there are two different theories as to how werewolves turn into their wolf-forms. They have been labeled the "non-material" and "material" metamorphosis theories:

Theory Description
Non-Material This theory is the more popular of the two, as it creates a bigger fear-factor than the material theory. In the non-material theory, a werewolf is forced to change by the light of a full moon. As to whether or not a werewolf needs to be in the light of the full moon in order to change is dependant on the imagination of the storyteller.
Material This theory requires shapeshifters to have an enchanted belt, garter or wolf-skin that, when worn, transforms the shapeshifters into werewolves. An example of this is book eight of The Saga of the Volsungs in which Sigmund and Sinfjotli steal two wolf-skins from sleeping werewolves and try them on. In order to return to their true forms, Sigmund and Sinfjotli waited in the forest until they were able to remove them -- there is no specification as to how long they waited .
When werewolves change into his or her lupine form, there is one seemingly over-looked aspect: what about the clothes that the werewolves wore before shapeshifting? Since werewolves are more beast-like than human, it would be folly to wear an article of clothing that would give away the werewolves' human identities. Thus, sensible werewolves would remove their clothes, not only to give them something to wear when they return to their human forms but to also prevent a non-werewolf from recognizing them (see below for ways this is accomplished). Dramatic werewolves, on the other hand, would shapeshift while wearing their clothes and rip the fabric into pieces. Clothes that werewolves remove prior to shapeshifting turns into stone at the time that they shapeshift according to lore, and then returns to its normal fabric properties when the owner of the clothes returns to them and regains their former shape
Changing Back from Wolf-Form
In The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature, Brian J. Frost describes several ways that a werewolf may return to his or her human form, and each requires human thought to perform. The first way he suggests is for a werewolf to dive into water, or roll in the grass - specifically, the dew. Both of these methods require water, which is the element that shapeshifting is commonly associated with as water takes on the form of the container in which it is placed into.
The second method that Frost suggests is for a werewolf "to kneel in one spot for a hundred years" (Frost 10). This method requires a werewolf to first move to a location that will not be disturbed by any hunters or accidentally stumbled upon. It also requires a werewolf to pick a spot with easy access to food and water within reach, since he or she must be stationary the whole time.
A third theory that is presented by the media in movies is that werewolves automatically change back to their form when the time is up - both when the sun rises, and when they are killed.