The Changelings, By Aliza Faber

There once was a child with golden hair,

Who grew up strange and wild and free,

In the hands of the fairy queen's tender care,

Where reeds play tunes and secrets be.

She drank dew straight from petal's lips,

And spun and danced in the moon's bright beam,

flowers adorned her hair and hips,

Though she was troubled by a single dream.

On midsummer's day of her sixteenth year,

As the fires rose high in bundles of twine,

While the fay reveled with zest and cheer,

She turned and said; "mother of mine.

How can it be my ears are round,

My feet a pointed shape do lack,

Instead of green, my eyes are browned,

And wings don't lie upon my back."

The fairy queen then stroked her hair,

And told her; "child, let it bother you not,

After all I've done it would only be fair,

For you to abandon this train of thought.

I saved you from the clutches of,

A plain and dull and mundane life,

If still you do not believe me, love,

Tomorrow I'll show you the cause of this strife."

True to her word the vain queen took her,

To the land hidden behind the rift,

As midnight struck, humans she showed her,

Living their lives mundane and swift.

"If not for me you would share their fate,"

The queen explained to the changeling girl,

And she led her back through fairy's gate,

To dance and sing and laugh and twirl.

The queen thought she could now forget,

But the changeling girl would not be sated,

She dreamed of humans to be met,

Every day for midnight to come she waited.

Then she'd creep to where the lands did meet,

To search far and wide until she found,

A human with pointed ears and feet,

The one to which her fate was bound.

For near a year at midnight she rose,

To watch the changed one in plain clothes clad,

Hidden deep in mooncast shadows,

She gazed at the life she should have had.

After some time she decided she'd rather,

Stay where the fay played their merry tune,

Still she returned to watch other,

Who in a life not hers was strewn.

Midsummer came again with all its might,

And the girl once more crept through the veil,

But the midsummer midnight sun shone bright,

With no moon to hide her, her face turned pale.

For the changed one stood there and started at her other,

"You've been watching me," she said, her green eyes bright,

"You suffer," said the one raised by the fairy mother,

and told her the tale of their birth night.

The fairy told the girl to take her place,

To be accepted by the humans as she never was,

So she could live with the fairy race,

That had given her up without good cause.

But the human girl shook her head,

A sly fairy glint played in her eyes,

As she said; "Why should I go in your stead,

When we both can enjoy the faerie's cries?"

So changelings returned to the land of fey,

To dance around the fairy glen,

And there they live to this very day,

Never to return to the land of men. 

Aliza loves reading, writing and anything to do with fairy tales. She hopes one day she will have enough time to continue introducing less well known fairy tales on her blog taleaday.blogspot.com.

Image by John Anster Fitzgerald.