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Where dips the rocky highland of sleuthwood in the lake, there lies a leafy island where flapping herons wake the drowsy water rats.

There we've hid our fairy vats, full of berries and of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child, to the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can

understand. So begins W.B. Yates's famous poem, The Stolen Child, an ode to the oral tradition

of the changeling, whose stories have been passed down through generations in Ireland, something Bridget Boland,

or Bridget Cleary, to use her married name, knew all too well. Bridget had always stood out.

At the end of the 19th century, she was a woman of means, she was literate and an accomplished

dressmaker. However, after eight years of

marriage to Mr. Michael Cleary, the couple had not yet conceived a child. In this perceived

absence, Bridget's family grew suspicious, and it wasn't long until they began to cast about

for someone or something to blame.

Soon, Bridget's family believed they found the culprits, the Thua the Danin, the fairy folk.

Beliefs amongst some in rural Irish communities dictated that fairies or changelings

often swapped themselves with young women

because they had trouble producing children on their own, so a mortal woman could be taken to further

their family line. Bridgett, her family believed, was one such changeling. Her husband was

convinced of it, and her family turned violently against her.

...