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* CHAPTER 1 *
Don't call me a fairy. We don't like to be called fairies anymore. Once upon a time, fairy was a perfectly acceptable catchall for a variety of creatures, but now it has taken on too many associations. Etymologically speaking, a fairy is something quite particular, related in kind to the naiads, or water nymphs, and while of the genus, we are sui generis. The word fairy is drawn from fay (Old French fee), which itself comes from the Latin Fata, the goddess of fate. The fay lived in groups called the faerie, between the heavenly and earthly realms.
There exist in this world a range of sublunary spirits that carminibus coelo possunt deducere lunam, and they have been divided since ancient times into six kinds: fiery, aerial, terrestrial, watery, subterranean, and the whole class of fairies and nymphs. Of the sprites of fire, water, and air, I know next to nothing. But the terrestrial and underground devils I know all too well, and of these, there is infinite variety and attendant myth about their behavior, custom, and culture. Known around the world by many different names-Lares, genii, fauns, satyrs, foliots, Robin Goodfellows, pucks, leprechauns, pukas, sidhe, trolls-the few that remain live hidden in the woods and are rarely seen or encountered by human beings.If you must give me a name, call me hobgoblin.
Or better yet, I am a changeling-a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own. The hobgoblin becomes the child, and the child becomes a hobgoblin. Not any boy or girl will do, but only those rare souls baffled by their young lives or attuned to the weeping troubles of this world. The changelings select carefully, for such opportunities might come along only once a decade or so. A child who becomes part of our society might have to wait a century before his turn in the cycle arrives, when he can become a changeling and reenter the human world.
Preparation is tedious, involving close surveillance of the child, and of his friends and family. This must be done unobserved, of course, and it's best to select the child before he begins school, because it becomes more complicated by then, having to memorize and process a great deal of information beyond the intimate family, and being able to mimic his personality and history as clearly as mirroring his physique and features. Infants are the easiest, but caring for them is a problem for the changelings. Age six or seven is best. Anyone much older is bound to have a more highly developed sense of self. No matter how old or young, the object is to deceive the parents into thinking that this changeling is actually their child. More easily done than most people imagine.
No, the difficulty lies not in assuming a child's history but in the painful physical act of the change itself. First, start with the bones and skin, stretching until one shudders and nearly snaps into the right size and body shape. Then the others begin work on one's new head and face, which require the skills of a sculptor. There's considerable pushing and pulling at the cartilage, as if the skull were a soft wad of clay or taffy, and then the malicious business with the teeth, the removal of the hair, and the tedious -re-weaving. The entire process occurs without a gram of painkiller, although a few imbibe a noxious alcohol made from the fermented mash of acorns. A nasty undertaking, but well worth it, although I could do without the rather complicated rearrangement of the genitals. In the end, one is an exact copy of a child. Thirty years ago, in 1949, I was a changeling who became a human again.
I changed lives with Henry Day, a boy born on a farm outside of town. On a late summer's afternoon, when he was seven, Henry ran away from home and hid in a hollow chestnut tree. Our changeling spies followed him and raised the alarm, and I transformed myself into his perfect facsimile. We grabbed him, and I slipped into the hollowed space to switch my life for his. When the search party found me that night, they were happy, relieved, and proud-not angry, as I had expected. "Henry," a -red-haired man in a fireman's suit said to me as I pretended to sleep in the hiding place. I opened my eyes and gave him a bright smile. The man wrapped me in a thin blanket and carried me out of the woods to a paved road, where a fire truck stood waiting, its red light pulsing like a heartbeat. The firemen took me home to Henry's parents, to my new father and mother. As we drove along the road that night, I kept thinking that if that first test could be passed, the world would once again be mine.
It is a commonly held myth that, among the birds and the beasts, the mother recognizes her young as her own and will refuse a stranger thrust into the den or the nest. This is not so. In fact, the cuckoo commonly lays its eggs in other birds' nests, and despite its extraordinary size and voracious appetite, the cuckoo chick receives as much, indeed more, maternal care, often to the point of driving the other chicks from their lofty home. Sometimes the mother bird starves her own offspring because of the cuckoo's incessant demands. My first task was to create the fiction that I was the real Henry Day. Unfortunately, humans are more suspicious and less tolerant of intruders in the nest.
The rescuers knew only that they were looking for a young boy lost in the woods, and I could remain mute. After all, they had found someone and were therefore content. As the fire truck lurched up the driveway to the Days' home, I vomited against the bright red door, a vivid mess of acorn mash, watercress, and the exoskeletons of a number of small insects. The fireman patted me on the head and scooped me up, blanket and all, as if I were of no more consequence than a rescued kitten or an abandoned baby. Henry's father leapt from the porch to gather me in his arms, and with a strong embrace and warm kisses reeking of smoke and alcohol, he welcomed me home as his only son. The mother would be much harder to fool.
Her face betrayed her every emotion: blotchy skin, chapped with salty tears, her pale blue eyes rimmed in red, her hair matted and disheveled. She reached out for me with trembling hands and emitted a small sharp cry, the kind a rabbit makes when in the distress of the snare. She wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeve and wrapped me in the wracking shudder of a woman in love. Then she began laughing in that deep coloratura.
"Henry? Henry?" She pushed me away and held on to my shoulders at arm's length. "Let me look at you. Is it really you?"
"I'm sorry, Mom."
She brushed away the bangs hiding my eyes and then pulled me against her breast. Her heart beat against the side of my face, and I felt hot and uncomfortable.
"You needn't worry, my little treasure. You're home and safe and sound, and that's all that matters. You've come back to me."
Dad cupped the back of my head with his large hand, and I thought this homecoming tableau might go on forever. I squirmed free and dug out the handkerchief from Henry's pocket, crumbs spilling to the floor.
"I'm sorry I stole the biscuit, Mom."
She laughed, and a shadow passed behind her eyes. Maybe she had been wondering up to that point if I was indeed her flesh and blood, but mentioning the biscuit did the trick. Henry had stolen one from the table when he ran away from home, and while the others took him to the river, I stole and pocketed it. The crumbs proved that I was hers.
Well after midnight, they put me to bed, and such a comfort may be the greatest invention of mankind. In any case, it tops sleeping in a hole in the cold ground, a moldy rabbit skin for your pillow, and the grunts and sighs of a dozen changelings anxious in their dreams. I stretched out like a stick between the crisp sheets and pondered my good fortune. Many tales exist of failed changelings who are uncovered by their presumptive families. One child who showed up in a Nova Scotia fishing village so frightened his poor parents that they fled their own home in the middle of a snowstorm and were later found frozen and bobbing in the frigid harbor. A changeling girl, age six, so shocked her new parents when she opened her mouth to speak that, thus frightened, they poured hot wax into each other's ears and never heard another sound. Other parents, upon learning that their child had been replaced by changelings, had their hair turn white overnight, were stunned into catatonia, heart attacks, or sudden death. Worse yet, though rare, other families drive out the creature through exorcism, banishment, abandonment, murder. Seventy years ago, I lost a good friend after he forgot to make himself look older as he aged. Convinced he was a devil, his parents tied him up like an unwanted kitten in a gunnysack and threw him down a well. Most of the time, though, the parents are confounded by the sudden change of their son or daughter, or one spouse blames the other for their queer fortune. It is a risky endeavor and not for the fainthearted.
That I had come this far undetected caused me no small satisfaction, but I was not completely at ease. A half hour after I had gone to bed, the door to my room swung open slowly. Framed against the hallway light, Mr. and Mrs. Day stuck their heads through the opening. I shut my eyes to mere slits and pretended to be sleeping. Softly, but persistently, she was sobbing. None could cry with such dexterity as Ruth Day. "We have to mend our ways, Billy. You have to make sure this never happens again."
"I know, I promise," he whispered. "Look at him sleeping, though. 'The innocent sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care.'"
He pulled shut the door and left me in the darkness. My fellow changelings and I had been spying on the boy for months, so I knew the contours of my new home at the edge of the forest. Henry's view of their few acres and the world beyond was magical. Outside, the stars shone through the window above a jagged row of firs. Through the open windows, a breeze blew across the top of the sheets, and moths beat their wings in retreat from their perches on the window screen. The nearly full moon reflected enough light into the space to reveal the dim pattern on the wallpaper, the crucifix above my head, pages torn from magazines and newspapers tacked along the wall. A baseball mitt and ball rested on top of the bureau, and on the washstand a pitcher and bowl glowed as white as phosphorous. A short stack of books lay propped against the bowl, and I could barely contain my excitement at the prospect of reading come morning.
The twins began bawling at the break of day. I padded down the hallway, past my new parents' room, following the sound. The babies hushed the moment they saw me, and I am sure that had they the gifts of reason and speech, Mary and Elizabeth would have said "You're not Henry" the moment I walked into the room. But they were mere tots, with more teeth than sentences, and could not articulate the mysteries of their young minds. With their clear wide eyes, they regarded my every move with quiet attentiveness. I tried smiling, but no smiles were returned. I tried making funny faces, tickling them under their fat chins, dancing like a puppet, and whistling like a mockingbird, but they simply watched, passive and inert as two dumb toads. Racking my brain to find a way to get through to them, I recalled other occasions when I had encountered something in the forest as helpless and dangerous as these two human children. Walking along in a lonesome glen, I had come across a bear cub separated from its mother. The frightened animal let out such a godforsaken scream that I half expected to be surrounded by every bear in the mountains. Despite my powers with animals, there was nothing to be done with a monster that could have ripped me open with a single swat. By crooning to the beast, I soothed it, and remembering this, I did so with my newfound sisters. They were enchanted by the sound of my voice and began at once to coo and clap their chubby hands while long strings of drool ran down their chins. "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "Bye, Baby Bunting" reassured or convinced them that I was close enough to be their brother, or preferable to their brother, but who knows for certain what thoughts flitted through their simple minds. They gurgled, and they gooed. In between songs, for counterpoint, I would talk to them in Henry's voice, and gradually they came to believe-or abandon their sense of disbelief.
Mrs. Day bustled into the babies' room, humming and tra-la-la-ing. Her general girth and amplitude amazed me; I had seen her many times before, but not quite at such close quarters. From the safety of the woods, she had seemed more or less the same as all adult humans, but in person, she assumed a singular tenderness, though she smelled faintly sour, a perfume of milk and yeast. She danced across the floor, throwing open curtains, dazzling the room with golden morning, and the girls, brightened by her presence, pulled themselves up by the slats of their cribs. I smiled at her, too. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into joyous laughter. She smiled back at me as if I were her only son.
"Help me with your sisters, would you, Henry?"
I picked up the nearest girl and announced very pointedly to my new mother, "I'll take Elizabeth." She was as heavy as a badger. It is a curious feeling to hold an infant one is not planning to steal; the very young convey a pleasant softness.
The girls' mother stopped and stared at me, and for a beat, she looked puzzled and uncertain. "How did you know that was Elizabeth? You've never been able to tell them apart."
"That's easy, Mom. Elizabeth has two dimples when she smiles and her name's longer, and Mary has just one."
"Aren't you the clever one?" She picked up Mary and headed off downstairs.
Excerpted from The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Utterly absorbing. . . . A luminous and thrilling novel about our humanity.”
—The Washington Post
“I am a changeling—a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own” [p. 3].
The introduction, discussion questions, author biography, and suggestions for further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of Keith Donohue’s imaginative and unique tale, The Stolen Child.
1. Henry Day begins his narration with “Don’t call me a fairy” and then he takes the reader on a quasi-scientific account of the differences between fairies, hobgoblins, and other “sublunary spirits” [pp. 3–4]. Yet Aniday and the rest of the changelings refer to themselves as “faeries” throughout the book. Why does Henry insist on not being called a fairy? In what other ways does Henry attempt to distance himself from his prior existence?
2. Twins and other twosomes figure predominantly in the book: Henry and Aniday, Tess and Speck, Big Oscar and Little Oscar, Edward and Gustav, Mary and Elizabeth. Other characters form pairs: Luchóg and Smaolach, Kivi and Blomma, Onions and Béka, George Knoll and Jimmy Cummings. What is the significance of the doubles? In what ways can Henry and Aniday be read as two halves of one being? How does the author, beyond using two alternating narrators, play with the theme of doubles?
3. Rather than each chapter echoing its counterpart, the two stories run at different speeds until the end of the book. How does the author manage time in the novel? Where in the narrative does he relate the same incident from different perspectives and in different sequences?
4. When Henry and his friends attempt to synchronize their watches before looking for little Oscar Love, not one of them has the same time as the others. At other points in the story, Henry or Aniday forget the time of day or, in some cases, what year it is. What does that say about their place in time?
5. In chapter 35, Ruth Day says “I’ve known all along, Henry” [p. 301]. Similarly, Henrydreams of Tess changing her form and saying that she, too, knows the truth. What does Henry think they know about him?
6. A critical event in the novel is Bill Day’s suicide and Henry’s muted reaction. What did Bill come to understand about his son? Why do you think Henry’s mother, Ruth Day, didn’t react in a similar manner?
7. In the poem “The Stolen Child” by W. B. Yeats, the faeries attempt to entice the child away “for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.” In what ways could the fairyland in Donohue’s novel be considered better than the real world? In what ways could it be considered worse?
8. The changeling legends were cautionary tales meant to illustrate the dangers of creatures that many people once believed in. As McInnes points out in the novel, they were also horrifying explanations for “failure to thrive,” physical deformities, or mental illness in children. Are Henry and Aniday’s stories cautionary tales? What do you make of the changeling who took the place of young Gustav Ungerland and never said another word?
9. What is the significance of music in Henry Day’s transformation? Does the final concert offer Henry a chance at redemption?
10. What role do books play in Aniday’s transformation? As Speck teaches Aniday to read and write, does his understanding of the world change? Is his memoir a chance at redemption?
11. Aniday’s predecessor is referred to as Chopin, but we never really know much about Gustav Ungerland as a changeling. Similarly, once Igel and the others depart the world, they are rarely discussed. Why do the faeries avoid mentioning those who have departed?
12. Why does Speck leave? What is the significance of her map on the ceiling? Do you think Aniday finds Speck?
13. The epigraph from “Nostos” by Louise Gluck states: “We look at the world once, in childhood. / The rest is memory.” Why do you think the author chose it? How does it relate to the novel?
14. Is this book a fairy tale for adults? If so, what is the moral of the story? Who, in the end, is the stolen child?
“Utterly absorbing. . . . A luminous and thrilling novel about our humanity.”
—The Washington Post
“I am a changeling—a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own” [p. 3].
The introduction, discussion questions, author biography, and suggestions for further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of Keith Donohue’s imaginative and unique tale, The Stolen Child.
Mischievous hobgoblins (an oxymoron) abduct seven years old Henry Day and replace him with an identically looking doppelganger. Over time the human Henry adapts to living with the hobgoblins though he notices major differences between him and his ¿family¿ for instance unlike him, they never seem to get older or wiser. The replacement Hobgoblin Henry uses his skills of a copy cat to create a successful musical career stealing the sound from talented humans he too has adjusted to being a human life. --- Still over the years the two Henrys consistently feel out of place in their respective world, and that sense of not belonging grows even as they adjust to their environs. Neither can hold a relationship for even a small time period as their alienation widens. Soon each looks back to their early childhood to try to learn why they feel like such an outsider, but their memories are murky at best and seem impossible to have been real. Impossible that is until decades later when Henry meets Henry. --- Though a fantasy, THE STOLEN CHILD is more a deep character study that digs inside the souls (can a hobgoblin have a soul?) of two individuals who have always felt estranged and unhappy with their respective lives as neither believe they belong. The story line cleverly rotates between the Henrys over the years with each passing chapter in their lives just compounding the sentiment of alienation with those around them. Fans will appreciate this powerful yet low keyed (at least the paranormal elements) tale star strangers in a strange land though each has grown up as part of the landscape. --- Harriet Klausner
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 7, 2011
Sounds cool
bkrdr63
Posted April 14, 2010
I really enjoyed this book. The plot is original and the writing is lyrical. I truly cared about the fate off all of the characters which, to me, is one of the hallmarks of an excellent book. If you grew up reading and loving books such as The Secret Garden and The Princess and The Goblin then you should thoroughly enjoy this book. It has also inspired me to research the Changling Myth on the Internet and how it has persisted throughout time.
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Posted October 10, 2009
From the first page, this book demands your attention......and gets it! Donohue uniquely uses the subject of Changlings to explore the question of nature vs. nuture. I have given this book as a gift to many friends.
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Posted October 26, 2007
I finished this book several days ago and it still has a grip on me. The contrast of the two perspectives is what made this book work so well. Timelessness vs. time, Adult vs. child, Growing up vs. stunted 'emotional' growth, living vs. existing. There are unanswered questions in this book, and its not all spelled out for the reader. So, if you do not like to think and if you like the author to do all the work don't bother reading this. Also, this book is Character driven, not action driven. It is a search into the very fabric of who we are and who we are not. Be ready for those one-liners that make you stop reading and say 'wow...let me think about that a second' and be ready for the desire to jump into the story. There is one line in the story I think readers should keep in mind when they finish the book, 'Novelists construct elaborate lies to throw off readers from discovering the meaning behind the words and symbols, as if it could be known.' This is a great book. And I think I will always be haunted by it, it has changed me.
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Posted August 20, 2007
I was hooked on this story from the first few pages. The chapter alternatate and each chapter is told from Henry or Aniday's perspective. A great story & towards the end you keep turning the pages as fast as you can read to see how everything turns out.
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Posted August 6, 2007
I kept reading this book, waiting for the good part to come, but it never did. Cool concept and I liked the supernatural bits, but it fell short of my expectations. Disappointing all around. I would not recommend this book.
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Posted June 12, 2007
I really loved this book...it was an amazing story of the search to find oneself and coping with some of the tragedies in life. The story depicted remarkable friendships and the beauty of finding peace admist others. It also shows the reality of being haunted by, and coming to terms with, the past.
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Posted February 14, 2007
I probably would not have selected this book if I hadn't read newspaper reviews about it. Initially, I found it good but not particularly engaging. However it develops into a compelling and completely riveting story. The depth of the character development is amazing. The language is almost poetic at times - but there certainly is satisfactory action too. The performers on the unabridged CD are perfect. While the conclusion is completely satisfying, I was very sorry to reach the end. It was a tough act to follow!
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Posted January 29, 2007
Where it wasn't a gripping page turner like some books, it still had a edge to it that kept me going to the end. I wish we could've followed the characters a little farther into the future just to have the aching question answered but with a little imagination you can easily turn it into a happily Ever After for everyone.
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Posted October 21, 2006
While I liked the book, and the format with which Donohue set it up I somehow found myself feeling a little empty when the book ended. Simply, when it ended i wasnt pleased or displeased, just kind of reflective.
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Posted October 25, 2006
The only reason I kept reading this book?.....I was waiting for the good part to come but it never did! Nothing exciting ever happens, I would not reccommend this book to anyone.
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Posted August 4, 2006
I am nearly halfway through this wonderful book and I am already hoping Donohue will write another similar book. The jacket description had me curious but I was wary of how the story would be told. But now I am astonished! I'm always up for a different kind of read. Bravo Mr Donohue!
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Posted October 5, 2006
My son Shaun gave me this book as a gift for my birthday. As an avid reader, I must say that this is by far the best book I have read this year. The characters are compellingly drawn and their interactions speak to a larger truth regarding what it truly means to be human. His sense of scene and place are breathtakingly detailed and beautifully rendered. I absolutely and enthusiastically recommend this book.
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Posted September 27, 2006
I bought this book because I had heard the original poem sung by Loreena McKennitt. The story behind it was a little hazy until I understood the discussion in the first chapter of the story. As this story developes, Aniday becomes more like the nymph children he now lives around and Henry becomes him in the real world. This book is very sad, and it shows how innocence can be stolen so very quickly. This applies to all of us in our lives today.
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Posted July 11, 2006
I LOVED this book. I picked it up after recognizing the title as something that I heard some buzz about. I am not a big fan of books that take too long to get into or that go into too much detail and this book definitely grabs from the very beginning. It is richly written, simplisticly constructed and very intriguing. I loved how Donohue combined the real world monotony with the magical world of the changelings so that every moment seems important and interesting. The end result is a very touching, adventurous and captivating tale that completely absorbs the reader. I cant give this book enough praise!
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Posted June 11, 2006
This book is excellent. It is written vividly and paced easily, every minute you spend reading it is a pleasure. Not a moment is boring, and it leaves you with that thoughtful feeling you get after finishing a really good book. I would definitely recommend The Stolen Child to others.
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Posted May 30, 2006
This is the best novel I've read in a very long time. It kept me up at night and moved me to tears. The Stolen Child has that magical quality of haunting the reader after the book has been closed.
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Posted July 28, 2006
I had bought this book, and kept it on the shelf a while, then read all the reviews here and decided it trumped my others waiting to be read.... While the book was original and the writing style good, I could not connect with this book in the way the previous reviewers mentioned...I thought the flip flop between the two story lines was mildly annoying, and never really grabbed me. I thought the Henry Day/Aniday characters evolved in a slightly unbelievable way...it took waaayyyy too long for them to make thier personal growth, and when they did, it happened too fast...so basically I thought the pace was off. I would recommend this to a very limited crowd. PS I loved the Lord if the Rings series, hated the Harry Potter series...
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Posted May 20, 2006
Don't be fooled by all the 'bedtime story for adults' reviews. This is a REAL book by a REAL author. THE STOLEN CHILD is the best novel of 2006, by a wide margin.
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Overview
“I am a changeling–a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own. . . .”The double story of Henry Day begins in 1949, when he is kidnapped at age seven by a band of wild childlike beings who live in an ancient, secret community in the forest. The changelings rename their captive Aniday and he becomes, like them, unaging and stuck in time. They leave one of their own to take his place, an imposter who must try–with varying success–to hide his true identity from the Day family. As the changeling Henry grows up, he is haunted by glimpses of his lost double and by vague memories of his own childhood a century earlier. Narrated ...