Irish Folklore
Changelings
A changeling is a supernatural creature, usually a fairy and often described as ugly and nasty tempered, that has been secretly exchanged for a human baby. In medieval folklore, the idea of a swapped child was quite common, indicating deeply rooted concern about misunderstood reasons for infant mortality, disease, and disorders. One supposed way of discovering if your baby was a changeling was to boil eggshells in front of the suspect infant - if it laughed or spoke, it was not human. To reverse the swap, changelings were sometimes supposed to be scooped up by a red hot shovel and tossed into a chimney fire...and then the original child would be returned unharmed.
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