Devil Substitute in Elizondo’s Changeling Tale

Overview

Catherine Elizondo’s telling opens with parents whose earlier children have died. A prospective sheep thief meets a woman claiming responsibility and overhears how a blessing at a sneeze could prevent her taking the newborn. He intervenes and receives a sheep as a reward. This initially reassuring scene is followed by a different intrusion: a devil carries the infant to the roadside and occupies its cradle. A childless coachman finds the true baby, who grows handsome and clever in his adoptive household. The substitute, meanwhile, receives years of nursing but remains the size it was at birth. The tale’s contrast is a supernatural plot device, not a way to identify disability or childhood illness.

The true child becomes a monk. While he is saying mass, a white pigeon reports that his birth father is to be executed for a murder committed by someone else. The pigeon proposes to take his form while he travels in the bird’s shape. At the grave, the monk briefly restores the victim to life and obtains the denial that clears his father; the dead man then dies again. Invited home afterward, he is shown the supposedly eighteen-year-old infant. His prayer reveals the creature’s identity: it flies away as a devil in fire and flame, carrying part of the house with it. He tells his mother that she will be happier without it and discloses his own upbringing. The narrative ends in family recognition and his return to the convent, not in recovery of a child by harming the substitute.

Origins & earliest records

Wentworth Webster’s Basque Legends, collected chiefly in the Labourd, London second edition, 1879, prints this account attributed to Catherine Elizondo. Its English translation preserves a specific telling, not the beginning date of oral transmission.

Records & interpretation

The complete The Changeling, pp. 73–75, supplies the transformations and narrative outcome. Named storyteller attribution is retained; the narrator’s supernatural claims are not medical diagnoses or evidence against a historical person.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Basque Legends: The Changeling

   Wentworth Webster, collector and translator; narrative attributed to Catherine Elizondo · 1879

   Second edition; pp. 73–75. Complete narrative and final outcome read.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary collected translationWebster1879 complete The ChangelingResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.