brood parasites this page has serious formatting errors i don't know how to flag the page does someone here know how preceding unsigned comment added by why is see also contemporary artists collective included in the body of the article shouldn't it be in external links i reorganized the page the intro was way too long i promise i did not remove or change any information but merely reorganized the format i hope no one is offended consider adding keith donohue's the stolen child to the literature listing what about the tales of the faery replacing infants with elderly and ailing faeries so that the changeling child soon sickens and dies this is the version i ve heard most often and it s also been posited that this form of the changeling myth was an early explanation for cot death or sids sudden infant death syndrome one wonders why they steal babes if it doesn't work out anyway mar utc i guess the reason is that our ancestors considered children born with down's syndrome to be changelings in this way changelings were a reality and the possibility of having one's child replaced was something that instilled fear i know from the rural area in south central sweden where i grew up that there was once a changeling in the neighbourhood who lived to an old age children have always been born with down's syndrome and people needed a name for it mar cet i've heard that one reason trolls want to trade children is because they want the troll child to have a proper upbringing aug utc in my experience from reading scandinavian fairy tales for my daughter the main reason is jealousy in the fairy tales the trolls are dark and swarthy and are fond of the blond beauty of human infants nov utc in the story the corpse from mike mignola's hellboy it is suggested that the fair folk for an unexplained reason can no longer reproduce and thus must take human children and raise them it is implied that a child raised among the fair folk from infancy would become one of them i'm going to add the corpse to the list of references to changelings in literature as well there probably should be a sentence or citation about brood parasite in nature cleanup