The Watchers

The titular watchers in A. M. Shine’s novel are changelings, a kind of fairy that can transform into a particular human or into various humans. The folklore of Ireland and the rest of the British Isles features many stories of changelings that take the place of human infants; these stories are thought to have been an attempt to explain babies who had physical disabilities of one kind or another. According to Professor D. L. Ashliman, a variety of congenital disabilities and other disabilities were considered signs that a child was a supernatural creature, and the act of identifying an infant as a changeling was used as justification for infanticide (“Changelings: An Essay by D. L. Ashliman.” University of Pittsburgh, 1997). Ashliman has also published additional resources on changelings, including excerpts from Folk Tales and Fairy Lore in Gaelic and English by James MacDougall and Celtic Folklore by John Rhys (Ashliman, D. L. “Changeling Legends From the British Isles and Ireland.” University of Pittsburgh, 2023).

Changelings also appear in the poetry of William Butler Yeats and various contemporaries in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Yeats’s poem “The Stolen Child” features fairies who lure a human child into the wild forest. A. E. Waite—Yeats’s contemporary and the co-creator of the Rider-Waite tarot deck—published an anthology of fairy poems titled Songs and Poems of Fairyland (1888). Much of the changeling-themed literature from the late 1900s provided the inspiration for more modern-day titles, including The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, which features fairies and fairy circles, and The Changeling by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, which uses the idea of a changeling to explore differences in socioeconomic class among girls.

In the 2000s, changeling-themed literature has undergone a marked evolution, and a notable example can be found in Artemis Fowl and the rest of the Fowl Adventures series by Eoin Colfer. The series as a whole revolves around the interactions between modern humanity and the secret underground Fairy civilization. The protagonist, Artemis Fowl II, is a child prodigy who has heterochromia and polydactyly, both of which are among the classical identifiers of changelings, given the term’s association with congenital disabilities. The series’ main antagonist, the pixie Opal Koboi, also functions as a changeling, replacing a wealthy family’s child through a mix of cosmetic surgery and magic. A more recent example of changelings in 21st-century literature can be found in The Changeling by Victor LaValle, which was adapted into a television show. LaValle’s novel explores the theme of attempted infanticide, which was traditionally carried out due to the misguided belief that a child was a changeling. With The Watchers, Shine introduces an even more sinister depiction of the old myths and legends, placing a terrified group of trapped humans at the mercy of shadowy, murderous changelings who are determined to study them and take on their forms.