On a magical misty morning walking to work through the woods, loving all the cobwebs, I heard, “You are made of green flesh and green bone. A changeling nature child.”

Then I realised that is what happens when you put babies out in their prams in all weathers and leave them to cry (as my mother and countless others did.) The fairies and green spirits come and claim them and nurture them and whisper old truths in their ears and make them laugh in forgotten dreams.

And so I became a changeling child and nature claimed me as her own.

(Picture from The Story of the Root Children  by Sybille von Olfers – 1906)