The account of Malekin survives in the Chronicon Anglicanum of Ralph of Coggeshall, a Cistercian monk writing around 1200, making it one of the earliest and most circumstantial fairy-encounter narratives in medieval English literature. Ralph records that during the reign of Richard I (1189–1199), a being called Malekin began haunting the household of Sir Osbern de Bradwell at his manor of Dagworth in Suffolk, communicating freely with members of the household in both Latin and the local Suffolk vernacular — which Ralph notes as surprising.
The story
Malekin described herself as a human child from Lavenham, stolen by the fairies while her mother worked in the fields. She claimed to have been in her present fairy condition for seven years, and that in seven more she would be returned to human society. She spoke from invisible places, sometimes let members of the household hear her moving about the rooms, and on one occasion revealed herself to a maid as a tiny child in a white tunic — but vanished the moment the maid tried to touch her. She asked for access to the household’s food, discussed religious matters in ways Ralph considered orthodox, and showed both homesickness and piety.
The story sits at the intersection of the changeling tradition and the poltergeist narrative: unlike the classic changeling, Malekin was not exchanged for a human child but simply taken, and she expressed grief and longing rather than malice. Katherine Briggs discusses the case in A Dictionary of Fairies, and it is referenced in modern studies of medieval English supernatural belief including the FolkloreThursday platform. The incident is also discussed in Fire Springs Folk Tales as an early example of the Suffolk fairy tradition. Ralph of Coggeshall’s original Latin is the primary source.