A wild #FolktaleMoment, if ever I read one.

On a wild island he meets a woman whose upper portion is like a fish and below like a human. She asks if he will have her. “No, I can’t have you, the way you’re formed,” says the boy. Later he meets another, whose nether portions are like a fish and upper like a human being. “Yes, since there are no other folk here, then I may as well have you,” says the boy.

“Oh yes, you may certainly have me,” says the woman, “for I own the gilded castle. But first you must lie in my chamber with me for three nights.”

Woohoo!

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

#FolktaleMoment

Reading a Romanian version of Mother Holle. Instead of cleaning the house and shaking the pillows, in this one the girl has to feed Holy Mother Friday's pets: frogs, toads, snakes, ferrets and dragons.

Hands up if you'd rather feed goth pets than clean the house 😄

#folktales #folklore #storytelling #dragons #pets
🐉 🐸

#FolktaleMoment

Folktale opening from Romania:

"Once upon a time there was and there wasn't - but if there wasn't, we wouldn't be talking about it, because we don't make a living from storytelling."

😆

#storytelling #folklore #honesty

#FolktaleMoment

You know the folktale about the king who has donkey ears? He tries to hide them, but his barber finds out and the gossip spreads. (Most well known with King Midas)

I just read a Hungarian version with a queen who has duck feet. A shoemaker spies them - but instead of spreading gossip, he makes her shoes that fit, and gets richly rewarded.

😄🩰

#folklore #folktales #mythology

#FolktaleMoment

I was just reading a Hungarian legend about a hero who has to duel his enemy in the dark. He puts fresh oak leaves on his hat, and dry oak leaves on the other man's hat, and then defeats him by following the sound of dry leaves whispering.

I feel like there is something very mythical about this. 🌳

#trees #folklore #mythology #folktales

Hungarian #FolktaleMoment: A prince goes out to win a princess, and discovers that the princess already has a secret lover... a twelve-headed dragon.

Sometimes folklore is its own parody. 😆

#folklore #folktales #storytelling

“There was once upon a time a girl called Maiden Morning-sun, and she was abducted by a troll.”

Busy, busy trolls.

#FolktaleMoment #NorwegianFolktales @folklore @folklorethursday

Transylvanian #FolktaleMoment that doubles as a #DnD moment:

Hero kills a dragon and loots a lot of jewelry from it. He decides he should try on the jewels to see if they have magic powers. He puts on the pearls, bracelets, rings, even pokes holes in his earlobes for the earrings.

Turning one of the rings he accidentally summons a 3-headed dragon. He defeats it, and then thinks "hm, let's try that again". And summons a 9-headed dragon.

We all know that guy.

#ttrpg #folktales #folklore

Transylvanian #FolktaleMoment

A girl is forbidden from having visitors, but her beloved manages to sneak in through her window anyway. By the next morning, the color of her house changes from yellow to red.

The next night, the house changes from red to green, and the night after that, red again.

At that point, her family starts suspecting she is having a visitor.

I'll leave the #symbolism to everyone's interpretation 😄

#folklore #folktales #storytelling

#FolktaleMoment: A witch, to whom the evil stepmother sends her stepdaughter, helps the stepdaughter thwart the will of the stepmother. Premium subversion!

Another Transylvanian #FolktaleMoment

Poor boy is told by his dying father to pick up everything he finds along the road, for luck.

One day he arrives at a castle, and the king puts him up in a guest room. The boy is too anxious to undress, so he sleeps very uncomfortably with all the junk in his pockets. The next day he complains that he slept terribly...

... and the king assumes he must be a prince in disguise, used to better beds.

Sounds familiar? 😄

#folklore #folktales

Today's #MythologyMonday theme is nonviolence. Not myth exactly, but in one of the Transylvanian folktales I've been working on there's a memorable #FolktaleMoment

A spiteful queen gives the heroes impossible tasks. When they fulfill them and return victorious, in her frustration and fury she throws herself out of a tower window (not an uncommon ending for a villain).

One of the heroes, however, catches her and saves her life. His gesture makes her have a change of heart.

Bonus: according to one variant, Woodpecker managed to duck, which is why it only has a red crest on top of its head. #FolktaleMoment

Mocoví #FolktaleMoment

Wily fox tricks another animal and is beaten for it. During the beating he backs into a branch and his... posterior gets stretched out. After, anything he eats falls right out. So he asks bees to use clay to plug it, but they do too good a job. Now nothing comes out. He asks Woodpecker for help, and birds gather to watch. When Wp. breaks through... um, things make an explosive exit.

And that people is how birds got their colors and patterns 🤷‍♀️

#FolktaleMoment
#folklore #mythology #folktales

I'm reading South American indigenous folk stories.
In the "fire theft" legends of the Mocoví the villain who hogs all the fire is the viscacha.

Usually in these legends the fire-hogging creature - that a clever thief has to outwit - is a giant, or a monster, or a predator of some sort.

But the Mocoví decided to go with this guy.
(And honestly, he looks so done with everyone's BS, I can see why)

Today's Transylvanian #FolktaleMoment:

An old man comes across an enchanted castle, and inside it finds a captive prince guarded by a three-headed dragon.
So, he beats the dragon with his walking stick and rescues the prince.

On the way out they face a six-headed dragon, which they defeat wielding the walking stick and a chair.

I want this grandpa as a #DnD character...
🐲

#folktales #folklore #storytelling

Another Transylvanian #FolktaleMoment I'm enjoying:

A girl, married to the Devil against her will, escapes from the Underworld with the help of a snowy owl, riding an ostrich.

#folktales #folklore #storytelling

#FolktaleMoment

I am working with a Transylvanian folktale collected in the 1940s, where one of the hero's tasks is to herd various animals without letting a single one get away.

Which one of these is the scariest to you?

#folktales #folklore #storytelling #FairyTaleTuesday

Also, the good witch in Maltese Sleeping Beauty comes to visit in "a fiery chariot drawn by four dragons."
Just sayin.

#FolktaleMoment #folklore #Malta #FairyTaleTuesday #folktales #witch

So I'm reading a Maltese variant of Sleeping Beauty. In this one the witch doesn't get invited to the christening because "she was so old everyone thought she'd died."
Now that's just adding insult to injury...

Also, the girl's parents ask the good witch to put the whole castle to sleep so that she is not alone in 100 years when she wakes up. Everyone except them, because they have to go on ruling the country.
I find this touching.

#FolktaleMoment #folktales #FairyTaleTuesday #Malta #folklore