5+1 little known Christmas folktales (Following folktales around the world)

Since there is only one Following folktales around the world post left for this year - and that post is also the last country from Europe - I wanted to make a special collection of Christmas stories that I have encountered on the journey so far.

Every year, storytellers frantically search for new tales to tell around the winter holidays. There is an entire publishing industry built on Christmas stories, and there are classics that never go away - from The Gift of the Magi to Christmas Spiders. While reading stories from the three continents I completed in the challenge, I encountered some folktales that are not very well known in the storytelling community, but would make a great addition to the holiday lineup.
In no particular order, here they are:

El palo del ocote 
Honduras
A young boy learns from his grandmother that one should talk to trees, because they listen. So, he makes friends with a Montezuma pine in the mountains, and invites it home for Christmas. While everyone laughs at the boy's attempt to make a tree friend, on Christmas eve the giant tree does show up at the house to celebrate with the family.

Anancy and Sorrel
Jamaica
Anancy the Trickster wants to go to the Christmas market, but has nothing to sell or barter. He finds some pretty red flowers, and he decides to pick them and sell them - but people suspect the trickster of trying to cheat them, and chase him around until he dumps the flowers into a pot of boiling water. The water turns red and tastes good, so people start adding spices and fruit to it. And thus, sorrel, a Jamaican Christmastime drink is born.

The Fairies' Mist Gate
England
The fairies kidnap a little boy's baby sister on Christmas eve, so he sets out to rescue her with the help of a talking cat, a donkey, and a church Grim. They have to get through the mists surrounding the fairy hill, and take the baby while keeping the Little Folk away. A tale of adventure, teamwork, and magic.

Hildur, Queen of the Elves
Iceland
The tale starts with a mystery - every Christmas eve, a shepherd dies on a farm - and leads into a nighttime journey to the land of the Elves. Hildur, a servant at the farm, turns out to be a fairy queen in exile, who can only travel home to see her family once a year, until her curse is broken by a brave mortal who is willing to accompany her.

Aguinaldo
Spain
Two poor children set out into the winter forest on the night of Reyes (the night of January 6th, when the Three Wise Men bring gifts to Spanish children) to find the Wise Men and point them to their little cottage. Instead, they encounter a mysterious lady who sends the on a quest to an enchanted castle. In the end, they do get an abundance of gifts for their bravery.

The mischievous sons of Father Frost
Estonia
In this fun Estonian folktale a poor farmer receives three visitors in a row. Each is a son of Father Frost, and they make life of their gracious host increasingly uncomfortable by filling his house with ice and still complaining about the heat. The eldest one, however, turns out to be doing good work - winter cold is needed just as summer heat - and he gifts the patient farmer two bags (one hot and one cold) so that he can manage the weather over his own fields.

Today is the last #FolkloreThursday of the year. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, everyone!

The strange beauty of Estonian folktales (Following folktales around the world 55. - Estonia)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts under the Following Folktales label, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Az aranyfonó lányok
Észt népmesék
Bereczki Gábor
Európa Könyvkiadó, 1968.

Once again, a volume from the Hungarian "Tales of Nations" series - and probably one of my instant favorites. It contains thirty-five tales, many of which I completely fell in love with at first read. They have been selected from various Estonian folktale collections by the editor, making sure that they represented narratives and motifs that are typically Estonian, rather than just versions of generally well-known tale types. He had a lot to pick from: According to the detailed Afterword, Estonian folklore archives hold almost one hundred thousand folktales (at least they did in the 1960s). I also learned that most of the famous storytellers were male, while most famous singers of the epic stories were female. I would definitely love to read more from those archives.
To read Estonian folktales in English, try this collection.

Highlights

The title story (The three gold-spinners) has been a favorite story of mine for a long time (I even included it in my book). It is a long and complex tale full of intrigue, magic, love, Finnish wizards, talking birds, witches, and everything else you need for a good adventure. Similarly adventurous is the Theft of Thunder, in which a poor man helps the Devil steal the Thunder from a thunder-god, and then feels guilty and helps the god recover it.

Mushroom King (Estonian postcard)

I liked the tale of the Mushroom King especially for its imagery and its outcome. A prince rescues the tiny, captured King of the Mushrooms, and in exchange the little kind helps him along his exile, helps him fight dragons, and introduces him to his three daughters. In the end, instead of marrying a rescued princess, the princes marries one of the mushroom girls.
There were several tales involving water, and the beings that inhabit it. In the Underwater People, a man whose father fell through the ice on a lake visited the underwater world, and found out what happened to the people that went there. In The Gift of the Water Mother, the mysterious helper lady told about the strange upside-down world she had come from. In The Mischievous sons of Father Frost, three increasingly cold guests visited a poor man, who put up with them patiently, and in exchange he won the ability to influence the weather.
The animal and nature tales of the collection were also enchanting. A Magic Bird distracted an evil hunter from shooting at the birds of the forest; a Hedgehog wanted to cook a beetle, but was outsmarted by it; and a Sparrow brewed beer from one grain of barley in a pond, and none of the other animals had the heart to tell him it was not delicious.

Connections

I was reminded of many other superpower stories by the tale of Swift-foot, Dexterous Hands, and Sharp-eye (some titles are my own translation, but that's the general idea). All three of the brothers had his own separate adventure in this long story, and then they came together to win a princess. They agreed beforehand that they will draw lots on who will marry her at the end, eliminating the dilemma part of this popular dilemma tale like sensible people (it helped that they all looked exactly alike).

Estonian folk dress

The tale of the Talking Flax combined two tale types in a very interesting way. A girl was pursued by a supernatural suitor she knew was dangerous; she hid in the barn from him, and the flax bundles stored there talked about what awaited everyone in the barn: Tearing, breaking, cutting, etc. (basically, the process of making clothes). The suitor got terrified and left. The first part of the tale is that of the Demon Lover, while the latter usually happens with bread instead of cloth.
Waiting for Death was a story I have already encountered as a Hodja tale, while The Bear and the Three Sisters was another variant of the favorite story of mine where the clever girl rescues herself and her sisters from a monster husband (see Denmark).

Where to next?
Latvia!

K is for the Kalevipoeg (Epics from A to Z)

Origins
The Kalevipoeg is the national epic of Estonia. Much like its close cousin, the Finnish Kalevala, it has been pieced together from folk songs, tales and ballads by an ambitious 19th century poet. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald had a lot less material to work from than Elias Lönnrot, and the first version of his epic couldn't even be published due to censorship (there are some pretty risky details in there) - but he still managed to compile a twenty-song long continuous story. The epic is now available in English both in verse and in prose format.

The Hero

The hero of the epic is called Kalevipoeg; he is named after his father, Kalev, who was a famous hero himself. With that said, Kalevipoeg is the least likable character in the entire epic. He is very strong and large - in the original tales, he is a giant - but he is not very smart, and he also treats women fairly badly (and sometimes violently). Like any decent hero, he has a magic sword, but his first feat is to get drunk and kill the son of the blacksmith who forged it. In return, the blacksmith curses the sword, and it becomes Kalevipoeg's downfall in the end.

The Highlights
So if the hero is not exactly a likable fellow, why should anyone read this epic?
Well, here are some reasons I found:
1. The first song. It tells us the story of Kalevipoeg's mother, and her cosmic courtship by the Sun, Moon, Water, Fire, and other supernatural suitors, before Kalev comes along. There are various versions of this tale collected from Estonia; one of them tells of the creation of the Milky Way.
2. Wizards. There are many different kinds of wizards in the world of the epic. There are word-wizards, wind-wizards, death-wizards, and my personal favorites, salt-sorcerers. They all have their own spells, magic rites, and personalities.
3. The tiny episode where Kalevipoeg gives a spiky coat to a naked hedgehog. Because: naked hedgehog.
4. The description of Hell (Kalevipoeg visits the underworld multiple times) from where three girls are rescued. Hell itself is a series of chambers - according to folktale tradition we see chambers of iron, copper, silver, gold... aaaand then we go on to silk, velvet, and lace. The rescued girls take some time to loot the latter rooms before they return to the world of the living. I would too. Also, the three girls get their own story after they are rescued, and they generally fare better than other women in the epic. (The second descent into the underworld is also entertaining - it reads like a well-designed Dungeons & Dragons adventure, with caves and traps and everything.)
5. Song 16 tells us the story of Kalevipoeg's mythic journey to the end of the world in the far North. There are whirlpools, whales, islands of fire, and half-canine men - all in all, pretty much everything that makes a mythic voyage a mythic voyage.
6. Olev. There are other heroes around Kalevipoeg (Alev, Sulev and Olev), and Olev is by far the most likable. He spends his time building splendid cities for people. When Kalevipoeg realizes that he is not really a good king (duh), he gives up his throne for Olev. Best choice he makes in the entire epic.
7. The language. Much like the Kalevala, the Kalevipoeg also has an enchanting, repetitive, alliterative rhythm that lulls you into reading it. I imagine it would be even more enthralling if sung.