StorySpotting: Breastmilk from a giantess (Game of Thrones)

StorySpotting is a weekly or kinda-weekly series about folktales, tropes, references, and story motifs that pop up in popular media, from TV shows to video games. Topics are random, depending on what I have watched/played/read recently. Also, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. Be warned!

Who doesn't like Tormund and his outrageous stories? If there was a true storyteller in this show (after Old Nan), it's not Bran, it's definitely the Tormund.
I'm just gonna say it up front: The research for this post royally messed up my search history and Facebook ads. You're welcome.

Where was the story spotted?

Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 2 (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms)

What happens?

During the night of drinking before the Battle of Winterfell, Tormund Giantsbane, everyone's favorite Wildling, tells a story. It goes like this: "I killed a giant when I was 10. Then I climbed right into bed with his wife. When she woke up, you know what she did? Suckled me at her teat for three months. Thought I was her baby. That’s how I got so strong: giant’s milk."
The story has already launched a thousand memes. Just Google "Tormund" and "milk."

What's the story?

Tormund, in the fashion of a true storyteller, takes a story that already exists, and makes it his own. Suckling a giantess' milk is a common motif in world folklore, believe it or not. It usually goes like this:
A hero is on a voyage or a mission, and in order to complete it, he needs help from a giantess. To avoid her killing him on sight, he sneaks up on her, and in an opportune moment he latches onto her breast and sucks milk from it. Sometimes this maneuver is aided by the fact that the giantess wears her breasts thrown over her shoulders (motif number G123, because obviously). Thus, before she even notices, he becomes her milk child, and therefore she cannot hurt him.
Yup.

Pic from here

The motif appears in a lot of different cultures. In the Abaza Nart Sagas, it's the hero Sosruquo who sneaks up on a sleeping witch and sucks milk from her breast, so that she has to adopt him, and give him a horse. In the Armenian tale of the Sunset Lad, the hero on his way to placate the Sun's mother (whom he'd cursed as a child) sucks a giantess' milk, and she helps him accomplish his quest. In another Armenian tale, The Wicked Stepmother, the hero sucks the breast of the giant mother of forty giants, convincing her to help him acquire the Melon of Life. In the Palestinian folktale of Little Nightingale the Crier, the hero in search of a magic bird sucks the breast of a ghoul woman to get her to help him find the bird (and allegedly so do his brother and sister, after he fails). There are some Turkish variants as well, and  Christine Goldberg lists a bunch of other parallels from the Middle East and Africa.
In a Scottish Traveler folktale, a hero on a journey for the White Glaive of Light pretends to be a baby and is picked up and cuddled by th Big Women who guard the glaive.

Conclusion

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. In real life, sucking someone's breast uninvited (unless you are a baby) qualifies as sexual assault, not adoption. Obviously.

StorySpotting: A whisper at a funeral (Game of Thrones)

After some consideration, I decided to revive an old, old blog series of mine, called StorySpotting. In this weekly or kinda-weekly series of posts, I will write about folktales, tropes, references, and story motifs that pop up (heh) in popular media, from TV shows to video games. Topics will be random, depending on what I have watched/played/read recently. Also, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. Be warned!

Where was the story spotted?

Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 4 (The Last of the Starks)

What happens?

The episode opens with a funeral scene, where all the fallen from the Battle of Winterfell are being burnt on funeral pyres. The task of lighting Ser Jorah's pyre falls on Queen Danaerys. Before setting it aflame, she leans down, and whispers something in Ser Jorah's ear. What does she say?
No one knows.
It has since been revealed that neither the audience nor the crew were supposed to know what she said. Emilia Clarke wrote her own lines for the scene, so the only people who know are she and her co-star, Iain Glen. Glen has been asked multiple times since the episode aired to reveal what Clarke said in the scene, but he is adamant about not telling.
(We'll see how long that lasts)

What's the story?

This scene, and the secrecy around it, reminded me of something: the death of Baldr in Norse mythology. Baldr, god of light, son of Odin, dies by being shot with an arrow made of holly, thanks to Loki's trickery. The entire world mourns for him (except, obviously, for Loki). He gets what people now call a "Viking funeral" - they place him on a pyre on his magnificent ship named Hringhorni, launch the ship onto the sea (it is so large that they can only do so with the help of a giantess), and set fire to it as he floats away. Baldr shares the pyre with his wife Nanna who died of grief, his horse, an unfortunate Dwarf that Thor punted into the fire (yup), and Odin's magic ring Draupnir.
However, before Baldr is placed on the pyre, Odin leans to his dead son's ear and whispers something to him. Something that no one knows. It is the great secret of Norse mythology. In one of the songs of the Poetic Edda, Vafþrúðnismál, Odin gets into a contest of widsom with a giant. They trade riddles and questions, and the giant finally loses the contest, and his life, when his opponent asks him what it was that Odin whispered in Baldr's ear at the funeral. The giant admits, "you alone know that."
Odin apparently really likes this riddle, because he also uses it in the Saga of Hervör and Heidrek, in a riddling contest against Heidrek. The fact that he knows the answer reveals his true identity as Odin.
The whisper remains Norse mythology's best kept secret.

Conclusion

Some people suggest that Odin whispered to Baldr that he will return after Ragnarök, as foretold. I doubt that's in the cards for Ser Jorah.

Hungarian folktales on Westeros

Going to a Game of Thrones themed library event with an SCA group to tell a Hungarian folktale definitely punched out all the remaining holes on my Nerd Card.
Not that I'm complaining.

We were invited to the Way Public Library in Perrysburg to do an SCA demo, and bring some medieval shinies and goodies to show off. I also volunteered to tell a story, and I was especially looking forward to it because it was an adults-only event (duh).

Got to give it to the organizers: The setup was pretty amazing. There was a table of books on Game of Thrones as well as its medieval inspirations, and another table for snacks. This latter one was a treat: Lemon cakes, bread and salt, a horse's heart made out of red jello, ice-blue punch, and little bowls with candy matching some of the major houses. For example, House Martell had a bowl full of gummy eyeballs. (Too soon?)
We set up our tables to display arts and crafts, as well as armor and weaponry. One end of the room was for presentations; on the other end there was a whiteboard where you could match the Houses' words with their sigils, or pin a braid on Khal Drogo. All in all, it was a nice setup for a themed event.

The librarians also earned brownie points in my eyes when, before the start of the event, they closed all the doors and started playing the Rains of Castamere.
(We all very quickly located the exists)

As for the entertainment: First there was a presentation about international relations theory, and how it relates to Game of Thrones. The professor who did it even ventured to guess what is going to happen in upcoming seasons/books. I didn't agree with all he said (that's the beauty of fandom) but there were some really interesting predictions. We'll see if he was right when we get there.
After the presentation, there was a hair-braiding demo done by ladies from a local salon; they made some very impressive braids on their model in almost no time at all. With that done, it was time for some storytelling.

I have been pondering what to tell in my 20 minutes; the choice was between a Hungarian folktale (to represent nomadic shamanistic cultures - let's face it, if we are anywhere on the map of Westeros, we are the Dothraki)  and the saga of Herraud and Bosi (for the little princess raising a dragon). I briefly even considered telling both of them in drastically shortened versions; but once I took the stage, the story took on its own life, and I went with it. I ended up telling a spot-on 20 minute version of the Son of the White Horse. I haven't told this story in ages, and I was not only happy to dust it off again, but also enjoyed seeing the audience's reactions. As well known as the tale is in Hungary (we pretty much all grow up with it), it is definitely a trip for foreigners. The audience was great, and followed through all the way.
Once again, the meeting of pop culture and traditional storytelling was a very enjoyable one. I wish I had gigs like this more often.