Kindness against darkness: Halloween folktales of caring

I like Halloween stories that go beyond mere fright. Maybe because I used to be an anxious child, and jump tales made me cringe in advance; maybe because I never liked horror for horror's sake. When I started developing a Halloween repertoire as a storyteller visiting the USA, I was drawn towards stories that were less about the creatures of darkness, and more about how we face them.


This year, since the world is increasingly full of darkness anyway, I decided to post a selection of stories where scary things are balanced out with kindness and understanding. So, here is my Top 5.

The black kitty
W. B. McCarthy: Cinderella in America (University Press of Mississippi, 2007.)
Polish-American folktale about a boy who is believed to be simple by his brothers, and yet he ends up breaking a curse on a castle and its residents. He does so by hugging a black kitten (an enchanted princess named Katie), and whispering "my kitty, my black kitty" even when dragons, storms, ghosts, and devils descend on the castle to scare him.

The wee little tyke
Ruth L. Tongue: Forgotten folk-tales of the English counties (Routledge, 1970.)
A girl finds a small black stray dog, and takes him home. The entirely family is cursed by a witch, and the home is a horrible place; cow doesn't give milk, hens don't lay eggs, etc. The wee little dog breaks the curses one by one, and chases the witch away. The family decides to adopt the pup, despite his heartbreaking worries: "But... I'm small!" "But you have sharp teeth!" "But... I'm black!" "So is our cat!"

(Bonus: These two tales can also be used to encourage people to get over their superstitions about adopting black pets.)

The skull
Ruth Manning-Sanders: A book of ghosts and goblins (Dutton, 1969.)
Folktale from Tirol. An orphan girl runs away from her cousin's, and comes across a castle in the woods. The castle is inhabited by a woman's skull that she makes friends with despite all the eerie things going on around it. At night, the girl hugs the skull and holds on to it even when the headless skeleton of an evil man tries to tear it away from her. Her bravery and caring breaks the curse on the woman's ghost, and the girl inherits the castle.

Drinking companions
Pu Songling: Strange stories from a Chinese studio (London, 1880.)
Chinese story of possible traditional origins. A fisherman makes friends with a mysterious person who turns out to be the ghost of a drowned man. After a long time of sharing drinks every night, the ghost tells him that the next person to drown in the river is about to take his place. But when the next person turns out to be a mother and child, the ghost saves them, extending his own time in limbo. As a reward, he is assigned to be a minor deity in a nearby village, and continues his friendship with the fisherman. 
My storytelling mentor, Cathryn Fairlee, has a lovely version of this story that features husband and wife.

The count and the servant
(Source in Hungarian)
Hungarian folktale. A count dies, but his ghost haunts the family home every night. A servant who loved him while he was alive decides to find out why his master can't rest in peace. He pretends to be a ghost as well, and spends the night haunting and talking together with the count's ghost. The count confesses that he has hidden treasure that he wanted to leave to his family. When the servant helps him uncover the treasure, the ghost thanks him, and goes to his eternal rest.
I heard Heather Forest tell this one in Jonesborough once.

Have a great Halloween, everyone!

Scary Story Festival at a haunted opera house, and other Halloween fun

This year I really managed to cherry-pick the best Halloween gigs.

It all started on Friday, when I participated in the Friday Folklore Tour at the Wood County Historical Museum in Bowling Green. The tour had several stops, all centered on creepy and eerie things, such as a Day of the Dead educational display, a haunted trail, the former asylum, a magician... and yours truly, who set up shop in the cemetery behind the museum. And by "set up shop" I mean I camped out all alone in a dark cemetery in the company of a lantern, some blankets, and a box of Halloween chocolates (because someone trusted me to be a responsible adult and not fish all the Reese's out) (I did not fish all the Reese's out).
Over the course of three hours, we had 9 tour groups passing through. I told one story to each of them; because I would have bored myself by repeating one of them over and over again, I ended up randomly rotating 5 different stories, depending on what I felt like telling, and who was in the audience. I told a Hungarian folktale about a brave princess and a haunted castle (our version of Mr. Fox) mostly when kids were around; one girl still stood with her hands over her ears until I promised her that there would be no jump scares in the story (I hate jump scares). One little boy told me that princesses were booooooring - but took it back at the end of the story. My favorite part was when I asked a group what happens to fairy tale princesses when they grow up - and one little girl immediately answered "They become queen!" Girl power.
Next to the magic castle, I also told Princess in the Coffin, and all-time favorite of mine, as well as the Burning of Tara (it's almost Samhain, after all), and the legend of Erzsébet Báthory. I also handed out candy (or rather, held the box out and let people take a handful, because I'm Hungarian and I don't know how to trick-or-treat). All in all, it was great fun, the cemetery setting was perfect, and the groups were all very appreciative. Someone even asked me about how they can become a storyteller...

The Halloween roll continued on Saturday, when I took a trip to Howell, MI to their tenth (!) annual Scary Story Festival. The event takes place in Howell's very own haunted opera house, which is a perfect setting for scary stories. They have a children's scary story show at 7, and then an adult one at 9. I only caught the end of the kids' show, but it looked like it was great fun.
The adult performance took place in the actual opera house (which was built in the 1880s, shut down in the 1920s, and functioned as the attic of the building for several decades). It was an amazing setting, all gloomy and mysterious, decorated with spiderwebs and candles. The floors creaked, the shadows stretched, and there was coffee, hot cider, and pastries available to make everything perfect.
And, of course, there was the lineup.
The show was opened by Robin Nott, who sung us the ballad of Resurrection Mary (a version of the Vanishing Hitchhiker), and then told a story about the ghost of a mother who returned from the grave to feed her child. Both were sufficiently eerie, and touching at the same time. Next, Leif Larsen told us his version of Grimm's Bearskin, set after the American Civil War (I really loved this twist on the tale). Yvonne Healy brought us a terrifying Irish tale of dark magic and revenge, and Jeff Doyle told a Kentucky ghost tale that sent shivers down our spine.

After a short break, Barbara Schutzgruber graced us with singing Childe's ballad of the dead lover (fittingly, the oldest known version of the Vanishing Hitchhiker), and then telling her amazing, rhyming and eloquent version of an English lullaby about a vain lady who turned into the first mole. I am always amazed by Barbara's elegant performances... it was a tough act to follow. I told next; I chose the Princess in the Coffin, since it is a fairly creepy story but also has some humor in it, and it is tons of fun to tell, especially in an eerie setting. The concert concluded with Steve Daut's twist on Rapunzel, with some very graphic and gory images about what could go wrong when one gets tangled in so much hair...

The festival was a superb experience, and a perfect place for some Halloween storytelling. I am happy that I got to be a part of it this year. We did not encounter Meredith, the opera house's resident ghost, but I am sure she was listening...

Fright Hike in the woods = Halloween done right

I was an NPC for Halloween.

The Rieck Center, a nature preserve belonging to the University of Findlay, organized a Fright Hike on Halloween night as a charity event for Syrian refugees. They were recruiting volunteer storytellers, and since I did not have a program for Halloween yet, I was more than happy to participate.
It was a fun night.

The event took place in the forest around the center; there were four stations with four storytellers. Every fifteen minutes, they sent out a group of ten visitors from the building, guided by volunteers to minimize the number of people lost forever in the shrubbery. Each storytelling station was lit by a torch, except for mine, which had a full, blazing campfire going with logs around it. I was grateful for this, because I am a lizard, and despite the balmy night temperature I was wearing five different layers of clothing (one of them was a Jack Frost hoodie).
It was very mood-appropriate to be out in the forest at night. There were no lights near or far other than the campfire; the trees whispered, the pond made splashing noises, and the laughter and screams of people echoed around in the darkness. It was a great setting for telling some chilling tales. In-between groups, sitting by the fire with the two guys accompanying me, I imagined myself as an adventurer in a story, spending a night in the deep, dark woods... however, I soon realized, that sitting by a fire, waiting for a bunch of people to show up and ask for a story doesn't exactly make anyone an adventurer. It makes them an NPC.
Oh well.
Either-or, the event was great fun. We had five groups come through (and a lot more people than we expected). I told the Burning of Tara (I always feel like I must tell that story at least once on Halloween), the Princess in the Shroud, and Marie Jolie (this latter two I told twice each). I had great fun, telling these tales by the fire (as all tales should be told), and the audiences seemed to appreciate them too - even when it started raining.
I followed the last group through the rest of the hike. At the other stations people told the tale of Teig O'Kane and the Corpse, Hoichi the Earless, and Bloody Mary. By the time we all made it back to the center, it was raining pretty hard, so we resorted to eating raw s'mores like a bunch of savages. Also, there was cider.

It was a great Halloween event, at the perfect intersection of excited people, good stories, and a spooky atmosphere. I hope they will do it again next year!