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!

Anancy meck it (Following folktales around the world 39. - Jamaica)

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!

There could not be a more fitting volume to say goodbye to the Caribbean than a collection full of Anansi stories.

Anancy and Miss Lou
Louise Bennett
Sangster's Book Stores, 1979.

I cam across this book by accident, in a used book store in Knoxville, TN, a week before I flew home from the USA. Even though most of my books were already packed, I could not resist buying it (especially for $2!). It was a very lucky find.

The volume contains thirty-one Anancy stories, re-told by famous Jamaican singer, storyteller, and folklore artist Louise Bennett. The stories are written down phonetically from her telling; while the Jamaican dialect is hard for an outsider to decipher in writing, once you get the hang of it, both Miss Lou's and Anancy's personalities jump off the page is bright colors. I have not heard Louise Bennett before, so I spent a lot of time looking up YouTube videos and voice recordings online. I wish I could have heard her live...
The book contains a short introduction about Miss Lou and Anancy, and musical notes for the songs that appear in the stories. Every story closes with the same formula: "Is Anancy meck it" ("Anancy made it so" - all stories are pourquoi tales), and "Jack Mandora, me noh choose none" (According to the Introduction, this translates into "I take no responsibility for the story I have told").

Highlights

The opening story in the book is, naturally, about Anancy stories - or rather, how Anancy decided he wanted to star in bedtime tales, and how he got Cat and Rat to fight in order to achieve his legendary trickster status. I was also happy to find Miss Lou's lovely version of Anancy and Fire, a story I have heard from Eshu Bumpus, and never found again since. In it, Anancy tries to seduce Miss Flame, but she soon turns out to be more than he signed up for.
By far my favorite tale in the book was that of Anancy and Sorrel, in which the trickster, while stealing fruit on Market Day, just happened to invent this very popular, spiced Jamaican drink. I also laughed a lot at the tale of Anancy and Fee Fee, in which Anancy dressed up as a little girl (called Fee Fee) just to get free food at a Christmas party for children.

Connections

I found a tale that I read earlier from Trinidad, in which Crab helps a poor servant girl find out an evil witch's secret name - except in this case the poor girl was Anancy in disguise, going for the rich rewards of guessing the name. Guessing names was a common theme in the collection; I also found a couple of versions for the African tale type where Anancy had to guess a princess' name in order to marry her. I was reminded of the Haitian story of Owl's wedding by the story of Po Pattoo, the Jamaican owl, who tried to marry a pretty girl by hiding his feathers, but Anancy gave him away. On a slightly more serious note, there was once again a tale of A girl marrying a Yellow Snake - she was rescued by Anancy and his clever tricks (I have encountered this tale type on almost all Caribbean islands).
And, of course, there were the all-time trickster classics, such as Riding Tiger, the Deadly Rock, and the Tar Baby. And it almost goes without saying that this book was not without an animal race either: This time, Donkey ran a race with Toad, and the latter won by the help of Anancy's cunning advice.

Where to next?
Next week we start our trek north across Central America. Panama first!