Tarot Tales: I is for Illusion (The Moon)

Welcome to the 2021 A to Z Blogging Challenge! My theme this year is Tarot Tales. I am making a selection of folktales, legends, and other traditional stories that correspond to tarot cards. Storytelling and tarot go well together. Do other stories come to mind? Let me know in the comments!

The card: The Moon

Meanings: The Moon is a card of shadowy things, things that can't quite be seen. It is about anxiety, deception, and foreboding. But it is also about intuition, illusions, mystery, and hidden truths. It is about things not always being what they seem; about caution, fearing the unknown, and moving through uncertain times. Through the role of the Moon in folklore, it is connected to ritual and divine guidance.

Selection process: Despite all the millions of tales about the Moon out there, this one was an easy choice. From the moment I first read about the Moon card, this was the story that immediately came to mind. 

The story: The Buried Moon

Origin: England

Summary: The Moon decides to come down to earth one night to see all the things her light protects people from. Whenever she shines in the sky, she chases away the Things that live in the bogs and marshlands and threaten people in the dark. As she walks around the bog, she slips into a pool and gets caught by the creatures. While she struggles, a mortal man comes along, and to warn him of the danger, the Moon throws back her hood and shines her light around. The man escapes, but the Moon remains trapped. Before the sun rises, the Things roll a big rock over her to keep her from returning to the sky.

When the Moon remains lost for several nights, people begin to worry. What will happen to then at night if her light never returns? Eventually the man who escaped the bog tells the others about the light he'd seen. Following a wise woman's advice people set out into the bog to find and rescue the Moon. They do so together, and the Moon flies back to the sky, chasing the Things away with her radiant light. 

Sources & notes: Read the story here, or the more archaic text here.

Have you ever walked in moonlight at night? What is your favorite thing about the moon?

StorySpotting: Moon Landing Special

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!

Today's post is a little bit different from the usual, but it had too great a topic to miss.

Where was the story spotted?

Today is the 50th anniversary of a human being first setting foot on the Moon.

What happens?

A human being walks on the moon.
Also, a pop culture connection: I am a big fan of the Changeling: The Dreaming role-playing game, where July 20th, 1969 marks the Resurgence, the moment when so many people experienced wonder at the same time that the gates of the Dreaming opened again, and magic and belief returned to our world.

What's the story?

Since the whole Moon Landing is the culmination of millennia of dreams and stories, I decided to celebrate today by spotting some of my favorite tales about people (or, occasionally, animals) visiting the Moon.

The Prince of the Dolomites: A prince, raised by his widow mother, dreams about going to the Moon from an early age. One night he sees a princess in the moonlight and falls in love with her; after that, he becomes Prince Moonstruck, and admires the Moon every night, wishing to travel there to meet the princess. Luckily, he befriends a group of Dwarfs who help him ascend to the Moon - but they warn him that if he stays too long, he will go blind. Prince and princess fall in love, but when the prince starts to lose his sight, they decide to move back to Earth. To ease the princess' homesickness, the Dwarfs paint the Dolomites with the shining colors of the Moon, and they have been like that ever since.

Shooting the Moon: A Yao folktale about how long ago there was a fiery, burning moon in the sky. The archer Ya La and his wife Ni Wo worked together to assemble a magic bow and arrow to shoot it down. When chipping stars off the fiery moon was not enough, they shot up Ni Wo's embroidery that covered the Moon's surface, and cooled it down - but it also sucked the wife herself up to the sky. Not wanting to live apart from his wife, Ya La called to Ni Wo, who let her long braid down so that her husband could climb up to her. Ever since then, they have been living on the Moon in a little hut with a cassia tree and a flock of sheep - all of which you can see in the dark shapes on the surface.

Matanako and the Moon: A folktale from Tuvalu about a boy who has a special connection to the Moon. As a baby, he only sleeps in moonlight, and when he learns to talk, he says he wishes to go to the Moon. He convinces his father to take him, and they board a ship together, sailing for the place in the East where the Moon rises from the sea. On the way they pass various spirit islands, and lose some of their crew to spirit diseases. When they reach the horizon, the father throws Matanako at the Moon, and he has been living up there ever since. The dark shapes on the surface are the shape of his body.

Why the Skunk Lives Underground: A Quechua folktale about a skunk and a fox who are unlikely best friends. Fox's biggest dream is to go to the Moon, while Skunk would like to feast on the worms that live underground. When the Moon lets down two ropes for them, they decide to climb up together. Skunk doesn't really want to go, but he agrees to accompany his friend. In some versions, a guinea pig chews Skunk's rope through and he falls back down; in others, he decides that going to the Moon is not for him after all, and comes back down to live comfortably underground. Fox makes it happily to the Moon, and thus both friends fulfill their own dreams.

The Fox who was in Love with the Moon: Another Quechua story, and a very cute one. A fox falls in love with the Moon, and wants to reach her, but no matter how many mountaintops he climbs, he can't get any closer. Eventually he climbs the highest, most daunting mountain, and from the top, he jumps into Moon's arms. He's been cradled there ever since.

True History: Lucian of Samosata wrote this piece in the 2nd century AD as a parody of the "true stories" of ancient travelers. He claims to have sailed to the Moon on a ship picked up by a whirlwind. The Moon, he says, is inhabited by Vulture Riders, people riding giant vultures into battle, ruled by Endymion, the Moon Goddess' mortal lover. They are waging a war against the Ant Riders of the Sun over who gets to colonize the Morning Star. The Armies of the Moon have 80,000 Vulture Riders, 20,000 Cauliflower Riders, Garlic Warriors and Millet Slingers. They are joined by 30,000 Flea Archers (archers riding giant fleas) and 50,000 Wind Runners. Lucian describes the whole war in great and elaborate detail. He also shares wild tales about the Moon society, including how they harvest babies from trees that grow from men's testicles planted in the ground, how their rich people dress in glass clothes, and how they have honey instead of snot.

Orlando Furioso: In one of my favorite epic moments, the knight Astolfo borrows a hippogriff (and then Elijah's chariot) to fly to the Moon, where all lost things can be found, to search for the wits/sanity of his friend Orlando, who lost them due to his love for a woman. Among the great collection of lost things on the Moon there are such curiosities as lost fame, lost desires, lost tears, lost kingdoms, wasted efforts, lost favors, unhappy marriages, lost charms... and lost time, which is the only thing one cannot claim back. Astolfo is shocked to find a bottle with his own name on it: it contains a portion of his own lost wits, which he never even realized was missing.

Conclusion

There are countless other folktales and legends about traveling to the Moon; most cultures seem to have at least one. This is what made the actual Moon Landing so fascinating in the eyes of the storyteller: Humanity achieved something that it has collectively been dreaming of for millennia.
So, which dream should we tackle next?

A large assortment of magical helpers (Following folktales around the world 74. - Slovakia)

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 in the series here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Az aranyagancsos szarvas
Szlovák népmesék
Pavol Dobšinský
Móra, 1976.

This book contains thirty elaborate fairy tales from the 19th century collections of author and folklorist Pavol Dobšinský. He published more than a hundred Slovak folktales over the course of the 19th century - and also edited them to fit better for young audiences, even though they were originally meant to be told to adults. This editing definitely shows on some of the texts: A prince "talks at" a sleeping princess, who becomes pregnant from it; a grateful dead companion "brandishes his sword" to scare the devil out of a princess, instead of cutting her in half. The language of the tales is also quite literary and elaborate, resembling Andersen more than a folklore collection. With that said, the stories were still very much enjoyable.
If you want to read some of Dobšinský's collection in English, try this book.

Highlights

My favorite tale in the book was that of The black haired prince. It takes place in a kingdom where everyone and everything has black hair, except for the prince whose locks are raven black. The king tries all kinds of cures and treatments on him, but they don't work. The story is an Unfaithful Servant type, with betrayal and suffering and such, but of course all is well in the end, and the prince's hair turns red. After this my second favorite story was that of the Most beautiful couple, in which a witch, a male witch, the devil, a soldier, and two complete kingdoms worked on getting two beautiful people together.

One of the most beautiful stories in the book is The King of Time. It resembles the Twelve Month Brothers greatly, except here after the poor man is rewarded and the rich punished, the King of Time keeps helping the poor man (along with the Kings of Water, Fire, and Wind), until he rescues his stolen wife. The prince born from an egg was another pretty fairy tale in which the hero defeated the Iron-nosed Witch with the help of his courage and his animal friends. And while on the topic of helpers: In Beauty of the World, the hero was assisted by the Moon, who sacrificed himself multiple times, and had to be brought back from the dead.
Jankó and Mackó was probably one of the best variants of the gold-spitting prince story I have ever found. Two brothers eat from the forbidden flesh of a magic bird, and gain magical powers. I liked that one of them, Jankó, became an artist, and fell in love with a princess while teaching her music and painting. I also liked that when they sent him to be devoured by a dragon, he made friends with it instead.
Probably the most unexpected tale was that of the Ragged Prince, who accidentally wandered into the Castle of Destiny, and witnessed first hand how people's fates are decided. He even got a useful tip about changing his own...

Connections

Kay Nielsen: The two borthers

Most of the stories in the book were of familiar types, but they all had something unique and unexpected in them. In The enchanted forest, the lions, bears, and wolves helping the twin heroes turned out to be princes themselves. In the Aladdin-variant of The snake, the cat, and the dog, the dog and the cat had to go ring-hunting with a hook tied to the cat's tail. In another variant, The magic lamp loved its owner so much that it left clues behind so that he could find the evil wizard who stole the lamp. The three enchanted princes that helped another hero along turned out to be under a unique enchantment: They lived as beasts under the waning moon, and humans under the waxing moon (I like to imagine they changed shape in phases). The cat princess could be rescued from her own curse by listening to flute music until she cried three times. The golden-haired gardener in this case was a Heroic kitchen servant - with the extremely badass ability of being able to summon the armies of the King of Darkness to help him in battle.
The story of Little Friday and the Warrior of the Plains is probably the best variant of the Grateful Dead tale type I have ever seen. It tells of the friendship of an orphan boy and a veteran soldier who comes back to life to help him. Other extraordinary helper tales included The cursed princess (very much like Longshanks, Girth, and Keen from Czechia), and The proud maiden and the dragon, in which three brothers with special powers rescued an "annoyingly screaming" princess.
The "best story title" prize was won by Vratko and the Ferryman Dry All the Tears of the World (I can already see the indie movie poster). It was a kinder version of the Devil's three golden hairs. King Thrushbeard was King Redbeard here, and the Clever Maid was a Clever Wife. For the first time in the Slavic countries, I found a Fern Flower legend, too.

Where to next?
Poland!

MythOff Budapest 2017 - Sun, Moon, and Stars

There is no summer without MythOff in Budapest! It was Szilvia's idea to pick the theme of Sun, Moon, and Stars, in honor of this summer's upcoming solar eclipse (and the lucky people who will get to see it). Everyone really liked the suggestion, so the agreed to choose our myths accordingly.
We made some good choices.

Once again, we outgrew our venue, so this time we performed at the RS9 theater; a space of almost 100 seats, which we managed to fill to capacity! (We would like to take this time to thank our wonderful, loyal, and ever-growing audience). Behind the emcee's microphone we had Varga-Fogarasi Szilvia, who did not only suggest the theme, but also took care of the music, the prizes, the announcements, and some fiery spectacles at the end of the show.
The myths and tellers were as follows:
(Watch the videos by clicking on the names!)

Round one: Lights in the night sky

Lovranits Júlia opened the evening by telling us a myth from the Philippines about the birth of the Moon. In it, the Sun demanded a princess for a wife; the girl, defying her protective father, rose up to the sky to light up the night for the people she loved.

Next we had Hajós Erika telling the heavy yet beautiful Greek myth of Callisto and Arcas (the Big Bear and the Little Bear) - she talked with grace and empathy about Zeus' violence, Hera's vengeance, and all the topics this story tend to bring up.
Voting question: If Hera went hunting, and her prey was defended by the kind-hearted Sulamyn, who would win the confrontation?
The winner: Greece

Round two: Sunrise 

This round was all about the Sun. Bumberák Maja told the Japanese myth of the goddess Amaterasu, how she hid herself from the world, and how she was lured out of her cave by the goddess of happiness and a mirror. Her telling was graceful and poetic, and showed some of the many meanings and layers of this important story.

She was followed by Gregus László, who brought is the Chinese myth of Yi the Heavenly Archer, who shot down nine of the ten suns in the sky to save the earth from being scorched to ashes.
(I blogged about this epic earlier)
Voting question: If you had to light up a storytelling event, what would you rather use - the chariot of the ten suns, or Amaterasu's mirror?
The winner: Japan


Round three: Lucky stars

In this round, the storytellers drew cultures (or cultural regions) from a hat, and they had to find their sun-moon-star myths accordingly.

Yours truly had the luck of pulling South Africa as a region. I spent a couple of weeks reading myths and folktales from various South African cultures, especially from the San and Khoikhoi peoples. In the end, I settled for a KhoiKhoi story called Windbird and the Sun - it is a tale about a girl who was loved by the Sun and the Wind and who loved colors, so both of them tried to make the world as colorful for her as they could.
(Video here, original source here, picture book here, I got my mythical background information here and here, among other sources)

The evening concluded with Nagy Enikő, who brought us some Hindu myths about the Pleiades, Mars, and the birth of Kartikeya, the god of war. Enikő is an elegant teller, who told us the stories with grace and wonder.
Voting question: If someone wanted to start a new fashion trend, should it be based on the colors of the Khoikhoi myth, or the sparks and lights of the Hindu myth?
The winner: Khoikhoi mythology

All in all, we had a great lineup of diverse stories, and a lovely audience that supported us, voted, and asked many questions about mythology. MythOff, once again, was a special experience.

We will do it again soon!