S is for Saliva (Body Folktales)

 This year, my A to Z Challenge theme is Body Folktales. Enjoy! 

NOTE: I am sorry I have not been visiting back. I really miss seeing all your posts! I was traveling, my phone died, and then the Internet went down at home. I will catch up as soon as I can!

I could not find a single image that was not gross,

so here's a puppy.

CW: These stories will get gross.

Spitting and saliva have long featured into all kinds of customs and folklore. This book has a long list of them. I also blogged about a Japanese legend earlier about a samurai killing a giant centipede with arrows he'd spat on. Here are some other interesting tales I found:

St. Donatus and the dragon (Greece)

In this 5th century legend a saint slays a dragon by spitting into its mouth. The trick works, says the notes, because there was a long-standing belief that human saliva is scalding to serpents. In another 13th century text, people trap and kill a dragon by fasting and then spitting a circle around it.

(This is a whole D&D adventure waiting to happen...)

Juan and the Princess (Philippines)

A poor boy is challenged by a king to find his hidden daughter. He succeeds, but the king still doesn't want to keep his promise and marry him to the princess. Juan receives help from some birds, who give him a pen-point but no ink, telling him to use his saliva. Whatever the king makes him write turns to gold, proving that the boy is special.

Kvasir (Norse mythology)

In Norse mythology there is a wise being named Kvasir, who was born from a bowl of spit. The Aesir and Vanir gods once had a fight, and decided to make peace by spitting into a bowl together (try this next time you have a family fight). Thus, Kvasir was born, blessed with all kinds of knowledge. Later, two Dwarves killed him, and from his blood they made the Mead of Poetry.

Three brothers and the golden apple (Bulgaria)

Chasing a monster that has been stealing apples from the garden, the hero of this story ends up in the depths of the underworld. There, he meets a woman who is making dough with her own saliva instead of water, for her six children. She tells the hero that there is no water in their realm because a monster is guarding the well. Of course the hero manages to defeat the monster, and bring water back.

Glaucus (Greece)

Glaucus, son of King Minos of Crete, dies, and the seer Polydius brings him back to life. Against his will, Minos forces the seer to teach Glaucus the art of divination. However, when Polydius is finally allowed to leave, he asks Glaucus to spit into his mouth, and the boy forgets everything he'd learned.

The fairy midwife (Guernsey)

This is a common tale type I have blogged about before, where a woman acts as midwife to the fairies, and accidentally gets something in her eye that allows her to see through enchantments later on. In a version from Guernsey, that something is the saliva of the newborn fairy baby.

Talking spit

This is a folktale motif, rather than an individual tale. There are many stories around the world where someone escapes captivity of witches / ogres / devils / abusive parents / etc., and spits on the floor on the way out. Later on, the spit answers in their name, delaying the discovery that they'd escaped. (D1611: Magic spittle impersonates fugitives)

In the tale of Dhon Cholecha from Nepal, a girl escapes from demons by leaving spittle behind and putting charcoal in it. The motif is especially common in Blancaflor tales from Spain and Latin America (see here, here and here).

Would you tell any of these stories to your audiences? 

Demons, spirits, clever women (Following folktales around the world 182. - Nepal)

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 here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Folk tales of Nepal

Karuna Kar Vaidya
Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1979.

This book with a memorable cover contains 11 folktales. The short introduction says the tales were collected from traditional storytellers and translated word for word. The editors selected the stories to represent the diversity of different types of tales in the oral tradition of Nepal. The book is decorated with black-and-white illustrations. 

Highlights

The best tale in the book was that of a bamboo cutter who got kidnapped by a demon. The creature took his place, but his clever wife figured out the truth, and managed to kill the demon with various home-made tricks. In the end, she also got rid of a band of robbers, and saved her husband.

I liked the tale about the miserly old woman who would not let her five daughters-in-law eat their fill from the family's food stores. The youngest wife figured out a way to get the food, and make the old woman believe it had been stolen by spirits. In the end, the mother-in-law learned her lesson.

There was a tale about the god of death that was a very dark version of the "appointment in Samarra" story. A black snake told a man the place and hour of his death, and he ran far away from it. However, when the time came, he was lured back by a winged horse, and met his horrible end anyway. (TW)

Connections

Dhon Cholecha was a version of the kind and unkind girls, while Sinhapata Maiju reminded me of the story of the wedding of the bug and the mouse: the lady, after several ill-fitting suitors, married a mouse and lived in the royal treasury. However, the mouse drowned in a pot of oil, and the king ended up taking care of the bereaved widow.

The trickster in residence was a man nicknamed Kakaju, who tricked various people out of their money and belongings (e.g. with the classic "donkey that drops gold"), until he became rich.

Where to next?

Bhutan!