F is for Flamingo Pink

Man, finding a color for every letter is harder than I thought. Here, have some pink.

Flamingo pink, once again, is officially a color, as weird as it sounds (I apologize to all the male readers that only ever wish to distinguish 16 basic colors, bear with me.)
While I could not find a myth or folktale about the flamingo and its color, there is a delightful tale that I can include here. While most websites will tell you it is an "Argentinian folktale," it was actually written about a hundred years ago by an author called Horacio Quiroga, from Uruguay. His book, Cuentos de la selva, is a great read. As a storyteller, I have no problem telling tales that migrated from literature into oral tradition. That is the nature of good stories.

According to this one, the animals of the jungle decided to have a dance party. All of them put on their best colors and dresses, except for the flamingos, who are not particularly smart. Looking for something colorful to wear, they decided they were going to accentuate their lovely long legs with some colorful stockings. They went for help to Owl, who just happened to have some prime accessories lying around, and gladly handed them over; but he also warned the flamingos not to stop dancing at the party. The birds put on their brand new yellow-red-black striped stockings, and went to show them off.

Eventually, of course, they had to stop dancing. When they did, there was a scream from the corner where the snakes were hanging out: Some of them recognized the skin of their recently lost relatives in the "stockings" of the flamingos. Owl had hunted some snakes, and had the skins lying around the house. He sold coral snake skins for stockings.
The snakes took revenge on the flamingos by biting them repeatedly (as you should, when someone shows up wearing your uncle's skin for a stocking). The flamingos fled to the river and cooled their wounds in the water. In fact, they have been living there ever since, soaking their poison-red legs.

Moral of the story: Don't wear a coral snake as a stocking. Also, flamingos are not very smart birds.

Read the original story here.

For Public Use Only: Hungarian folktales in English

I made this bibliography for one of my workshops last year, and after the post about the Archives I remembered to finally post it online.
Ta-da! Consume with care.

Hungarian folktales in English

Benedek, E. (1990). The tree that reached the sky. Budapest: Corvina.

Biro, V. (1992). Hungarian folk-tales. Oxford University Press.

Dégh, L. (1965). Folktales of Hungary. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Dégh, L. (1996). Hungarian folktales: the art of Zsuzsanna Palkó. University Press of Mississippi.

Dorson, R.M. (1978). Folktales from around the world. University of Chicago Press.

Henry, J.W. & Kriza, J. (1889). The folk-tales of the Magyars. London.

Hoffmann, P. & Bíró, G. (1969). The money hat and other Hungarian folk tales. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.

Illyés, Gy. (1964). Once upon a time: forty Hungarian folk-tales. Budapest: Corvina Press.

MacDonald, M.R. (2007). Little Rooster’s Diamond Button. Albert Whitman & Co.

Manning-Sanders, R. (1968). The glass man and the golden bird: Hungarian folk and fairy tales. Oxford University Press.

Molnár, I. (2001). One-time dog market at Buda – and other Hungarian folktales. North Haven, CT: Linnet Books.

Orczy, E. (1895). Old Hungarian fairy-tales. London: Dean & Son / Wolf & Co.

Ortutay, Gy. (1962). Hungarian folk tales. Budapest: Corvina.

The princess that saw everything (Mindent látó királylány). (1998). Budapest: Móra kiadó.

Wass, A. (1972). Selected Hungarian folk tales. Astor Park, FL: Danubian Press, Inc.

Also,
Selected Hungarian literature in English
('selected' as in: these are books I would recommend)

Gárdonyi, G. (1970). Slave of the Huns. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Gárdonyi, G. (1991). The eclipse of the crescent moon. Budapest: Corvina.

Leader, N.A.M. (2011). Hungarian classical ballads: and their folklore. Cambridge University Press.

Makkai, A. (1996). In quest of miracle stag: the poetry of Hungary. Atlantis Centaur.

Móra, F. (1964). The Gold Coffin. Budapest: Corvina Press.

Örkény, I. (2006). One minute stories. Budapest: Corvina.

Szabó, M. (2008). The gift of the wondrous fig tree: a fairy tale. Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó.

Szerb, A. (2010). Love in a bottle. Budapest: Pushkin Press.

Out now!
(As in, shameless self promotion. But it has Hungarian folktales in it. Quite a few.)

Zalka, Cs. V. (2013). Tales of superhuman powers: 55 folktales from around the world. McFarland Publishing.

V is for a very short post on Veils, and a great song!

Three of them, specifically.

The Veil of Maya in Hinduism is the symbol of illusion, dreaming, and duality. It cloacks true reality from us, replacing it with illusions, distracting colors and shapes. The goddess Maya is also the protector of the universe who possesses a part of every other god's and goddess' power. I don't know about you, I like illusions.

The féth fíada is the magic mist or veil that cloaks the fae world and its inhabitants from mortal eyes. In one of my favorite Irish stories Eithne lost her veil as she was bathing in a stream, and after that she could never find her way home to her own world; it was invisible to her eyes, and she to theirs. She became a nun and took on Christianity before she died.

And then there is a third one, called The Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess, written by Lucy Maud Montgomery in her book The Story Girl, which is largely responsible for me becoming a professional storyteller (go figure). It is a tale about the princess who is too proud to marry any mortal man; she waits for a knight that defeats everyone. Well, she ends up marrying a mysterious victor in black armor... read the rest for yourselves!
This story always reminds me of this song which is based on a similar tale:

Der Letzte Tanz (Schandmaul)

One of my favorite songs. That's all!