G is for Girl teams

Welcome to the A to Z Challenge! My theme this year is Representation and Diversity in Traditional Stories. I am looking for rare and interesting motifs in folktales, fairy tales, and legends that add variety to the well-known canon.

Following my train of thought from yesterday: On top of female friendships, I would also love to see more stories about teams of women. Girl heroes. Marvel is doing it, right? There are several amazing brotherly team-ups in world folklore and mythology, but not so much on the female side.

But, fear not! I managed to rustle up a few.






The Nakhi creation tale
This matrilinear minority from China tells a story about an evil serpent, and four women - Wisdom, Doer, Thinker, and Seer - who made a plan, tricked it, and destroyed it so people could live in peace. Talk about an epic teamup.
(Read in in Tales from Within the Clouds)

Seven sisters
I already mentioned this Miao folktale in my post about elder and middle siblings, but I am mentioning it again because it features four girls defeating seven wolves together.
(Read it in Seven sisters)

The water-splashing festival
(Chinese minorities seem to be the theme of the day)
In this story, twelve women are kidnapped by a demon who is seemingly invincible. The smartest girl coaxes his secret weakness out of him, and kills him, but the head of the demon cannot be put or buried anywhere without causing destruction. Because of it, the twelve wives take turns carrying the head to keep it from hurting anyone, until the curse is broken. People splash water on them to help clean off the blood - a rite that is reenacted every year.
(Read the story in South of the Clouds)

How the women saved Guam
In this Pacific legend a  giant fish is devouring islands and no one is able to stop it. Men don't allow women to help them hunt it, claiming they know nothing - but they themselves fail at stopping the threat. Finally the women get together, make a plan, weave a net from their own hair, and manage to capture the beast and save their homes.
(Read it in Pacific island legends)

The army of women
The Ossetian Nart sagas are regarded as close relations to the Greek Amazon myths. In one of the sagas, the Nart village is attacked while the men are away on a raid, and the Nart women put on armor and weaponry and ride out to defend their homes together.
(The Ossetian Nart sagas will be published in English for the first time this July!)

Gulaim and her warrior maidens
I wrote about her last year for Epics A to Z. Instead of getting married at the age of fifteen, Gulaim gets her own fortress, and forty like-minded girls that she trains in the martial arts. They end up saving their homeland from an invasion, defeating the leader of the enemy, and liberating another kingdom as well in the process.
(Read about the epic here)

The Rebel Princess
In this amazing Jewish folktale, the persecuted heroine recruits a crew of clever maidens, steals a ship from pirates, and goes on to become a queen by her own right until her lost fiance finds her again.
(Read the story in The serpent slayer)

The Giant Caterpillar
(Adding this one by Sharon's recommendation in the comments. Thanks!)
In this folktale from the Ivory Coast, a giant caterpillar swallows an impertinent boy. After the men of the village fail to save him (and run away), the women go out together to beat the monster to death and rescue the boy.
(Read the story in this book)

The Amazons
Obviously.

Are there any other girl hero teams I should add to the list? Let me know in the comments!

F is for Female Friendships

Welcome to the A to Z Challenge! My theme this year is Representation and Diversity in Traditional Stories. I am looking for rare and interesting motifs in folktales, fairy tales, and legends that add variety to the well-known canon.

We all know stories about a hero and his friends setting out to seek their fortunes together - but where are the strong female friendships? Where are women helping and supporting each other, not because they are sisters or mothers and daughters, but simply because they like one another? Compared to the number of evil stepsisters, sibling rivalries, and fake brides, the number of strong female friendships in tradition is depressingly low.

Here are some of the exceptions:


Wild Goose Lake
A Bai legend from China about a girl who befriends a dragon's daughter. The two girls figure and carry out a plan to end a drought; the dragon daughter is exiled by her father for helping the humans, and the two girls end up living happily together.
(Read the story in South of the Clouds)

The wicked girl
This Turkish folktale features friendship between a Turkish girl and her Arab slave. They are locked in together while the adults of the house are away, but the Arab girl figures out a way to sneak out and bring home whatever they need. She repeatedly tricks a restaurant owner until he decides to take revenge - but all is well in the end.
(Read the story here)

Gold-tree and Silver-tree
A strange, enchanting, polyamorous Snow White story for Scotland, in which a king's second wife saves the life of the almost-dead first wife, not once, but twice, and they all live happily together.
(Read it here)

Snow White and Rose Red
Okay, so they are sisters, but at least they like each other (it is even stated in the text) despite their personalities being different, and they go through adventures together. One of the less often quoted Grimm fairy tales, but a really good one. I hear Disney is about to get their hands on it.
(Read it here)

Katie Crackernuts
Again, step-siblings, but at least they like each other? One saves the other, and both end up happy.
(Read it here)

Camilla
I already talked about Camilla earlier, but she fits this theme as well, since she is the leader of a group of female warriors who are all very attached to her, and take revenge for her death.
(Read about her here)

There are also teams of girls that act together... but I'll talk more about them tomorrow!

Are there any other female friendship tales I should include on this list? Let me know in the comments!

E is for Elder siblings

Welcome to the A to Z Challenge! My theme this year is Representation and Diversity in Traditional Stories. I am looking for rare and interesting motifs in folktales, fairy tales, and legends that add variety to the well-known canon.

Okay, so this is a fun one: Are there any tales where the youngest child is not the one that automatically succeeds?
This is less a matter of representation, and more an interesting fairy tale thought exercise. I was curious to see if any stories gave older siblings a chance to fulfill their own destiny.

(Again. Symbolic. Try-and-fail. Yes, we know.)
Let's see some:


The three children of fortune
In this Grimm tale, all three brothers succeed at making their fortune with the meager inheritance from their father - a rooster, a scythe, and a cat.
(Read the tale here)

The Skillful Brothers
This Grimm tale belongs to ATU type 653. Four (or five) brothers set out into the world to learn different trades: Astronomy, thievery, hunting, sewing, etc. When they reunite after their apprenticeship, they are tasked with rescuing a princess from a dragon, which they accomplish with amazing teamwork - so seamless, in fact, that they can't decide who should marry the princess. In the end, they opt for riches and land instead, and split them evenly.
(Read the story here)

Miska and Juliska (The Magic Flight)
There is a Hungarian version to the popular folktale type of the Master Maid (ATU 313) that starts out with three princes - the middle one is described as "unruly," and the king orders his two brothers to get rid of him somehow. The two brothers decide to get their sibling a job in the court of the Devil King... where he falls in love with the Devil's clever daughter, and gets away in the end.
(No English translation; Hungarian text found here)

The sons of the Kerohuri Raja
In this tale from Eastern India, the eldest out of five brothers volunteers to stay home and guard his mother while his siblings go get married and bring him a bride. The wedding party is attacked and killed on the way; the elders prince sets out to restore them to life, rescue his bride, and, eventually, prove that he is the most noble of all of them.
(Read the story here)

Seven sisters
In this Miao (Chinese minority) folktale seven sisters are visited by seven hungry wolves who disguise themselves as young men. The three eldest flee, leaving the youngest four sisters to fend for themselves. The fourth (middle) sister comes up with a plan, and the four girls defeat and chase away the wolves together.
(Read it in Seven sisters)

The Black Thief and the Knight of the Glen
I mentioned this tale type before (ATU 953, Robber saves sons by telling stories), but now I am highlighting the Irish version, that begins with a king's eldest son being hidden from his new wife (who wants to kill the heir and get her own sons on the throne). What is interesting about this trope, however, is that the eldest sets out on a quest, and the two younger brothers faithfully follow him and help him.
(I blogged about the story and sources here)

János and Rózsa
Two brothers perform extraordinary feats in this long, elaborate, and gorgeous Hungarian Roma folktale. Rózsa, the eldest sets out first, and later, wanting to follow in his heroic brother's footsteps, János also has his own adventures.
(You can read an English translation of this tale here, and the full Hungarian text here)

One-eye, Two-eyes, Three-eyes
Another Grimm tale, this one about three sisters - one has one eye in the middle of her forehead, one has three eyes, and the middle sister has two eyes like an average human being. The other two sisters are jealous of her and bully her, but of course she overcomes all hardships, and in the end she doesn't only marry a knight, but she also forgives her sisters, who repent their meanness.
(Read about the story here)

The twelve dancing princesses
A lot of people tend to forget that the "hero" of this Grimm tale ends up picking the eldest princess to be his wife (reasoning that she fits him in age!). Of course, picking the eldest of twelve sisters also assumes that he will be king one day... But I am sure that was just an added bonus...
(Still better than how elder sisters fare in most Hungarian versions)
(Read the tale here)



(Btw. this is the cover of the Hungarian picture book I learned this story from as a child, so I still imagine the eldest princess as kind of round and dressed in yellow)

Are there other tales that should be on this list? Let me know in the comments! :)

D is for Disability

Welcome to the A to Z Challenge! My theme this year is Representation and Diversity in Traditional Stories. I am looking for rare and interesting motifs in folktales, fairy tales, and legends that add variety to the well-known canon.

Note: Today, I'm talking about physical disabilities. Neurodiversity and mental illness will come up later on.

When I polled people on what they would like to see represented more often in tales, one of the most common requests was "disability that doesn't magically go away." While it is a very specific request, it is also very understandable. Representing disabled people as something that needs to be "fixed" before the happily ever after can happen is not exactly the best way to go.
(I said it once and I am saying it again: Disability is also very often symbolic in traditional stories, rather than a representation of an actual physical condition. With that said, I do believe there is no reason why we couldn't have both kinds)

Let's see some examples:

The king's daughter who lost her hair
A beautiful Akamba folktale about a princess who goes bald, and a hero that has to bring her hair from a Magic Hair Tree at the end of the world. While the baldness gets fixed in the end, the male hero has his own condition: He limps, and therefore is slower than the other suitors setting out on the quest - but also more persistent and kind, and all that helps him succeed in the end.
(Read the story in African folktales)

The daughter of the shaman king
This is a folktale from Hungarian-Ukrainian storyteller Pályuk Anna. It tells about a princess who doesn't have feet and therefore can't walk - even her father the táltos king can't cure her. Eventually, however, she falls in love with the young king of the Cloud Kingdom, and learns to fly instead of walking...

(This story has never been published in English, but it will be included in my upcoming book of folktales soon! Actually, several characters in Pályuk's tales have different forms of physical disabilities - dragonslayers with one hand, princesses with no feet -, and they succeed without "fixing" any of them)

Tarva the Storyteller
A very well known Mongolian legend about how stories came into the world. A little boy is left to die during an epidemic, and as his soul travels to the Underworld, he is rewarded for his loyalty with a chance to pick a treasure. He pick stories, but when he returns to his body, his eyes are gone. Tarva the Blind becomes the most famous storyteller of the Mongols.
(Read the tale in this book among others)

Hoichi the Earless
Another tale about a famously talented blind storyteller, one that gets lured into a court of ghosts to sing his songs, until his friend a priest rescues him from his fate.
A very famous Japanese legend.

(Read it online here)
(Source of the picture here)





Teiresias
The famous seer of the Odyssey, Teiresias lost his vision the same day he gained his ability to see the future. He shows up quite often in Greek mythology. We'll also see him later in this Challenge, since he lives part of his life as a woman.
(Read about him here)

Hephaestus and Wayland
The image of the "limping blacksmith" is a very common one in Indo-European mythology. In Greek myth, Hephaestus creates treasures for the Greek gods, while in Norse myth, Völundr (Wayland) is known as a famous smith. The latter is crippled by a king who wants to keep him as a slave and takes horrible revenge; his son is one of the most famous knights in German legends.
(Read about the Thidrek saga, including Wayland and his son, here)

Ivar the Boneless
Okay, so he was technically a historical person, but his life has passed into Norse legend. There is some speculation around whether he was actually crippled, lame, or had some genetic condition that made his bones brittle - but he is still described as a mighty warrior and leader.
(Read about him here)

Sánta Kata
According to Hungarian folklore, Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is known as Sánta Kata (Limping Kate).
(Read my #FolkloreThursday post about her here)

Are there any other stories that should be included on this list? Let me know in the comments!

C is for Caring fathers

Welcome to the A to Z Challenge! My theme this year is Representation and Diversity in Traditional Stories. I am looking for rare and interesting motifs in folktales, fairy tales, and legends that add variety to the well-known canon.

While the most common complaints are aimed at evil (step)mothers in fairy tales, almost as many people protest absentee or abusive fathers as well. Caring, involved, likable father figures are a very important part of representation, and they seem to be somewhat lacking in tradition.
Not completely, though.

Zal and Rostam
The Persian legend of Zal wins at a lot of things - fatherhood among them. Zal does not only help his wife deliver their son (by C-section none the less), but also follows along the hero's entire journey giving him advice, support, and care.
(The legend of Zal is part of the Shahnameh, I recommend this edition)

Fionn Mac Cumhaill, Oisín, and Oscar
At the heart of the Irish legends of the Fianna there are three generations of men who do fatherhood right. Fionn raises Oisín alone after his wife is kidnapped; Oisín is usually shown raising Oscar alone as well, whose mother is barely ever mentioned. In some versions of the stories, Oisín is the only one who can keep his son from his battle frenzy. Because the Fianna legends are very temporally nebulous (and also because all three have some fae blood in them), the three are usually portrayed together in the Fianna's adventures. It is said that one of the two times anyone ever saw Fionn cry was at Oscar's death.
(For Fianna stories, read any of these books. For a Fionn-and-Baby tale, read Eddie Lenihan's book)

The robber and his sons
Some versions of this delightful folktale type (ATU 953) tell about a father who is a retired robber, and is trying to keep his three sons form following in his footsteps. He saves all three of them from execution by telling outrageous tales from his own criminal youth.
(I wrote about this folktale type in detail here)

Peter Carved-of-Wood
In this Hungarian folktale, a poor man carves the figure of a child from wood, and the boy comes to life (déja vu, anyone?). When he sets out to seek his fortune, he tells his father what signs to watch for to know if he is in trouble. When he gets killed on a quest, his father sees the signs and sets out to revive him.
(You can watch a gorgeous cartoon telling of this story here, with English subtitles!)

Metabus and Camilla

King Metabus and Camilla
One of my favorite Roman legends about the exiled king of the Volscii rescuing his newborn daughter by tying her to a spear and throwing her across a river before he saves himself. Don't try this at home.
(Read about it here)

A father's love
This adorable folktale from India features a minister who is always late for work because he is busy raising his six-year-old son. When the king questions him, the minister puts him through a test to see how good a father he would make...
(Read the story here)

Are there any father figures you think I should add to the list? Let me know in the comments! :)

B is for Beauty, Body, and Ideals

Welcome to the A to Z Challenge! My theme this year is Representation and Diversity in Traditional Stories. I am looking for rare and interesting motifs in folktales, fairy tales, and legends that add variety to the well-known canon.

Beauty is a very tricky subject when it comes to traditional stories. In most cases, it is symbolic - a character being "beautiful" is not as much a physical description as a general, personal, inner beauty. And even when there is physical description, it corresponds to their personalities. Therefore, looking for variety in beauty ideals and body images in tradition does not even make sense in most cases. Whatever culture is telling the story imagines their princes and princesses according to the ideals of their own era and culture.

BUT!

I did rustle up a few interesting examples. Because I am dedicated that way.

The Son of the Hunter
Okay, so this is a folktale about a hero going out with his companions who all have superpowers, fulfilling tasks given by the king, and eventually winning a princess who has dragon brothers. In one version of the story, the princess is called Dartane, the Fair One of the World. The collector notes that Dartane means "a woman of slow movements and plump." She is quite a capable lady, too.
(You can find a version of this story - and sources - in my own book, Tales of Superhuman Powers)

The girl who turned into a man
I will talk more about this folktale type (ATU 514) later in the Challenge, but I wanted to note that there is a Hungarian version where the hero(ine) is - appreciatively and repeatedly - described as "having good meat," meaning that s/he is definitely on the heavy side.
(I don't have a translation for this specific version, but I posted another Hungarian version in English here)

Three Strong Women
A Japanese folktale much loved by storytellers. It is about a sumo wrestler who is trained by three generations of exceptionally strong (and "round") women in the art of wrestling. He eventually falls in love with and marries the youngest one.
(Read a retelling of this story here)

Queen Virginal
I wrote about the epic of Dietrich in detail last year, but I want to mention it again because it is the only traditional story cycle I know where humans and Dwarves (who are described as extremely beautiful short humans) intermarry without it being deemed unusual.
(You can read about the legend here)

The secret of the fairy lake
In this Hungarian tale a girl attempts to bathe in a magical fairy lake in order to turn beautiful (because she is mocked by the other girls, and she never had a suitor). She almost drowns, but in the last moment she is rescued by a boy who tells her she doesn't need the fairy lake's magic because she is beautiful as it is.
(You can find the Hungarian text here, and if you are interested, I can help you with an English translation)

I am intentionally not mentioning stories where the hero/heroine starts out "ugly" and then magically turns beautiful. Also, body imagery is sometimes tied into the topic of disability, which will come up later in the Challenge.

Also, here is a statue of Aphrodite with glorious rolls, just because.

Can you think of any other tales that I didn't mention? Let me know in the comments!

A is for Adoption (and Stepmothers)

Welcome to the very first day of the A to Z Challenge! My theme this year is Representation and Diversity in Traditional Stories. I am looking for rare and interesting motifs in folktales, fairy tales, and legends that add variety to the well-known canon.

We are starting with a big one: It is a frequent complaint that alternative family models are not represented in a positive light in most traditional tales.
Stepmothers are almost always evil (even according to top folklore experts like Maria Tatar!), and adoption either happens with no biological family in sight (e.g. children just miraculously appear), or it is part of the happy ending that the child returns to his/her "real" family and fulfills his "true" destiny. While these motifs also have their symbolic meanings, they don't exactly sit well with adoptive- and step-parents who want to build a storytelling relationship with their children (or the other way around).

So, here are some stories with positive portrayals of adoption and stepmothers:

Hilde, the Good Stepmother
An Icelandic fairy tale about a princess who is cursed by her mother at birth - she is destined to get pregnant out of wedlock, kill a man, and burn her father's castle. After her mother's death, the king intends to marry again; Hilde, his new bride, befriends her stepdaughter, and helps her fulfill each point of the curse while avoiding disaster.
(You can read this story in All the world's reward here)

The Lion's Whiskers
An Ethiopian/Amhara tale. A mother hopes to win her stepson's love by asking a wise man for a potion. While gathering the ingredients for the potion - the whiskers of a ferocious lion -, she learns a valuable lesson about patience and persistence, and figures out how to gain her stepson's trust without any magic at all.
(You can read a re-telling of this story here, or read it in this book, or this one)

The Fishwife and the Changeling
A gorgeous Scottish folktale about a woman whose child is replaced by a changeling. When she figures out the swap, she forces the Fairy Woman to give her own baby back - but also keeps the changeling, and raises the two boys together! When the fae boy grows up he has to make a decision whether he goes back to the fairies, or stays with his mortal family. He chooses the people who raised him. One of my ever favorite tales, and also the only positive changeling story I know.
(You can find it in Folk tales from moor and mountain)

Taliesin
One of the most famous Welsh legends, the bard Taliesin's story begins with being fished out of a river and adopted by a chief's clumsy son and heir, Elphin. When he grows up, he saves his adoptive father's life and his mother's reputation.
(Actually the story begins way earlier than that, but it would be too long to summarize)
(Read the story here)

The Serpent Mother
A folktale from India about a poor girl who marries into a rich family, but has no relatives of her own. When it is time to celebrate her first pregnancy, she makes friends with the Snake Mother and her people, and they accept her as one of their own, and shield her from her in-laws' bullying.
(Read the tale in Folktales from India)

Kate Crackernuts
This Scottish fairy tale will also come up later - it features a mean stepmother, but also a kind stepsister who loves her sibling despite her mother's jealousy.
(Read about it here)

Bikkhu Sok
Cambodian folktale. A boy's entire family is massacred out of prejudice, and he only survives because a kind-hearted man hides him and a merchant adopts him. He grows up to be a famous scholar.
(Read the story in this selection from the Gatiloke)

N'oun Doaré
This gorgeous fairy tale from Brittany tells about a five-year-old boy found and adopted by a kind chief, and named "I don't know" (N'oun Doaré) because nothing is known about his origins. He grows up to be a hero, with a rusted sword and an unlikely mare for companions, rescues a princess, and marries his horse. (No, really.) (Okay, so the horse turns into a princess first. SPOILERS.)
At the end of the story, he is offered the truth about his birth parents - but he refuses, claiming that his adoptive family is the real one for him.
(Read it in Celtic myths and legends)

In addition, there are also several positive legendary and mythical adoptions one can think of: King Arthur being raised by Sir Ector; Persian hero Zal being raised and protected by his bird-mother the Simurgh; Fionn Mac Cool being raised by two women (and he turned out mighty fine); Aslög, Brünhilde and Sigurd's daughter, being saved and raised by her foster-father. I also found several adoption stories in this amazing collection of Thai folktales.

Rachel Hedman in the ETSU Storytelling program wrote her thesis on adoption folktales. You can check it out here!

Are there any stories you can think of that I didn't mention? Let me know! :)

(picture by Lucas Gama on Deviantart)