I is for Incisors (Body Folktales)

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

The wonderful brocade (Zhuang people, China)

A beautiful story about a poor woman who weaves her dreams into a brocade. When the brocade is stolen, her youngest son sets out to find it. However, he needs a magic horse for the voyage, that only comes alive when he takes out his own two front teeth and puts them in its mouth. The boy makes the journey to Fairyland and back safely, and even gets his teeth back in the end.

King Peacock (Louisiana, USA)

A very interesting Snow White variant. A queen rejects every suitor because none of them are beautiful enough, and she is cursed by one to have a daughter more beautiful than herself. She tries to get a nurse to kill her, but the nurse gives the girl magic seeds instead, and helps her escape. She ends up in an ogre's house, but she is so pretty the ogre decides not to eat her. Still, fearing her mother's anger, she takes the seeds and falls into a death-like sleep. King Peacock finds her, and in his attempts to revive her finds the seeds between her front teeth.

The fanged king (Malaysia)

A cook accidentally serves a cruel king spinach tainted with blood - and once the king gets a taste of it, that's all he wants to eat. His incisor teeth grow long and pointy, and he demands to devour a person's blood every day. Eventually he is overthrown and exiled. In the wilderness, he marries a woman and has a child. Later on, the child becomes his successor. The exiled king eventually twists out his own fangs and throws them away, creating various landscape names.

The decoying of Kae (New Zealand)

This story is part of a larger one about Maui's sister Hina and her husband Tini-rau. Tini-rau has whale friends, among them Tutu-nui. When Hina and Tini-rau have a child, they invite a man named Kae to conduct his naming ceremony. After the ceremony Kae asks to borrow Tutu-nui for the voyage home - however, upon arrival he kills and eats the whale. A team of women sets out to track down and capture the murderer. Kae has two front teeth missing so he never smiles; the women resort to various tricks to make him laugh and pick him out of a crowd.

Dragon-child and Sun-child (Armenia)

A long and elaborate love story where a girl falls in love not once, but twice - first with a dragon-turned-prince, and then with a man cursed by the Sun. While saving the dragon prince she breaks a front tooth, and he replaces it with gold. Later on, after many adventures, he finds her again by that golden tooth.

Iváshko and the wise woman (Russia)

Iváshko is a boy who is lured into a trap by an evil witch. He manages to get away and climb a tree, but she starts gnawing it down. When her front teeth break, she has the smith make iron teeth for her again and again, gnawing on the tree. (The boy does get away in the end).

Quite a few different stories about love, happiness and adventure... Which one would make the best movie?

H is for Hands, Hair, Hips, Heels (Body Folktales)

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

(Yes, I am aware it's Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels, but it was low hanging fruit.)

HANDS

There were some obvious choices here that I'm omitting, such as Beaumains from Arthurian legends, or the folktale type of the Handless Maiden (which I really hate, except for one Hungarian variant).

Invisible Grandfather (Italy)

A girl sets out to seek her fortune, and ends up in an enchanted castle. She encounters no one except a floating pair of hands that serve her food and make her bed. The hands turn out to belong to Invisible Grandfather, who helps the girl secure a king as a husband - but when she doesn't follow his instructions, he curses her to grow a beard. Unusually for folktales, the curse is lifted by an apology.

The most beautiful hands in the world (Philippines)

A girl is proud of her beautiful, soft hands but refuses to do any work to help others. She mocks another girl for having rough, dirty hands. And yet, when that other girl helps a poor woman, she is rewarded with riches - and told that her hands are the most beautiful.

The legend of St. Kilda (Scotland)

According to legend, people from both Uist and Harris coveted the island of St. Kilda. They decided to have a rowing race, and agreed that whoever lays a hand on the island first will be its owner. As they neared the shore, people from Harris were winning - but the leader of the boat from Uist, Colla MacLeod, chopped off his left hand in the last minute, throwing it to the shore, and thus won the race.

HAIR

Hair is very common in folktales. Think Rapunzel, think the Devil's three golden hairs, think Lady Godiva, or The youth with the golden hair (ATU 314). From mythology, think Sif's golden hair, Sedna's tangled hair, Prince Zal's white hair, or the myth from Guam where women catch a monster fish with their hair. (If any more come to mind, sound off in the comments!)

I picked some lesser known, interesting examples:

The king's daughter who lost her hair (Akamba people, Kenya)

My favorite hair-themed story. A haughty princess goes bald from a curse, and sends people out to find a magic tree that grows hair. A young man travels far and finds the enchanted island where the tree grows; he brings back all kinds of hair for the princess.

The maiden with the red-gold hair (Hungary)

This is a "False bride" folktale where the false bride (forced into pretending by her mother) is treated surprisingly kindly. The story tells about a prince who is looking for a special maiden with red-gold hair, and an evil countess who disguises her own daughter to fit the description.

The raven-haired prince (Slovakia)

In a kingdom where everyone has red hair, a raven-haired prince is born. His parents try everything to change his hair color but nothing succeeds; eventually they send him abroad to try his luck. On his way home his servant blackmails him to swap places. After that, the prince goes through a series of dangerous quests, even dies and is revived, and eventually reclaims his rightful place. And his hair turns red.

The girl who became a bird (Hausa, Niger)

A very beautiful Cinderella variant where the prince falls in love with the girl when he sees her at the party in tattered clothes, and asks about her life. Later, her stepmother braids a charm into her hair and turns her into a bird; she is found and rescued by her brother and her husband.

The dragon prince (Spain)

A girl encounters an injured dragon in the woods, and helps him. Later she discovers he is an enchanted prince who can only be saved if someone creates a suit of golden hair for the giant who cursed him. The girl takes up service as a princess' handmaid, and begs her for her golden hair - but she has to promise her the prince's hand in exchange. Luckily, it turns out the golden-haired beauty is the dragon prince's sister, so our heroic girl gets to marry him in the end.

HIPS

Father and Daughters (Morocco)

This is a "Basil Maiden" type folktale, about a clever girl who saves herself and her sisters from the intrigues of a prince. When he tries to put sleeping powder in their food, she manages to stay awake and kicks the guy out of the house so hard he breaks his hip. Later on, disguised as a doctor, she shows up at court to treat his injury (and get up to more shenanigans). At the end of the story the prince is sentenced to death for trying to harm her, but she commutes his sentence.

The lazy beauty and her aunts (Ireland)

A "Three Spinners" type tale, where a lazy girl is taken to a prince's castle with her mother's promise that she can work miracles in spinning and weaving. Three mysterious old women show up to help her - one with large feet, one with a large nose, and one with wide hips (Cailleach Croman Mór, Woman of the Big Hips). Each in turn tells the prince that their shape is due to the hard work they had done all their life. Alarmed, the prince forbids his bride from working ever again.

HEELS

The most obvious example would be Achilles' heel, but I'm not going to repeat it. If you are curious about a lesser known myth about the same, you can find it in my book.

How mosquitoes came to be (Tlingit)

A giant keeps killing people and devouring their heart. A brave man pretends to be dead, and the giant takes him to his house. There, he discovers that the giant is unkillable because he keeps his own heart in his left heel. As he enters the house again, the hero plunges a knife in his heel, killing him. He then burns the body - and the ashes turn into the first mosquitoes.

How rice came to Earth (Indonesia)

A poor boy walks up to the heavens on the rainbow, following some fairies. There, he encounters rice for the first time, but he is forbidden from taking any of it. When he tries to steal some, he cuts his heel on the rainbow bridge while fleeing and gets caught. The second time, he hides some grains inside the healing wound on his heel, and smuggles them safely down to earth.

The soldier and the wizard (Russia)

The folktale version of a villain being brought down by his own monologuing. A soldier encounters a wizard at night in a cemetery and goes on a clandestine nighttime adventure with him. At one point the wizard takes blood from a young couple, and tells the soldier they can only be revived if someone cuts them on the heel and restores their blood. In the end, the soldier learns all the wizard's secrets, and kills him.

Did you have fun with the stories on this list? Do you have a favorite?

G is for Genitalia (Body Folktales)

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

CW: Adult themes incoming! Obviously.

You didn't really think I was going to do a theme like this without addressing the obvious, did you?

(Note: Some of these tales say 'vagina' instead of 'vulva'. It may be factually incorrect, but I didn't want to mess with the translations.)

Wandering genitalia (Saora people, India)
This story claims that in the old days genitalia could detach themselves and go wandering at night. One evening, the creator Kittung accidentally stepped on a vulva which made a squealing sound. Feeling sorry, he put the small creature into the river, where it turned into a turtle (the head is the clitoris). He then made non-detachable parts for people.

Clitoris legends (India)

This collection from India contains a whole collection of amazing stories about the clitoris. One creation myth claim that lightning was born from Earth Mother's clitoris, therefore it "flashes and sparkles as the clitoris does." Another story says a woman was fishing in a stream one day when a crab pinched her vulva; a deity told her to cut off the claw, and she will have as much pleasure from it as she had pain. A third story tells of a girl who was so busy working that she misplaced her clitoris; she borrowed one from a bird and never gave it back.

My favorite, however, is another tale that claims that body parts used to go wandering on their own. One day, the breasts picked a fight with the vulvas, and chased them all away into the mountains. Dismayed, men set out to bring the vulvas back, but they are skittish creatures and hard to find. By the time they got back, some old women died, and people were left with extra vulvas. They divided them up equally in smaller pieces - creating the clitoris.

The wandering vagina (Mehinaku people, Brazil)

Yet another story that claims that in days of old, genitalia could wander around. A woman named Tukwi had an "especially foolish" vagina that crawled around the floor at night, looking for something to eat. It got into the porridge and started slurping, awakening a man in the house who went to see what it was, and accidentally scorched it with a torch. The vagina fled back to Tukwi, who then warned everyone not to let their vaginas wander around.

Vagina dentata

If there is one folklore trope that a lot of people are (painfully) familiar with, it's this one: vaginas with teeth (F574.1.1). There are entire books written about the folklore and mythology of this trope, so I'm not going to get into it. But I'm going to highlight some favorites. 

One is a Khond legend from India about a woman who used to have shiny, fiery teeth in her vagina until her husband took them out with a cord. After a long life, when their children were grown, she found the teeth again, buried in the garden - and they turned into fireflies. Ever since, they have been allowed to take shelter in people's houses.

The other story is a Mongolian legend about the death of Genghis Khan. It claim that the great khan desired a gorgeous woman named Gürbeljin Ghoa (Lizard Beauty). He put her husband to death and forced her to marry him. On her wedding night, she hid blades in her vagina - and thus murdered Genghis Khan. (Source here.)

An origin story from the Makka people in Paraguay claims that in the beginning, no one could have sex with women because they had piranhas in their vaginas. A wise shaman organized a dance party where he made women dance so much that all the piranhas fell out. Or rather, almost all - the smallest one stayed in and still gnaw, which is why periods exist.

Penis, Vagina and Testicles (Cameroon)

Penis and Testicles are best friends and they go fishing together. On the way back they meet Vagina who asks for some of their fish. Penis is happy to share, but Testicles are stingy. Later on, in the hot season, Vagina happily offers shelter from the sun to Penis, but not Testicles. The latter still try to get as close as possible. (A similar tale is told in Ghana about Penis and Testicles sharing ground nuts with Vagina, and getting shelter from the rain.)

Kwazerema and helpful Ant (Kapsiki people, Cameroon/Nigeria)

A man has two wives, but treats one of them very poorly, making her fetch water from the river every day. The woman meets a Red And who takes pity on her, and gives her medicine to put into her water jar. The husband has a habit of urinating in her jar - but this time, as he does, his penis gets stuck in it. Not only can no one break the jar, it also keeps singing a mocking song. Eventually he begs his wife to undo the curse, and decides to treat her better. She thanks Red Ant for the help.

Kapo-kohe-lele (Hawaii)

In Hawaiian mythology, Kapo of the Flying Vagina is the sister of the volcano goddess Pele. In one legend, the pig-god Kamapua'a pursues Pele and tries to rape her, but Kapo comes to her rescue: she uses her detachable vagina to distract the pig, leading him away from the goddess. (This story is reflected in Hawaiian place names. Other source here.)

The vagina girls (Jicarilla Apache legend)

The hero Killer-of-Enemies goes through many adventures, battling monsters and shaping the world. On his journey he defeats a monster and meets his four daughters in a house full of vaginas. The four girls are themselves vaginas in human form, and they use their teeth to devour people. The hero feeds them medicine, taking the teeth away, and they lay down the ground rules of how vaginas shall work. He picks two from their collection and takes them home to two girls; people experiment with where to put them on the body until they settle on their current placing. The four girls go on to live good lives among the humans.

The three wishes (1001 Nights)

A man earns three wishes - and immediately uses the first one to wish for a larger penis. His penis grows to a gigantic size, at which point he panics and wishes for it to go away. It does, and now he has to use his third wish to get it back.

The four champions (Hausa tale)

Four friends acquire grain together: they break the corn on one's head, thresh it with one's penis, winnow it with one's mighty farts, and carry it home with one's scrotum. The question of the dilemma tale is: who was the most heroic of the four?

(14th century illustration)

I am somewhat worried about the comments section now. Also, my general search history and upcoming Facebook advertisements.

Have a nice Sunday break, everyone!

F is for Fingers (Body Folktales)

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

(Sorry, this image was low hanging fruit. Explanation here.)

Fingers, surprisingly, play a very dominant role in folktales. I had an abundance of stories to choose from, so here is a selection of the most interesting ones:

The Finger (Jewish tale)

If you have seen Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, this story will be familiar to you. You might even know it from Clarissa Pinkola Estés' Women who run with the wolves, although she has changed the story significantly from its folklore versions.

Joking around with his friends in the woods, a young man puts an engagement ring on a finger sticking out of the ground. Later on, when he is preparing for his wedding, a demon woman (or a corpse) suddenly appears with the ring on her finger, claiming to be his first bride. The case is brought before a rabbi, who proclaims that the demon can't claim a mortal as her husband, and declares a divorce.

There also a lesser known version of this tale, called The demon in the tree. In this one, a boy puts a ring on a finger sticking out of a tree's trunk, and unwittingly marries a demon. The demon kills all his brides, until the third one manages to survive. Not only that, but she comes to an agreement with the demon, first appeasing her with food, and then sharing her husband with her for one hour each day. After seven years, the demon leaves them alone for good.

(You can find other versions of this story here and here.)

The legend of Raja Nala (India)

Raja Nala makes the mistake of declaring that Truth is more important than Luck - and the goddess of luck, Lakshmi, abandons him. He loses everything in short order, and goes through many adventures until he is restored to his kingdom. Along the way, his son becomes engaged to a princess, but when he grows up, Raja Nala decides to marry him to two nymphs instead. The true bride tries everything she can to get her betrothed back, and the prince finally decides to elope with her. However, his wives are so jealous that they sleep every night holding his fingers in their mouth. The prince tricks them by making sheaths out of bark for his fingers, and he manages to quietly slip away.

(Other source here.)

The queen and the cobra (India)

A dog gives birth to two human girls, and raises them in the jungle. In time, the girls meet two princes and marry them, moving into the city. When the dog-mother comes visiting, one daughter is happy to receive her but the other is not. They get tangled in a web of lies and mistakes, until the kind princess wants to kill herself by sticking her finger in a cobra's mouth. Her finger dislodges a splinter in the snake's throat, and the grateful animal rewards her greatly for the help.

The ring (Spain)

This is a folktale version of Odysseus' adventure with the cyclops, but with a girl as the hero. At the end of the story the blinded giant tricks her into wearing a ring that always tells him where she is; to save her life and get away, the girl cuts off her own finger and throws it off a mountain.

Abram and Nimrod (Iran)

This legend is a Persian variant of some stories that may be familiar from the Bible. King Nimrod is told by fortune-tellers that a child will eclipse his own power, so he orders all newborns to be killed. A woman, Adna, hides her child in a cave. Whenever she visits to nurse him, she finds him suckling on his own fingers - one of which produces milk, and the other produces honey. The boy named Abram grows up fast, and soon faces King Nimrod himself.

A ladder of fingers

This is a motif (F848.2), rather than a single tale. There are many fairy tales and fairy tale variants where someone (usually a girl) cuts off her fingers to make a ladder to reach her goal. In a German tale, a girl seeking her brothers on top of a glass mountain cuts off her little finger to create the last step on her climb. In the Grimm version of the same, she uses her little finger to open the door. In a tale from Silesia, it's a boy looking for his sister who cuts off his finger to climb the mountain.

The other tale type that often contains this motif is the Magic Flight, where the hero has to complete impossible tasks with the help of his bride. In the Breton folktale of The Maiden in White, the hero has to climb a slippery tower and retrieve a dove. His bride tells him to cut her into pieces and boil her bones, which he then uses as a ladder. After, he puts her together again, but misses her little toe. Later on, de recognizes her in a challenge by looking at her foot. In The Green Man of Eggum from Newfoundland, the hero has to gt a golden ring off a glass pole fifty feet high. His bride tells him to hit her with an ax, and her bones turn into a ladder. On the way down he steps on a rung too hard, and her little finger breaks, becoming crooked. In the Welsh Traveler version of the same (The Green Man of Noman's Land), the girl wishes her fingers to become a ladder, and the hero breaks her little finger by stepping over it. The motif is very common in Celtic cultures, and has traveled over to America as well.

The same motif also appears in a German variant of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. The woman seeking her enchanted husband (a white wolf instead of a white bear) cuts off her finger to scale the glass mountain.

There are also many Christian legends about saints lighting things up with their fingers.

There are more stories that I could think of, but it's time to move on to the next letter.

Do any other examples come to mind?

E is for Elbows (Body Folktales)

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

I could have done Eyes or Ears for this one, but I accidentally ran into a folktale type that I really wanted to explore, so I went with Elbows instead.

Turns out that there are several variants of a story about villains who have sharp elbows in North American indigenous cultures (the motif number is G341). It sounded fascinating, so I dug into the various texts, and here is what I found.

Aiini (Menominee)

The protagonist of this story happens upon a mouse den with two mice sitting at the door. He can tell that they are not mice, however, but two old women with knives in their elbows, using an illusion to lure people in. Aiini pokes his bow through the door, ringing the alarm bells that make the women attack - and thus they accidentally stab each other to death with their elbow knives. (Other source here.)

The son of Aioswé (Cree)

Aoiswé wants to get rid of his son because the young man slept with his other wife. He abandons Aoiswé on an island. The rest of the story is about the young protagonist making his way back home, battling various obstacles conjured by his father, with the help of blessings conjured by his mother. One of the threats is a wigwam with two blind old hags who have sharp bones protruding from their elbows. Instead of sitting between them, the young man holds out a sheet of rattling parchment. The blind hags turn their backs to the parchment and begin stabbing at it with their elbows, until they stab each other to death.

The awl-elbow witches (Assiniboine)

In this story, two old women live together and stab visitors with the awls at their elbows. A man tricks them into sitting back to back and puts his blanket between them, so they stab each other instead of him. They also have other medicine he uses to make sure they don't revive.

Travels of Gloskap (Mi'kmaq)

Gloskap goes traveling, but eventually he decides to return home. On the way an old woman warns him that there will be many dangers along the way. He comes across two wigwams, both inhabited by an old woman who eats people. The second one is sharpening her elbow on a stone, making it as sharp and as awl, to stab him in the heart. Luckily, Gloskap has two dogs that guard him form every danger while he sleeps, so he gets away unstabbed.

Dreadnought (Shoshone)

A fearless young man goes on a journey. Various people warn him of various dangers, but he prepares for each one and powers through them. When he comes to a house with two old, sharp-elbowed women, he passes his blanket between them, and they stab each other through it. The young man takes their food and continues on his way.

The younger brother (Dakota)

A jealous older brother sends his younger sibling out to an uninhabited island and leaves him stranded. On the way back, the young man has to face various dangers. Among them, a bark lodge where two old women called Arm-awls live. He enters the lodge, but on the way out he throws his blanket first, and the old women stab each other through it.

Filcher-of-Meat (Ojibwe)

Filcher-of-Meat grows angry at his son because of the intrigues of his wife, and abandons him on an island. The young man makes his way home, encountering various perils and adventures on the way. One of them is a wigwam with two blind women with awls sticking out of their elbows. When he tries to leave, they move to the two sides of the door, so he touches them with his blanket, and they stab each other to death.

Ayase and the origin of bats (Ojibwe)

I worked my way through all the above versions of this story before I got to this one, and had an AHA! moment. 

In this story, after several people disappear, a man goes out to solve the mystery. He finds a house made of rocks, with skulls hanging in the doorway. He manages to get inside without rattling them, and finds two blind women with sharp pointed bones at their elbows. He hides inside the house while they look for him, and finally makes them stab each other by tossing his fur coat between them.

He then drags them outside and realizes they were monster-bats who ate people. He cuts up their bodies, and the pieces all transform into smaller bats, flying away.

ELBOW BONES! Now it makes sense...

Are you feeling the "aha" moment? Or did you call it ahead of time? :)

D is for the Digestive System (Body Folktales)

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

For today's topic, I researched folktales that feature the stomach, intestines, and the digestive system in general. Things, as expected, did get delightfully weird.

CW: intestines and bowels and whatnot

Hair's Revenge (Nigeria)

Back in the beginning of time, Hair and Stomach lived in the same town. However, while Hair went on a business trip, Stomach slept with all of his wives. When Hair found out, he started chasing Stomach, who begged a traveler on the road to shelter him inside his body. When Hair caught up, and heard Stomach shivering inside the man, he decided to guard the man's orifices so Stomach could never come out again. Ever since then humans have had hair around all their... exits. And ever since then, swallowing a hair makes our stomach revolt.

Kenkebe and the ant (South Africa)

A man named Kenkebe has an unfortunate habit of exchanging his body parts with animals. Once he exchanges his stomach for the stomach of an ant - which his wife discovers because he spills most of his dinner under the table since the ant stomach can't hold it. The wife orders Kenkebe to get his own body parts back.

A man's stomach (Lithuania)

This is a folktale type marked as 716 in the Lithuanian tale type index. It's about three men who go out into the woods and complain about always being hungry, and having to spend money on food. An old man shows up and offers to take their stomach out, hanging them in a tree. The men go home happily, with their problem solved - but they soon discover that life is no fun at all without eating, and return to the woods. They find their stomachs shriveled up, but the old man helps them undo the damage so they can eat again.

The Taoist in the otherworld (China)

There is an old Chinese legend about a Taoist who travels into the Otherworld and participates in a delicious feast. The fairies living in that world remove all his digestive organs, and that grants him eternal youth - so when he returns into the world of mortals, he finds himself younger than his grandchildren.

The kings of Madur Maskut (Khasi people)

The small but fierce kingdom of Madur Maskut constantly threatens its neighbors with invasion. Its greatest warrior is U Niang Raja, who goes around without bodyguards and is rumored to be impossible to kill. He is attacked and chopped up multiple times, but always returns. Finally, a neighboring king hires a beautiful woman to seduce the raja and find out his secret. It turns out that the prince keeps his soul in his intestines; when he bathes in the river, he takes the intestines out and washes them, then dries them on a rock. She betrays his secret, and the next time he goes swimming, assassins burn his intestines, killing him.

Which story is the weirdest? Did any of them sound familiar?

Don't forget to leave your links in the comments so I can visit back! :)

C is for Cheeks (Body Folktales)

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

(Image from here.)

Today we are talking about the other kind of cheeks.

Atdlarneq the Great Glutton (Greenland Inuit)

This story is about a hunter who keeps taking more food from the sea than he needs. One day he ends up in a house with three beautiful women. Soon the master of the house comes home: a man-like monster whose cheeks are made of copper. He'd a creature of legend, capable of causing great damage by bashing people with his copper cheeks. He forces the hunter to eat and eat and eat, and the hunter learns a lesson about not gorging himself ever again.

How an old man lost his wen (Japan)

A classic "gift of the fairies" tale with a Japanese twist. An old man with a large growth on his face comes across a group of oni (demons) having a party in the woods. He cheerfully joins in, and his dancing is so entertaining that the creatures want him to return the next day. They take the growth off his cheek, assuming it is something valuable that he'll surely return for. The old man has a mean and greedy neighbor with a similar growth, who takes his place the next night. He behaves so rudely that the demons give him the other growth as well, and he returns home with two.

The legend of Mongán son of Fiachna (Ireland)

This is a legend about an Irish hero named Mongán, son of the sea king Manannan Mac Lir. He unwittingly exchanges his wife for some cattle with a neighboring king, and then goes through various adventures to win her back (using trickery learned from his divine father). Finally he meets an old hag, and transforms her into Princess Ibhell of the Bright Cheeks, putting a love-charm on her cheeks that makes the old king fall in love with her. The king exchanges Mongán's wife for the bright-cheeked princess - and has a rude awakening the next morning when the spell wears off.

The Queen of Many Colors (Hungary)

This folktale begins with a queen who has a magic ability: the color of her cheeks changes every hour into a different shade (in some versions, she has seventy-seven different colors). She declares that her son may only marry a girl who has the same exact power. This kicks off a long quest for the prince, who completes tasks to win the only such princess in the world with the help of a friendly ghost.

Which story do you like the most? Do other cheeky stories come to mind?

Don't forget to leave your links in the comments so I can visit back!