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!

B is for Beards and some Buttocks (Body Folktales)

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

There are actually quite a few body parts that start with B, so I had a great time picking through some of the most interesting stories. I decided to delve into tales about two things: Beards, and Buttocks. Because I couldn't resist. Here we go.

How the White Man got his beard (Cheyenne)

A white man travels without food and, seeing rich green grass, wishes he was a buffalo so he could eat. He finds some buffalo and begs to be turned into one of them. They take pity on him, and, by running at him five times and tipping him over, they turn him into a buffalo. White-Man-Buffalo grazes to his heart's delight - but then another white man shows up and wants to do the same. White-Man-Buffalo doesn't like the idea of sharing, so he starts chasing the other man. Eventually, he tips him over... but instead of turning him into a buffalo, he himself turns back into his human form. Only the buffalo's beard remains on his face, and since that day, white men have beards.

The Cloak of Beards (UK)

Among the legends of King Arthur we find not one, but two instances of beards being symbolically important. In a fashionable sense.
Early in Arthur's reign, he is challenged by a Welsh king (giant) named Ryence who keeps defeating other rulers and sewing their beards to his cloak - a total of eleven. He demands Arthur's beard as well, suggesting he should save himself the trouble and tear it off, and promising it would have a place of prominence on the cloak. Sir Balin ends up fighting and killing Ryence and saving Arthur's honor. In some versions of the legend, Arthur himself defeats the giant, and takes the cloak - adding the giant's own beard - as his trophy.
Later on, Arthur also runs into the giant of Mont-Saint-Michel in Brittany, who has defeated 15 kings, and in homage the humiliated rulers gave him a Christmas present: a cloak embroidered with their beards and decorated with gemstones. Arthur, once again, wins the fight and beheads the giant.

The count's beard (Italy)

A village is terrorized by a witch that keep stealing cattle. The count that rules the village does nothing to stop her. The villagers turn to a small but very clever man who does some stellar investigating, Sherlock Holmes style, and figures out that the witch is actually the count himself, with his luscious beard pined up into a hairdo.

Anansi and the pharaoh's beard (Suriname)

Same story as the ears of King Midas, except in this case a pharaoh has a very long and strange beard that he tries to hide, killing everyone who finds out about it. Anansi, the spider trickster is the one who whispers the secret into a hole in the ground - and in time, a tree grows from the hole, whispering the truth.

Beware the red beard (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

A young man is warned by his dying father to beware red-bearded men. As he sets out to seek his fortune, he is soon cheated out of all his money  by a red-bearded innkeeper, and a red-bearded judge refuses to rule justly. Finally the young man encounters a red-bearded hodja; and although he doesn't trust the man at first the hodja manages to help him, and set everything right. Proving that not all red-bearded people are the same.

The spatula that makes buttocks sing (Japan)

A young man, by some luck, comes into possession of a magic spatula. If he rubs his buttocks with it, they begin to sing, and if he rubs them again with the handle, they stop. He finds a way to touch the butt of a rich man's daughter with this curious item, and her buttocks begin to sing day and night. The father pays him handsomely for curing his daughter's strange affliction.

The buttocks of Conan Mac Morna (Ireland)

One of my favorite episodes in the Fianna legend cycle is "The house of the quicken trees" (Bruighean Caorthuinn). In this story, some of the heroes of the Fianna are captured by an enemy prince. He invites them for a feast under false pretenses, and casts a spell that makes them all stick to their seats, unable to move. Some of the remaining heroes, outside the hostel, fight a fierce battle to protect their friends from an invading army, and procure the royal blood that can break the enchantment. Finally, they succeed.
However, by the time they sprinkle the blood on everyone, it runs out. Conan Mac Morna, the team's resident grump, is last in line, and there is no way to disenchant him, which makes him even more churlish (he tells Diarmuid, the rescuing hero and famous ladies' man "you wouldn't have left me for last if I was a pretty woman"). With no other course of action, Diarmuid pulls Conan from his seat by force, tearing off the skin of his buttocks. In some versions of the legend, the Fians mend Conan's injury with sheep skin - and after that, they have to shear him every year, procuring some fine wool in the process. (Sources here, here, and here.)
There is also another Fianna adventure that ends with Conan getting sheep skin on his butt, in a slightly more heroic fashion; you can read it here. 

From previous A to Z years, see my post about the Hungarian tale of Flowerbeard.

Which story is your favorite? 

Which one would make for the best movie adaptation? And in what genre?

A is for Anus (Body Folktales)

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

Yeah, I went there.

NSFW bodily functions ahead, ahoy! Although nothing sexual.

Here is the thing: Way more folktales feature anuses than you'd think. And many of them are very amusing.

(Let's not think about what this post will do to my search statistics.)

How the birds got their colors (Mocoví)

This story... keeps on giving. It begins with Fox getting into some sort of a fight, and accidentally landing butt-first on a tree branch. Because of this his anus becomes too big, and anything he swallows falls right out. To fix the issue, Fox asks the bees to plug up the hole with clay - a fix that is a little too successful, because now nothing comes out at all. When Fox begins to bloat, he asks Woodpecker to break the clay seal, and all the birds gather to watch the operation. The moment Woodpecker breaks through, things make an... explosive exit - splattering all the birds with the colors and patterns they wear to this day.

The parts of the body have an argument (Portugal)

Some of you may be familiar with the story of the argument between different parts of the body (also known in folktale terms as ATU 293: Debate of the Belly and the Members). It appears among Aesop's fables. In the well-known version, body parts all argue for their own supreme usefulness, and dismiss the stomach as lazy. But when the stomach stops digesting, all the other body parts start failing, until they admit the stomach is, indeed, useful. Moral A: Don't dismiss any member of a team without knowing their hidden talents. Moral B: Don't be angry at the ruling classes for being seemingly useless? Depends on what century the story was told in.
Anyway, there is another variant of this folktale type from Portugal where, instead of the stomach, the outlier body part everyone makes fun of is the anus. Everyone claims its useless. To teach them a lesson, anus decides to pucker up. With disastrous consequences, known to anyone struggling with severe constipation. Eventually, the body parts beg forgiveness and decide to vote anus MVP. Moral A: One a**hole can effectively ruin things for everyone. Moral B (worded by the folk tellers themselves): "In order to be a leader, it's not enough to think, you also need to be able to take a decent s**t."

The monster that devoured people (Kota people, India)

You thought man-eating monsters were bad? Meet Ponac, a terrifying creature from the stories of the Kota people. In the olden days, people didn't only have snakes, tigers, and elephants to worry about, they also had Ponac, who hunted humans, and devoured them whole - through his anus. He devoured ten to fifteen of them before a hero heard about what was going on, and set out to fight the creature with a sickle and a knife. When Ponac made an appearance, the hero held the sickle over his head and the knife pointing down to his feet, and thus he was crammed (their words, not mine) whole through the monster's anus. Once inside, he cut everything to pieces, and thus destroyed the creature. The village headman rewarded him with two wives.
Talk about true heroism.

Tafakula and the thieves (Tonga)

Tafakula is a deity in Tongan mythology with a very special... feature. In one story, some gods from Samoa visit an island under Tafakula's protection at night, with the intention of stealing one of the smaller islands from the lake on the larger island (islands within islands, people). As they are carrying the island away towards the east, Tafakula is notified by a subordinate deity of the theft. He stops the thieves in a spectacular fashion: he bends over and turns his anus towards them. Because his anus is "bright like the sun", the Samoans think they are seeing the sunrise, and drop their loot as they flee from the radiance. The discarded island can still be seen today.

Welcome to this year's A to Z Challenge! 

Don't forget to leave links to your blogs in the comments so I can visit ;)

The 2023 A to Z Blogging Challenge Theme Reveal

Can you believe it has been a year? The A to Z Blogging Challenge is approaching again! This is my 11th year participating. It is always great fun, and it has led me to many new stories, fabulous new blogs, and lots of discoveries.

In the past 9 years I've always had a theme:

Weird Princesses (2013)
Tales with Colors (2014)
Epics A to Z (2015)
Diversity A to Z (2016)
WTF - Weird Things in Folktales (2017)
WTF Hungary - Weird Things in Hungarian Folktales (2018)
Fruit Folktales (2019)
Folktales of Endangered Species (2020)
Tarot Tales (2021)
Gemstone Folklore (2022)

This year I once again wanted to do a "Mythology and Folklore" theme, but I was out of ideas. I was going to do constellation myths, but the research didn't really yield good stories and I was getting frustrated. Then I was going to go through the Hungarian Legends Catalog, but I felt meh about it. I even started collecting songs for a "Music and Folktales" theme, but realized I did not have the energy to do it justice this year, so I changed my mind again.

Finally, an idea dawned on me, and it sounded so simple and ridiculous that I knew it would definitely be entertaining:

BODY FOLKTALES!

I am going to be researching folktales featuring 26 different body parts.

Yes, those too.

Yes, that too.

Once I started thinking about it, I realized how many tales I already know that feature various parts of the body. I am sure you can think of some as well. Rapunzel's hair, Cinderella's feet, Bluebeard, The girl without hands... I decided to make a list of body parts, A to Z, and try to find some of the most interesting, least well-known, most fun stories about them. The research has been very entertaining, and I can't wait to share the results with you!

The theme is not "adult" per se, but I'll post warnings occasionally when necessary.

See you in April! ;)

Are you participating in A to Z this year? Are you doing a Theme Reveal? Share your link in the comments so I can visit you back!