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Tuesday, April 11, 2023

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?

7 comments:

  1. I think the first one and the Snow White one would make good movies.

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    1. I agree, Kristin, but would add the Dragon Child one.

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  2. Jamie (jannghi.blogspot.com):
    Interesting choice. The Snow White one is very Intriguing.

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  3. I read a fantasy story once where the wizards get their magic from their teeth. They're born with certain spells in each tooth, and they can only ever cast the spells that are in those teeth.

    Evil, enterprising people who want to be wizards will kill actual magic-users for their teeth. In this way, each tooth has to be destroyed to release the spell and so can only be used once.

    It was a pretty messed up story.

    I is for Inks

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  4. I liked the New Zealand one, except that the whale died. It would make a great revenge movie. :)
    Jemima

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  5. I think the Wonderful Brocade would make a great movie. I've read the story in a children's book that had a bunch of tales about fabric. Of your tales, I like the Peacock King one best - you know I love a goos story about atrange and magic seeds. :)

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  6. I'd love to see the Armenian story made into a film, since I'm an Armenophile, and I also love dragons. The New Zealand story also sounds like a great adventure.

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