T is for Tale of Sumiyoshi (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

Sumiyoshi Monogatari (The Tale of Sumiyoshi)
Japan

Monogatari literature is the Japanese equivalent of western narrative epics, with strong ties to the oral tradition (sometimes the word is translated as 'romance', as in 'medieval romances'). This story was written down in the 10th century by an unknown author, and exists in more than 120 manuscripts. It is also referenced in many later monogatari works. I read the first English translation from 1901 (see here). In translation, it is about 90 pages long.

There is also another, similar monogatari that follows the Cinderella trope.

What is it about?

TL;DR: It is often mentioned as a Cinderella tpye story. A noble girl's reputation is besmirched by her stepmother, so she flees and lives with a nun. Eventually, a young man who is in love with her manages to find her and bring her home.

A high-ranking official has two lovers: one is the daughter of a mighty samurai, and the other a daughter of a former emperor. He takes the latter for his wife eventually, and they have a beautiful daughter, Himegimi. However, when the girl is eight years old, her mother falls ill and dies. The father marries his other former lover, the samurai's daughter. Himegimi is put into the care of a kind foster-mother.

When Himegimi turns ten, her father takes her to his new home to meet his two new daughters, Naka-no-Kimi and San-no-Kimi. Himegimi is accompanied by her best friend Jiju, the foster-mother's daughter who is two years older than her. The girls get along very well, but the stepmother is jealous. The father wants to introduce Himegimi at court, but doesn't dare bring up the subject.

A few years later, a young and dashing major-general of the Emperor's bodyguards (and brother-in-law to the Emperor) is looking for a lady to marry. Intrigued by news of such a lovely maiden as Himegimi, he sends her a love letter. Himegimi blushes at the letter, but doesn't reply; the general keeps sending her letters, trying to solicit an answer. Eventually, the stepmother intercepts the messenger, and finds out what's happening. She comes up with the idea to substitute her own daughter, San-no-Kimi, for Himegimi. The mother tells the unwitting daughter that the letter is for her, and San-no-Kimi begins a correspondence with the suitor. Eventually he visits her, and since she is also quite pretty (not as much as Himegimi, though), he doesn't suspect anything, and they begin to court. Soon, the general stays over (with the mother's permission) in San-no-Kimi's room.

However, at night the general hears music played by Himegimi, and is enchanted. He asks San-no-Kimi who is playing, and she naivelly tells him about her older half-sister. The general realizes that he has been deceived (since he heard that Himegimi is a great musician). He goes to Himegimi's pavilion and gives a letter for her to Jiju. The girls read the letter, but Himegimi still refuses to reply, saying that it would ruin her reputation.

Some time later in the spring the three sisters go on an outing together. The general hears about this and hides himself out in the woods to spy on them. He manages to catch sight of Himegimi and see how lovely she is; she also notices him among the trees and feels attracted to him. However, the girls flee into their carriage from the strange man, and only converse with him in poems.

The general is now madly in love with Himegimi, who doesn't respond to his advances. He keeps visiting San-no-Kimi just to be near the family's house and Himegimi's pavilion. Eventually Himegimi's foster-mother (and Jiju's mother) dies, and the two girls are grieving for her in their pavilion when the general overhears them. Through the latticework, they talk all night, and Jiju manages to convince Himegimi to respond to his poems.

Meanwhile San-no-Kimi is missing her suitor, and she asks him to return to her. Taking pity on her, he realizes he can't leave her, even though he still loves Himegimi. At this point they are considered married. Meanwhile, the father wants to offer Himegimi to the emperor (as a handmaid, but maybe as a concubine by implication). Her stepmother, however, pushes for her being married to a nobleman instead, jealous that Himegimi might rise above her own daughters in station. When the father insists on taking Himegimi to court, the stepmother decides to ruin her reputation.

The stepmother, in cahoots with an old wise woman, sets up a ruse to convince the father that Himegimi has been sleeping with a lecherous priest. The father, disappointed, reproaches Himegimi, and gives up his plans to take her to the Emperor's court. Jiju and Himegimi figure out that he has been deceived, but they don't know how to fix the situation. The father decides to marry her off to an illustrious suitor, the son of an imperial court official.

The stepmother is still not satisfied. She makes a plan with the wise woman to have Himegimi kidnapped by a horrible scoundrel. A friendly handmaid wants Jiju and Himegimi in secret about the plan. The two girls decide to flee into the wilderness and become nuns together. They reach out to the former foster-mother of Himegimi's mother, who is already a nun at Sumiyoshi. She agrees to take care of them, so the two girls flee in the night.

Winter sets in. The sisters mourn for Himegimi, and she feels guilty and homesick. Eventually she sends a letter to her father with a poem expressing her sorrows, and that she had no choice but to flee from being ruined. San-no-Kimi tells the general about the letter, but nobody knows what place it was sent from.

Months pass. The general gets promoted (to lieutenant-general) but he is still grieving for the missing maiden. One day he goes to worship to the temple of Hatsuse... and meets Himegimi there. She tells him she is staying at Sumiyoshi, then vanishes. The general wakes from the dream, and realizes it must have been a sign, so he sets out alone to find her. Meanwhile at home Himegimi wakes up too, and confesses to Jiju that she dreamed about the young man and revealed to him where she is.

The young general reaches Sumiyoshi after a long and hard journey, and meets Himegimi. The nun convinces the girl to overcome her worries about reputation. Soon, the young couple decides to return to the capital together and get married. The general passes Himegimi off as a "country maiden". Himegimi wants to reach out to her family, but her husband is worried it would trigger revenge from her stepmother.

In time, the couple has two children, a boy and a girl. They keep their family secret, even though the husband quite often meets Himegimi's father at court, and sees him grieving. Eventually, when the boy is seven and the girl is five, the couple decides it is time to reveal themselves. They invite the old father to a family celebration, and show him an old dress of Himegimi, before revealing Himegimi herself. Everyone rejoices, and Himegimi tells her whole story.

The old man goes home and calls his wife on her wicked deeds. Then he packs up, and moves into the old home of Himegimi's deceased mother; the young general sends his own aunt to keep him company. The friendly maid moves in with Himegimi to be part of her household. Naka-no-Kimi and San-no-Kimi turn from their mother, hating her for her deeds. Naka-no-Kimi is also angry that her own reputation is besmirched by her mother's wickedness; Himegimi invites her into her own home to fix her reputation - because now it is generally known who the "country bride" really is.

All is well if it ends well. Himegimi's children become powerful people; Jiju becomes head of the household and also later an attendant to the Emperor. The stepmother lives her days in infamy, and the woman who helped her becomes a beggar.

The highlights

I loved it that in this story, the stepsister was neither ugly nor evil. She was deceived by her mother, and innocently dragged into the plan. When the general found out that she was not the real lady he wanted to court, he felt "that pity which is kin to love" for her. Similarly, when the girls encountered the general out in the open, it was Naka-no-Kimi who helped Himegimi overcome her shyness and respond to his poems. When Himegimi fell into despair after being accused of an affair, and planned to flee, her half-sisters came to her to comfort her and support her, with kindness in their heart. On her way to exile, she missed her "tender-hearted" sisters. The girls labeled their mother "cruel and hard" for treating Himegimi badly. All in all, this was a Cinderella story with a set of kind, loving stepsisters. Even the father, who believed Himegimi had ruined her reputation, was a caring figure full of sadness, instead of the raging and cruel (or absent) fathers of folktales. Before she returned, he already realized that she could not have done the things she had been accused of.

I also liked the close friendship between Jiju and Himegimi. Jiju took good care of her friend, and when her mother died Himegimi took care of her in turn. I liked the part where Jiju helped Himegimi compose her poems in response to the general. It was good to see a strong female friendship in this story.

I loved the description of Sumiyoshi and the nun's home. It was full of rich descriptive detail; I especially liked the mention that he house extended over the incoming tide from the shore, so fish could be seen when one looked down between the floor boards. In the winter, "reeds withered by the rime were all matted fast together, and among them the waterfowl in pairs were preening the frost from the coverts of their wings." There were other vivid descriptions in the text too: Himegimi is often compared to the tender flower-buds of the lespedza, and the flowers of the golden lace. I also loved the descriptions of colorful dresses when the three sisters went on an outing - red and purple, yellow and green, and (for Himegimi) cherry blossom pink.

THIS STORY SHOWS DIVERSE POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WOMEN.

What can this tell us about other Cinderella type stories? Or women's stories in general?

R is for Repunnot-un-kur (Women's Epics A to Z)

This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.

Woman's epic: Repunnot-un-kur
Ainu

This story is another epic song collected from the Hokkaido Ainu at the beginning of the 20th century (I already wrote about one for L earlier). It was also told by Hiraga Etenoa in 1932 (see picture below). A shorter version was collected and published in Russian by Nikolai Alexandrovich Nevskii in the 1920s, informant not named. 

Repunkur (like the villain of this story) were "people of the sea", enemies who lived to the north - referring, likely, to the Okhotsk people (a culture that flourished on the Hokkaido seashore around 700-1200 AD). Some of the epics refer to events and ways of life dating all the way back to the 7th century.

I read the epic from this collection. It was literally titled Woman's Epic: Repunnot-un-kur.

What is it about?

TL;DR: A woman raised in captivity is rescued by a bear. The bear takes her home to her lost family. When the bear later turns into a god, he returns to marry her.

The woman who is the narrator of the story is raised by her "foster-brother" called Repunnot-un-kur in the land of the repunkur (since the story is narrated in the first person, we don't actually find out her name until much later, so the epic is named after the villain). The man one day brings home a bear cub that they raise together for three years. When it is time to release the bear, Repunnot-un-kur decides to travel to Japan to trade for Japanese wine for the releasing ritual. While he is gone, the woman takes good care of the bear.

When Repunnot-un-kur returns, instead of going home he goes to the house of a relative, and feasts there for six days. The woman hears the sounds of merriment. The bear does too, and it becomes aggressive, refusing to eat. Eventually the woman has a dream in which a boy in dark clothes comes to her, and tells her the truth: she does not belong in the land of the repunkur. She is the daughter of the ruler of Shinutapka in the land of the Ainu. When she was a baby (carried on her mother's back) her parents took a sea voyage and ended up in the land of the repunkur. They fought a great battle. Her father was killed, and her mother was captured by shamanesses. Repunnot-un-kur stole the baby, planning to raise her and then marry her. He was planning on taking her as a wife once the bear was released. At this point we find out that the narrator's name is Shinutapka-un-mat.

Meanwhile, a woman meets Repunnot-un-kor on shore (evidently jealous of the captive girl) and tells him what while he was gone Shinutapka-un-mat had a forbidden relationship with the bear. Angry at the news, Repunnot-un-kur goes to the woman's house instead, drinking and reveling with her for six days. They plot to kill the captive girl together on the seventh day. In the dream, the boy tells Shinutapka-un-mat all this. He also reveals that he is, in fact, the bear, intent on rescuing her.

At dawn, when Shinutapka-un-mat is ready, people approach the house to hill her. The bear cub bursts out of his cage, and she follows. An entire army comes against them but the bear tears through them, and he destroys the village of Repunnot. After that, he promises to take her back to her homeland. Shinutapka-un-mat travels across the sea on the bear's back. When they arrive to the mainland, the bear warns her that the village they are approaching might have people who heard about Repunnot, and think they are killers and unnatural lovers. When they are indeed attacked, the bear lays waste to the village.

Finally the bear leads Shinutapka-un-mat to a steep crag, and a large house on top of it. They sit down outside until a handsome man emerges and notices them. The man respectfully greets the bear with a gift, and the bear motions to Shinutapka-un-mat to go inside first before he follows. The man questions them about who they are. Here, the narrator recounts the entire story of what happened up to this point (tactfully omitted by the translator). When she is done, the lord of the house, so far wrapped in mist and silence, stands up. They two men announce that they are Shinutapka-un-mat's brothers.

Kamui-otopush, the elder brother (but not the lord of the house), tells her that he had been weak, not following his parents but rather staying home to raise his "divine nursling" younger brother. He had been planning on going to war after his parents once his duty was done. With all this revealed, the siblings put the bear in a cage and continue raising it with great reverence and care.

After a few years, the brothers decide it is time to set the bear (their "weighty god") free - which means they are preparing to kill him. (In tradition, this was the ascension of the bear, turning into a god). The celebrations and the feasting commence. When Shinutapka-un-mat realizes she is about to lose the bear she cries bitter tears. The bear once again appears to her in the form of a young man, telling her that if she wants to save him, she should not eat anything at the celebrations, or even lick her fingers.

During the celebrations the head of the bear is brought inside the house, and the woman serves him food, but she never eats anything. After the celebrations are done, life returns to normal. However, some time later, a handsome, radiant stranger enters the house: the same young man Shinutapka-un-mat had seen before. He tells his story: after the ritual, he ascended to the gods, to his father's realm, and announced that he wanted to marry "the mortal woman." His father told him that if he wants to marry a mortal, he has to go and live with mortals. So he did.

The brothers agree to the marriage, as they see it as a great honor. They build a separate house for their sister and her new husband. The couple moves in there, and the end is even more powerful and beautiful because it is narrated in the first person:

"Since then, I have been living together with the exalted hero inside the separate house east of the stronghold. We are living on and on uneventfully. Since I am married to a most weighty god, I have nothing to worry about, and I am leading a magnificent married life. My wedded husband does nothing but carve on scabbards, carve on treasures, with his eyes focused on a single spot, and this is the way we live on and on uneventfully."

The highlights

Everything about this epic is quite beautiful: the story as well as the language. I only read it in English translation, but even so, it was full of rich detail. The first-person narration made it sound a lot less like a recited epic, and a lot more like a personal narrative full of realistic moments.

See some lovely examples:

"After I had finished dressing, by this time the first faint signs of dawn began to appear. Just then many people could be heard running up the road with a noisy tumult. Just then, the angry growling of my bear-cub could be heard faintly. At the same time, there was a crash as he broke out of his cage."

"It was a human man of such majestic beauty as I had never before seen. His hair was curly hair, magnificent hair stretching out over his head. Many streams of glistening water. Coundess streams of glistening water went trickling down amidst his hairs. The tips of his hairs went out into curls, went out into ringlets."

"Stacks of sacred vessels were stretched out like a low cliff. Above them hung noble swords, with their many sword handles, their countless sword handles overhanging each other, their dangling tassels swaying together. The brightness of the treasures, the brightness of the vessels glittered brightly and cast shadows on the walls."

Clearly, the best part of this whole story is the tender relationship between the girl and the bear-god. It is even better when one reads the details in which it is described. The way the bear talks to her the first time, before their escape:

"You must go outside and stick closely behind me. No matter what I do, do not be afraid of me. Stick closely behind me, closely by my side. Only if you do this will your life be saved!" 

"Then this is what my bear-cub did. My bear-cub dived head first into the midst of these crowds of people. After that he wound and twisted himself like a soft hoop [made of vines] in the very midst of these crowds of people... He raged fiercely all around me."

"After that my bear-cub seemed to be very tired. He threw himself down and was trying to catch his breath. During this while I was shedding many sparkling teardrops, countless sparkling teardrops. After a while, the sound of my bear-cub's breathing came to my ears sounding like many words being spoken, like coundess words being spoken... These words I heard in the sound of his breathing."

(It is clear from the text that the bear doesn't actually talk. Whenever it communicates, it is either in a dream, or through gestures; but in this instance, the narrator reads his breathing as words, which is quite beautiful. Incidentally, when they arrive to the brothers' home, the brothers actually talk to the bear first, greeting him as a god, and apologizing for aiming their questions at the girl... only because she is a human and she can actually talk.)

There were two more small moments that stood out to me:

1. When the bear-god returns after his ascension, bursting into the house like a ball of light... but then he sits by the fireplace and "... He remained for a while staring fixedly down into the middle of the hearth. Then he spoke these words." There is a moment of stillness, tension, and contemplation before the bear-god tells everyone why he came back.

2. When the bear-god proposes, the brothers reply: "Our younger sister, though she is unattractive, though she lacks beauty, has come back to us thanks to the weighty god." I can't quite tell if this is them being modest, or if this is them stating facts. I kind of like the idea that our narrator is not actually a gorgeous woman. And yet, she gets her happy ending.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Y is for Yoke (Body Folktales)

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

Alright fine, this letter was hard. Yoke is a term used in body building for the neck, trapezius muscles and deltoids together. So, I basically just went with neck. Sue me.

Edao plays hide and seek (Marshall Islands)

Edao is the resident trickster of Marshallese folklore, famous for dirty jokes and shapeshifting abilities. There is one story where he repeatedly tricks his brother Jemaluit by transforming into various things (such as into a tree which lets Jemaluit fall when he climbs it). Finally, he bends over and transforms himself into a palm tree, with his anus serving as a water hole in the tree. Jemaluit, feeling thirsty while walking in the woods, sticks his head in the water hole to drink... at which point Edao clamps down on his neck. He eventually lets go and they both laugh - but people's necks have been narrower than their head ever since. Just so you know.

The guru and his disciple (Mauritius)

A guru and his disciple visit a foreign country where the king is doing justice all wrong. He first wants to punish an old woman because her house accidentally falls on some thieves breaking in, and then changes his mind and wants to punish the builder of the house. However, the builder's neck is too thin for the hangman's noose, so the king orders his men to find someone whose neck fits the noose and hang them instead. They arrest the guru's disciple - but the two clever men manage to find a way to survive, and trick the cruel king into being hanged instead.

Rokurokubi (Japan)

Rokurokubi is the name of a female yokai who can stretch her neck to great length, allowing her head to wander around freely at night (sometimes without the woman realizing this while awake). Sometimes the head hunts animals, sometimes it licks the oil out of lanterns, and sometimes it just scares people.

Jacob and Esau (Bible)

The story of Jacob and Esau in the Book of Genesis is a story of sibling rivalry. After Jacob cheats Esau out of their father's blessing, the brothers part ways for several years before they meet again. Their reunion is described as a preparation for battle that turns amicable when Esau runs to Jacob to embrace and kiss him. However, Talmudic sources have a different explanation for the same moment: they claim that Esau tried to bite his brother in the neck and suck his blood. In a moment of miracle, Jacob's neck turned "hard as ivory" or marble, making Esau's teeth "melt like wax." Instead of weeping for joy, they wept in anger and pain. (I am sure there is vampire fan fiction about this somewhere.)

O is for Optic Organs (Body Folktales)

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

Yeah yeah, I'm cheating, but I used E for Elbows.

Eyes are also a very common theme in folktales; I have blogged about them in various contexts before (such as eye juggling, fairy eyes, and a cat-eyed princess). So once again, I went around cherry-picking stories that sounded new and fun.

The pelican bird (Hungary)

This story begins with a king whose eyes are doing different things: one is always crying, and one is always smiling. One smiles because he has a lovely daughter and one cries because he used to have a magic pelican bird that he lost. The princess announces that she'll only marry a man who can return the bird. Of course a hero presents himself and goes through many adventures for it. The motif of laughing and crying eyes is very common in Hungary; people often quote it when they talk about being sad and happy about different things at the same time.

Rabbit's eyes (Korea)

The king of the fishes falls ill, and he can only be cured by eating the eyes of a live rabbit. He sends a turtle to lure a rabbit into the sea. When the rabbit finds out why he's there, he bluffs, saying he's left his real eyes at home, and he's wearing glass substitutes. Thus, he tricks the turtle into bringing him back to shore.

The witches' eyes (Mexican-American tale)

A man is good friends with two elderly sisters whom everyone else believes to be witches. He doesn't listen to the rumors, and visits them almost every day. He notices that there are cats around the house at night, even though the women claim not to have any. One night he goes over to the house and finds no one at home - but he stumbles across two pairs of human eyes left out on a stool by the fire. He knocks over the stool, and the eyes burn. The next day when he comes to visit, the women are hostile towards him - and he notices they have cat eyes, sensitive to the light of day. He flees, and soon after the sisters move away from town.

Shirime (Japan)

This creature is a yokai, a supernatural being featured in Japanese anecdotes. It stops people walking at night, bends over, and flashes its anus at them - an anus that has one large eye staring out of it. That's it. That's the story.

The sandalwood merchant (Arabic tale)

A sandalwood merchant stumbles into a town where everyone is a cheat and a rogue (in some translations it's called Falsetown). He runs into various people who trick him, until he is brought to court by all the rascals demanding money from him. An old woman helps him out with advice. One rascal, who only has one eye, claims the merchant took his other eye, and demands an eye in return. The merchant, following the woman's advice, tells him he is willing to give up an eye - but the rascal should take out his own first, so they can measure both and make sure they match. (Read more about versions of this story here.)

The children with one eye (Canada)

This is an indigenous story from Canada, but sadly the source doesn't note which nation it belongs to. It's about two children who blind themselves by accident. An old woman gives them an eye they can share, but warns them to take good care of it. Brother and sister pass the eye back and forth, but eventually one day they get into an argument, the brother throws the eye at his sister, and it falls to the ground where a bird snatches it up. After that, the two blind children turn into a mole and a bat.

Sharing and ransoming eyes

This one might be familiar to you from the story of Perseus: three old women, the Graeae, share one eye between them that they pass around (the Disney movie Hercules combined them with the Fates). The motif number is F512.1.2. - Three women have one eye among them. Surprisingly, this motif shows up in a whole lot of folktales around Europe. 

La Maga is an Italian folktale version (from Tuscany) of the Perseus myth, complete with an evil sorceress, and a hero who steals an eye from two women to ransom it for a mirror that can help him kill her. In a German tale Rinroth a boy climbs a tree and from there spies three men who share one eye between them. As they are trying to see who's in the tree, he snatches the eye from them, and only returns it when they give him three valuable gifts (that he uses later on to kill three giants and rescue a princess). In the Norwegian tale Lillekort a boy encounters two one-eyed women separately, takes their eyes, and blackmails them into giving him magic objects (that he also uses to defeat three trolls). Another version of the same, titled Shortshanks, has the hero similarly steal eyes from two separate old women; what makes this tale more interesting is that the hero has a twin brother who is stronger than him, and only returns at the end of the story. The most fun one I found was yet another Norwegian version, The trolls in Hedale Wood, in which two brothers did not only outwit three trolls that shared one eye, but also managed to use that large eye to see in the dark.

(Read more about this motif in general here and here.)

Were any of these stories familiar to you? Are there other "eye" stories that come to mind?

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?

StorySpotting Extra: Folktales of Elsa and Naruto

StorySpotting Extra is a new thing I just invented: a report from an actual gig where I got to use my pop culture experience. Because I like sharing fun moments when theory gets put into practice.

This summer, luckily, we got to have our camps with the Világszép Foundation where I work full time as a storyteller. We take children who live in the state care system to our campsite in beautiful Paloznak for a week (per age group, seven camps total) filled with games, adventures, and storytelling. The latter is very important: we tell stories every night - yes, even to the teens, and they get lullabies too! -, and sometimes in the mornings. Kids who have known us for years look forward to these events, and some of them like to give me requests for what kinds of stories they would like to hear. While the "official" stories are selected in advance, there is always ample time in the afternoons and evenings for some extra storytelling. This year, I got two requests: they wanted "Naruto stories" and "Elsa stories." 

The quest was on.

It is always a precious chance for a storyteller to connect to her audience through their fandoms. We can learn a lot from the stories and characters that kids these days are invested in. It is even better if it is a fandom we happen to share: Naruto and anime culture was a part of my childhood too, and I also adore Frozen.

I spent the next few weeks with intensive research. Elsa seemed like the easier ask of the two, since it is a fairy tale adaptation (although pretty far from the original). However, I have never liked Andersen's Snow Queen, and did not want to tell it. Instead, I looked for other tales about powerful women with cryokinetic abilities who are portrayed in a positive light. Suddenly, the search got a lot harder... I returned to one of my old favorites, the legend of Queen Virignal from the medieval German Dietrich cycle. I also tracked down a gorgeous picture book titled Snow Princess, by Ruth Sanderson. This latter is a retelling of a classic Russian folktale, not very close to tradition, but it does have a happy ending (which was very important to me). An American friend helped me track down a copy in time, so I could head out to camp with two "Elsa" stories in my repertoire.

Naruto turned out to be the easier of the two. I started with brushing up on my Japanese nine-tailed fox folklore, which I'm very familiar with from earlier trickster research. Teens and middle schoolers can handle longer, more complex stories, so I added the legend of Tamamo-no-Mae, a fox lady who brought down several dynasties over the centuries, and kept hopping from kingdom to kingdom until he was imprisoned in a rock in Japan, and convinced to change her ways. In addition, a previous StorySpotting article led me to the legend of Jiraiya, a famous ninja whose story inspired several characters and elements of Naruto. It is an epic tale with giant frogs, evil snake demons, and thrilling battles.

All the research was absolutely worth it. The kids asked for the ninja stories right on the first day of camp, and it turned out more than one of them were Naruto fans (I don't know if it's playing on Hungarian TV again, or if it's Boruto nostalgia, who knows). The Jiraiya legend found its perfect audience. I spend more than half an hour telling it. Sometimes we stopped the story and discussed how it had been adapted into the anime, what changed and what stayed the same. We also played with the idea of the legend's rock-paper-scissors concept, where giant toad beats giant slug, giant slug beats giant snake, giant snake beats giant toad. It was very amusing.

The other ninja story was told the next evening. It also took a good half hour while Tamamo-no-Mae rampaged her way across Asia and reached the final battle. After the story, we looked up photos on my phone about the places (and the rock) mentioned in the legend. By this point, the kids got so ninja-happy that they made up a whole ninja movie for their filming workshop. It was an instant blockbuster.

The Elsa stories hit a more personal note. A girl had asked for them in advance, and when we arrived at camp she checked to see if I had them. I told Virginal's legend just to her, sitting on the living room couch. She listened in rapt attention. This legend is very male-focused, but it did not need much creative finagling to focus on the character of the Queen of the Mountains instead. I really enjoyed retelling it from a different point of view, and found new things in the story even though I have worked with it before. 

The second story found itself an even better context. At the end of the week we could bid for pictures taken in the photo workshop by the kids. I bid my dessert for one, and for another, I bid the second Elsa story to the same girl. I got to tell it the last morning before the end of camp, just to her. She loved the Snow Princess, and noticed things in the story that I did not. It was a lovely, personal storytelling experience. And I got a lovely photo for it.

There kinds of "gigs" are my favorite. They have everything I love about storytelling: personal connection, cozy moments, enthusiastic listeners, traditional tales, and geeking out over shared fandoms. I can't wait to see what themes they will ask for next...

Tarot Tales: M is for The Magician

Welcome to the 2021 A to Z Blogging Challenge! My theme this year is Tarot Tales. I am making a selection of folktales, legends, and other traditional stories that correspond to tarot cards. Storytelling and tarot go well together. Do other stories come to mind? Let me know in the comments!

The card: The Magician

Meanings: This card speaks for itself. It is about power, knowledge, energy, and action. This person has all the tools and resources to turn ideas into reality. He is a master of what he's doing. It is a card full of confidence. He's got this.

Selection process: World folklore is teeming with magicians of all kinds - this was another one of those too many to choose from situations. Once again it would have been easy to pick Merlin. I wanted to pick someone equally legendary and powerful, but from outside of Europe.

The story: Abe no Seimei

Origin: Japan

Abe no Seimei in a game 
called Onmyoji

Summary: Abe no Seimei is a very famous onmyoji (diviner and magician) in Japanese lore, who was originally a real historical figure from the 10th century. There are many legends about him, and he's even transferred into popular media. 

According to the stories, Abe no Seimei was only half human: his mother was a kitsune, a fox spirit, who fell in love with a mortal man. Their son had supernatural powers from an early age, he could see hidden things (like his mother's true nature), and command spirits. When he grew up, he became a powerful diviner and magician. He even understood the language of animals.

In one story, Abe no Seimei saves the emperor from a fox maiden named Tamamo no Mae, who lives in his court in the disguise of a concubine, and makes the emperor sick. In another legend, he helps the samurai Watanabe no Tsuna in defeating a terrible demon. 

One of the most famous legends, however, deal with the divination duel between Abe no Seimei and his rival Ashiya Douman. Over the course of this challenge, Abe no Seimei even summons a dragon, and with its help creates a flood that almost drowns his rival. Later, they both have to guess the contents of a box that was buried. Douman guesses correctly (fifteen oranges), but Abe no Seimei guesses fifteen rats... and then uses his powers to turn the oranges into rats. 

Sources & notes: See the links above. You can also read about Abe no Seimei in this fascinating book.

Runner-ups: I was also seriously considering Vergilius (who in medieval legends transformed from Roman poet into a powerful wizard), Taliesin the Welsh bard, Don Juan de Salamanca the Spanish wizard, a host of Icelandic wizard legends, the red princess' story from Nizami, Kampó the Hungarian wizard, and even Prince Ariel from Madame D'Aulnoy's fairy tales.

Who is your favorite wizard or magician from folklore, from history, or from modern popular culture?

Kitsune, tanuki, and other Japanese classics (Following folktales around the world 184. - Japan)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Japanese folk tales
Yanagita Kunio
Tokyo News Service, 1954.

The book contains 108 Japanese folktales from a national folklore collecting campaign, the story of which we find out from the short introduction. The foreword talks to the younger generations especially, explaining the working and the importance or oral tradition in simple terms. The tales included in the book are common Japanese types that appear in various regions in one shape or another. Their titles are given in Japanese as well as Latin letters, and in most cases the city or region of collection is also noted. Cultural references and Japanese words are explained in footnotes. Stories are arranged by similarity, with multiple variants of the same type following each other.

Highlights

I really liked The mountain spirit's quiver, in which a blind musician was lost in the mountains, and for his beautiful songs the mountains spirit took care of him in magical ways. I also enjoyed the legend of Kosai Osho and the sea turtles, which reminded me of the Greek myth of Arion: a kind priest saved large turtles from fishermen, and the turtles saved him when pirates attacked his ship. Another grateful animal featured into the story of Monkey Masamune, where two kind messengers rescued a monkey from an octopus, and received a valuable antique sword in exchange.

I liked magical transformation stories, like the one where a pine tree turned into a girl named Matsuko, and went on pilgrimage; or the one where a talking snapping turtle warned the fisherman that caught him that he would be back home in the lake soon enough.

There was a beautiful story about an old man who received a magic hood, one that allowed him to understand the language of plants and animals. He discovered a tree stump under a house that could not die but could not grow either, and found out that its tree-friends visited it every night to give words of sympathy and encouragement. 

Dragons featured into multiple stories. In one, a samurai was invited by the Dragon King of the sea to help him defeat a giant evil serpent - and in exchange given a bell for his temple. And of course there is no Japanese folklore collection without yokai. Yama-haha, for example, is a demon disguised as a mortal woman, with a giant mouth in the back of her head. Her husband had to get rid of her by trickery (and with the use of some flowers). 

The book had the classic, lovely story of the Jizo statues and their New Year hats, and also one of my favorite tales, about the Rice dumpling that rolled into the Underworld. Here, an old many followed the dumpling and became rich - but his jealous neighbor did not fare similarly well at all. After many years I finally found here the folktale version of the Three strong women picture book, about a supernaturally strong girl named Oiko, who trained a wrestler for his championship.

I liked the touching story of the old man who came across the skeleton of a girl in a spring meadow, and helped the girl's spirit find her family and eternal peace.

Connections

The tale of the monkey, the cat and the rat was an Aladdin-style magic ring story. The monkey bridegroom resembled Beauty and the Beast... up to the point where the bride pushed the persistent monkey husband into the river from a bridge. There was a Cinderella variant (Komebukuro és Awabukuro) that I especially liked because the girl was helped by her friends in completing the stepmother's task.

There was a version of the story where someone exchanges useless things for exponentially more useful ones (starting with a piece of straw), and also multiple "dream sold" tales, with bees or dragonflies crawling out of sleeping people's mouths. A "fairy gift" tale featured two old men, one showered in gold and one showered in pitch, and also two priests who danced with demons at night (the nice one got his birthmark removed, and the mean one had it doubled). 

There were many familiar trickster tales in the book. The "tail fishing" trick was played by a bear on a monkey (that's why monkey tails are short). The monkey's liver is probably one of the most often recognized Japanese folktales (and it also explains why jellyfish have no bones). Animal races happened between a badger and a mud snail (the snail won), and also between a monkey and a bullfrog. The latter was funny because they were both chasing a pot of pastry rolling down a hill, but the monkey didn't notice that the pastry fell out of the pot, so the slow frog got to eat it. There was also a version of the story where a bunch of people pass a dead body around, here with the help of a trickster named Clever Yasohachi. 

Naturally, the collection features many kitsune and tanuki tales (the latter is mistranslated as badger). I loved the one where a priest named Kongo-in startled a fox as a joke - and in revenge the fox make other priests believe that Kongo-in himself was a fox in disguise. In another tale a man was so confident that he couldn't be tricked by a fox... that the foxes used this to trick him, and before he knew it, he took priestly vows and shaved his head. There was also a cute story about a beginner fox who tried to disguise himself as a samurai, but his face remained hairy - and in the end he laughed about it together with the humans. I enjoyed the tale about the two tanuki who had a contest of illusions - and one of them mistook an actual royal parade for an illusion.

Where to next?

North Korea!

D is for Dugongs (Folktales of Endangered Species)

Welcome to the 2020 A to Z blogging challenge! This year my theme is Folktales of Endangered Species. I am researching cool traditional stories about rare, fascinating animals - to raise awareness of what we might lose if we don't get our collective shit together. Enjoy!

Species: Dugong (Dugong dugon)

Status: Vulnerable (local populations, like the group around Okinawa, are critically endangered)

The Mermaid and the Tsunami

Okinawan legend

Legend says that on an evening like any other more than two hundred years ago, a fisherman from Nobaru village on Ishigaki Island caught a dugong in his net (dugongs around Okinawa are often called "mermaids"). The dugong begged him to let her go, and feeling sorry for her, the fisherman complied. Once she was freed, the grateful dugong told him there was a terrible tsunami approaching.
The fisherman ran home and quickly evacuated his village, sending a messenger to the nearby Shiraho village to warn them as well. The people of Shiraho however did not believe the hearsay of a dugong, and they stayed put. At dawn the terrible Meiwa Tsunami hit the island, and destroyed the villages. The people of Nobaru, thanks to the kindness of the fisherman and the warning of the dugong, were safe up in the mountains.

(In another story the dugong is caught by people and roasted, and while being roasted it calls a tsunami down on the village in revenge.)

Sources: Find information about this story here or read example stories here.

How can I help?

Join the petition to save the Okinawa dugongs here, and find more information about conservation efforts here.

Have you ever seen a dugong (or a manatee) in real life before?

Do you know any stories about them?

MythOff Budapest: Bestiary

Fall is here, and it was time to have another MythOff in Budapest! We met at our usual place, the Premier Kultcafé, to tell myths to adults (although this time we also had three very attentive children, under parental supervision). The evening was themed Bestiary, and we all brought stories that involved legendary animals and mythical creatures. It seemed to be a popular idea: we had more than seventy people in the audience!
The emcee of the evening was Nagy Enikő, who made sure everything went smoothly and well. Here is the rundown:

Round one: Beasts in the family
This round featured myths where the creatures formed a part of the family. Varga-Fogarasi Szilvia told the story of Greek creation, from Chaos to the rise of the Olympians. Hajós Erika told a melancholy Japanese story about a kitsune and her love for a moral man. 
Voting question: Which myth would you name your music band after?
Winner: Japanese mythology, and a theoretical punk band named Fox Fur Smell

Round two: Female beasts
This round had two myths were women turned into mythical creatures - and both of them from Greek mythology. Klitsie-Szabad Boglárka brought us the story of Medusa with wit and humor, while Bumberák Maja told the lyrical, touching story of Arachne. They made a great pair.
Voting question: Which would you rather take on, fighting Medusa or competing with Athena?
Winner: Everyone would rather fight Medusa (go figure)

Round three: Beasts in the wild
This last round had myths where people crossed over into the wilderness. First I told the myth of the Boongurunguru, Umaroa's mythical boar, from the Solomon Islands (one of my favorite mythical creatures!). Next, Stenszky Cecília told a Khanty story about a woman who died in the woods and was reborn as a bear, raised by a bear family.
Voting question: What would you rather plant in your garden, Knathy pines of ferns growing on the back of the Boongurunguru?
Winner: Solomon Islands

The tellers of the winning myths received coffee cups painted with mythical creatures (courtesy of Enikő) - the fourth mug was raffled off to the audience. The evening went great, and we are already preparing for the next one: telling love myths for Valentine's Day!

E is for Eggplants vs Ghosts (A to Z Challenge 2019: Fruit Folktales)

No, this is not the sequel to Plants vs Zombies, but it's close.
Also, yes, eggplant is technically a fruit.

Among many, many folktales collected from Japan's Niigata Prefecture, and compiled by Fanny Hagin Mayer, there is an especially fun story about mushroom ghosts.

Story goes that behind a certain village shrine, every midnight the sounds of music and singing could be heard. No one was brave enough to investigate, until one night a young man decided to pluck up the courage and see what's up. Walking behind the shrine at midnight, he came across a crowd of Little Folk singing and dancing merrily. He asked them who they were, and the little figures told him they were mushroom ghosts. The young man, thinking quickly, told them he was a human ghost. Having established ghost rapport, they started to chat, and the little folk asked the man what he was especially afraid of. "Gold coins," he told them, without missing a beat "And you?" Turns out, the mushroom ghosts were deadly afraid of salty eggplant juice.

As the party got wilder, the mushrooms started having fun by throwing gold coins at the young man, who pretended to be terrified, amusing the little folk to no end. In the morning, the young man collected the gold, went home, and made a bucket of salty eggplant juice. The following night he returned to the party, and threw juice at the ghosts with a ladle. In the morning, all that was left of them was a bunch of shriveled up mushrooms.

(You can also find the story in this book)

As fun as eggplant-allergic, money-throwing mushroom party ghosts are, I am a little sad about how this story ends. What do you think?

MythOff Budapest 2017 - Sun, Moon, and Stars

There is no summer without MythOff in Budapest! It was Szilvia's idea to pick the theme of Sun, Moon, and Stars, in honor of this summer's upcoming solar eclipse (and the lucky people who will get to see it). Everyone really liked the suggestion, so the agreed to choose our myths accordingly.
We made some good choices.

Once again, we outgrew our venue, so this time we performed at the RS9 theater; a space of almost 100 seats, which we managed to fill to capacity! (We would like to take this time to thank our wonderful, loyal, and ever-growing audience). Behind the emcee's microphone we had Varga-Fogarasi Szilvia, who did not only suggest the theme, but also took care of the music, the prizes, the announcements, and some fiery spectacles at the end of the show.
The myths and tellers were as follows:
(Watch the videos by clicking on the names!)

Round one: Lights in the night sky

Lovranits Júlia opened the evening by telling us a myth from the Philippines about the birth of the Moon. In it, the Sun demanded a princess for a wife; the girl, defying her protective father, rose up to the sky to light up the night for the people she loved.

Next we had Hajós Erika telling the heavy yet beautiful Greek myth of Callisto and Arcas (the Big Bear and the Little Bear) - she talked with grace and empathy about Zeus' violence, Hera's vengeance, and all the topics this story tend to bring up.
Voting question: If Hera went hunting, and her prey was defended by the kind-hearted Sulamyn, who would win the confrontation?
The winner: Greece

Round two: Sunrise 

This round was all about the Sun. Bumberák Maja told the Japanese myth of the goddess Amaterasu, how she hid herself from the world, and how she was lured out of her cave by the goddess of happiness and a mirror. Her telling was graceful and poetic, and showed some of the many meanings and layers of this important story.

She was followed by Gregus László, who brought is the Chinese myth of Yi the Heavenly Archer, who shot down nine of the ten suns in the sky to save the earth from being scorched to ashes.
(I blogged about this epic earlier)
Voting question: If you had to light up a storytelling event, what would you rather use - the chariot of the ten suns, or Amaterasu's mirror?
The winner: Japan


Round three: Lucky stars

In this round, the storytellers drew cultures (or cultural regions) from a hat, and they had to find their sun-moon-star myths accordingly.

Yours truly had the luck of pulling South Africa as a region. I spent a couple of weeks reading myths and folktales from various South African cultures, especially from the San and Khoikhoi peoples. In the end, I settled for a KhoiKhoi story called Windbird and the Sun - it is a tale about a girl who was loved by the Sun and the Wind and who loved colors, so both of them tried to make the world as colorful for her as they could.
(Video here, original source here, picture book here, I got my mythical background information here and here, among other sources)

The evening concluded with Nagy Enikő, who brought us some Hindu myths about the Pleiades, Mars, and the birth of Kartikeya, the god of war. Enikő is an elegant teller, who told us the stories with grace and wonder.
Voting question: If someone wanted to start a new fashion trend, should it be based on the colors of the Khoikhoi myth, or the sparks and lights of the Hindu myth?
The winner: Khoikhoi mythology

All in all, we had a great lineup of diverse stories, and a lovely audience that supported us, voted, and asked many questions about mythology. MythOff, once again, was a special experience.

We will do it again soon!