R is for Ribs (Body Folktales)

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

Adam's rib (Mexico)

I could have linked the actual Bible story, but this one is way funnier. Adam wants a cook, and God tells him to knock on his ribs util a woman comes out. To which Adam says "I only wanted a cook..." The more you think about it, the more ways you can interpret this tale.

Cethern's wounds (Ireland)

This story is part of the Táin, one of Ireland's great epics. A warrior named Cethern is mortally wounded in battle. Fifteen healers are summoned, but all say he's going to die - at which point Cethern knocks them dead, showing he is displeased with the diagnosis. Finally a wise healer appears and examines his wounds in detail, offering two courses of action: long treatment and a long life, or quick treatment to make him strong enough to die in battle. Cethern chooses the second. The healer collects bone marrow for him, and replaces his missing ribs with the ribs of a chariot. Cethern returns to battle to fight until he falls.

Raven and the ghosts (Tahltan)

Raven tries to steal a fishing spear from a house which turns out to be a house of ghosts. When the ghosts keep him from escaping, he asks them to teach him how to make a spear. One ghost breaks off part of its lower rib, and shows Raven how to fashion the bone into a tool. Since then, the story claims, people and some animals have been missing half of their lower ribs.

The toad resurrection pill (Dongxiang)

A poor boy rescues and heals a wounded toad. In return, the toad gives him a pill that can resurrect anything. The boy resurrects a snake and a horse, and then finds a dead man. He replaces the man's broken ribs with willow branches, and brings him back to life (against the toad's warnings that humans will always betray you). The man turns out to be a bandit who takes the pill and tries to kill the boy. The resurrected animals help him survive and win a princess.

Share your thoughts in the comments :)

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?

X is for Xolotl (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: Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum)

Status: Critically endangered

How Xolotl became an axolotl

Aztec myth

The god Xolotl was the twin brother of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent. He was the god of Venus, fire, lightning, sickness, and monstrosities. He guarded the Sun as it traveled across the Underworld every night, and he similarly guarded the souls on their journey into the afterlife. He gained this role after he descended into the Underworld together with his brother to retrieve the bones of the people of an earlier world, and use them to create the humans we are today. 

When the Fifth Sun was created (see the Volcano rabbits post two days ago), initially it didn't move. The God of Winds then started sacrificing all the other gods to make the Sun move forward. Xolotl did not want to be killed, so he turned himself first into maize, then into a maguey plant (giving these two important food sources to the people), then into an axolotl and threw himself into Lake Xochimilco (now the only lake axolotls can be found in). In some versions of the myth he was captured and killed anyway, while in others he avoided his fate by hiding as this strange, magical amphibian ever since. 

Sources: Read about Xoloth here, here, here, or here.

How can I help?

Read about conservation efforts here or here.
Plus here is a video about how to correctly pronounce axolotl.

What being would you turn into to avoid death?

V is for Volcano rabbits (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!

Image from here

Species: Volcano rabbit (Romerolagus diazi), a.k.a. teporingo or zacatuche

Status: Endangered (some populations are extinct)

The rabbit in the moon

Aztec myth

The Aztecs saw the shape of a rabbit in the spots on the moon - specifically, the shape of a teporingo. But how did it get there?
According to Aztec mythology, when it was time for the Fifth World to emerge (the one we are living in now), there was need for a new Sun and Moon. The gods decided two of them had to sacrifice themselves to become celestial bodies. The rich god Tecuzitecatl volunteered to be the Sun, while the poor, rugged Nanahuatzin was ordered to become the Moon. They offered sacrifices, and then the time came for them to throw themselves onto a roaring pyre, burn, and transform. In the last moment the rich and haughty Tecuzitecatl hesitated, but Nanahuatzin threw himself into the fire immediately. Ashamed, Tecuzitecatl followed suit.
Two Suns rose from the pyre, filling the world with light. However, so that the cowardly Tecuzitecatl wouldn't be as brilliant as the brave Nanahuatzin, one of the gods grabbed a rabbit, and threw it at the coward's face. The rabbit stuck, and it has been up there ever since, obscuring the light of the Moon; you can see its shape in the dark spots.

According to another Mexican legend, the other rabbits did not want to befriend the teporingo, because it is so tiny ans weak, and they chased him away to the mountainsides of volcanoes. However, when humans came along, they all started hunting the larger, fatter rabbits nearby, and did not even notice the tiny bunnies safely tucked away in the mountains.

Sources: Read about the story here, here, or here.

How can I help?

Read about conservation efforts here, here, or here. Read more about this species here.

Would you be brave enough to become a Sun or Moon? Or would you rather become another celestial body?

M is for Monarch butterflies (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: Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus)

Status: Status under reassessment in 2020 for the Endangered Species Act

The butterflies come for the Day of the Dead

Legend from Mexico

According to legend a group of indigenous people were migrating south from the Rocky Mountains, all the way to Mexico. On the way they met cold, harsh weather, and they had a hard time moving forward. They decided to leave the children and old people behind so they could shelter while the stronger adults found the way and a new home. To weather the cold, the children and old people covered themselves in tree pollen and resin. Their god saw their suffering, took pity on them, and changed them into beautiful butterflies so that they could make the southward journey easier, and reunite with their families.
Other legends say the butterflies are (or carry) the souls of the dead on their wings. Incidentally, they arrive to their wintering places in Mexico around November 2nd, which is the traditional Day of the Dead. According to this belief, the souls of the departed come back to visit their families for the occasion.

Sources: Read the story here, here, or here.

How can I help?

Read about conservation efforts here, here, here, or here.

What kind of an animal would you like to become after you die?

Gods and storytellers (Following folktales around the world 47. - Mexico)

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 under the Following Folktales label, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a while; I found it in an antique store in the USA, sitting under a pile of porcelain cups. Not the most authentic source (not a folklore publication), but I really wanted to read it. I plan on circling back anyway, to read some indigenous collections later.

Star Mountain
and other legends of Mexico
Camilla Campbell
Whittlesey House, 1946.

This volume is old, and it shows: The tales are definitely re-told, not collected from tellers word by word. With that said, most of them hold up the structure and feel of the original legend or folktale pretty well, despite occasional dated words and phrases (such as calling the Aztecs "red" or a Chinese girl "oriental"). It does include some conquest era legends, but doesn't pretend that the Spanish were heroes. There is a pronunciation guide in the end, but no sources or comments on the tales whatsoever, which I sorely missed. All in all, it was a pretty read with pretty pictures, but I'll definitely come back to Mexico for more later.

Highlights 

I absolutely adored the legend of Baby Jesus and Brown Sugar (El Niño de la Panelita). It was about a jolly monk who lived in Puebla and brought food every day to the monastery, but his fellow monks believed that he kept sugar cones for himself. One say they caught him in the chapel, handing the sugar to the statue of the baby Jesus, who was giggling happily... According to Campbell, the statue still has a panela in his hand.
Without much historical credit, but also lovely is the origin legend of the "china poblana" folk costume, said to have originated from a Chinese girl that ended up living in Mexico. She told stories to children, and they brought flowers to decorate her dress. As a storyteller, of course I enjoyed this tale a lot. Storytelling also saved the day in the legend of the Brave Mixtec warrior, who fought an archery duel against the Sun (or so said the Mixtecs to scare the Aztecs away).
The Mayan tale of the Moon God and the Turtle was similarly great. The Moon used to be always full, until a turtle started to show up in his bed while he was away, and it got bigger and bigger. Ever since then, the Moon tends to leave a bit of himself at home, to guard the bed from the intruder...
In the beautiful legend of the Street of the Deer, a girl was almost kidnapped by some men, but her pet deer fought them off.

China poblana fountain, Puebla

Connections

Of course we can't be done with Mexico without talking about La Llorona - in this book, her legend was waved into that of Malinche, but it noted that not everyone believed the lover of Cortez was the Crying Woman.

The story of the Cú bird was another variant of "showing off with someone else's feathers" - and the Cú did, and then vainly took off, and the birds (doves, owls, roardrunners) have been looking for him ever since.
The local trickster is Hermano Coyote.

Where to next?
U! S! A!