Q is for Quadriceps (Body Folktales)

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

The quadriceps are the muscles in the front of your thigh. Therefore, I am collecting folktales about thighs today. The most famous story here would be the birth of Dionysos from Greek mythology, but I did find others that are intriguing.

Donnran, the Brown Searcher (Scotland)

In this Scottish legend Caoilte, the swiftest runner of the heroes of the Fianna, is badly wounded on his thigh in a fight. Healers claim they have to cut off his leg because of the infection, but he refuses. Instead the Fianna sends for Donnran, the great healer who lives in the woods as a hermit. Donnran treats the infected wound with live maggots and herbs and honey, until it is miraculously healed.

Thirty-six Colors (Missouri French tale)

A prince dresses up as a jester and sneaks out of the palace to go adventuring. He decides to work as a cowherd, and encounters three giants, befriending each. They later help him win a contest for a princess' hand. After winning, he keeps sneaking away; on the third try, the king throws his spear, which lodges itself in the prince's thigh. Later on, he is discovered and identified by the wound and the tip of the spear lodged in it.

The terrible child and the birds (Burkina Faso)

A woman is infertile, and asks a healer for help. The healer tells her to cook some porridge, and if it spills on her, don't wipe it off. A drop of porridge spills on her thigh, turns into a swelling a bursts. A child springs out of it, ready to go hunting. As he hunts with his friend, a hawk keeps stealing their food. Eventually, the child gets the hawk to swallow him - then, coming out through its anus, strikes it with a club. The hawk swallows him again and he comes out again, continuing the process until the hawk dies.

Sunabai Jai (India)

Seven brothers leave their cherished little sister in the care of their wives, while they go trading. The seven women treat the girl badly, giving her impossible tasks, hoping that she'd die. When her brothers eventually return, the girl meets them on the beach and tells them everything. One of them cuts open his thigh and sews the girl inside it, hiding her from the evil wives until it is time to reveal the truth. In the meantime, he feeds her by placing food on his thigh.

(People sewing things into their thigh is a common folktale motif; you can read another story here, and a collection of parallels here.)

Thigh pieces for giant birds

Once again, this is a folktale motif that shows up in a whole lot of different stories. It is most often found in ATU 301, a folktale type where a hero rescues three princesses from the Underworld, and then is left behind by his treacherous brothers. He is rescued from the deep by a giant bird that he has to keep feeding during the flight. When food runs out, the hero chops off a piece of his own thigh and feeds it to the bird so they don't fall. Once safely on the surface, the bird usually heals the hero's wound.
In one Hungarian version, the hero rides a griffin, and after the flight receives a feather from it that heals all wounds. In a Mansi version the hero - Son of a Bear - rides an eagle, and feeds it pieces of both of his thighs. In both versions, the bird notes that if it had known earlier that humans taste so good, it would have devoured the hero instead of helping.

Somehow, all these stories ended up being about thigh wounds... Go figure.

P is for Pubic Hair (Body Folktales)

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

CW: Adult themes.

(Image from here.)

This is one topic that folktales get really fun about.

Adam and Eve and body hair (Hungary)

This legend explains the origin of body hair; I blogged about it before. When Adam and Eve wash themselves in water that gives them body hair, Eve gets stung by a bee between her legs, and swatting her hand at the little creature she accidentally creates centuries of business for bikini wax.

The devil as servant (Hungary)

This story is a Hungarian variant of ATU 1175 - Straightening curly hair. A man hires the Devil as a servant, with the agreement that if he can't give him enough work the Devil will take over as master, and the man and his wife will become servants. Whatever the man orders, the Devil fulfills immediately, until he begins to get worried about the whole deal. He confides in his wife, who confidently takes over the next day: she hands the Devil one of her pubic hairs, and orders him to straighten it. The Devil spends hours trying to pull the hair straight, but it always springs back. He finally asks the woman if there's a lot of work left - at which point she lifts her skirt. Seeing all the hairs waiting to be straightened, the Devil gives up and flees.

White hair (Hungary)

One of the most popular erotic folktales of Hungary. A man swears to only marry a woman who has white hair between her legs. A clever maiden makes a little thong out of rabbit fur, and manages to catch herself a husband. However, the fur wears out eventually, and the truth comes to light. The husband complains to an older woman about the change. The old woman hands him a boiled egg and tells him to gently knock it against his forehead for a few hours. Obviously, this activity results in a dark bruise. The old woman points out he couldn't expect things to stay white down there either with so much... knocking.

Golden breasts, diamond navel, chain of gold (African-American tale)

A poor boy has three dancing pigs, which he exchanges with a princess for finding out what secret features she has on her body. Turns out she has golden breasts, a black diamond in her navel, and a golden chain around her thighs that matches her pubic hair. Later on the king announces he'll marry his daughter to whomever can divine what her secret features are. Obviously the boy wins.

The sun snarer (Menominee)

A young man's clothes are burned by the sun, so he goes home and asks his sister for a pubic hair. Using the hair he makes a noose and traps the sun with it; by the time a mouse manages to chew through the noose, the sun has learned its lesson.

Pasquino and the pig (Italy)

A priest wants to seduce the young mother of one of his students, but she rejects him. He then decides to put a love spell on her, and threatens her son into bringing him some of the woman's pubic hairs. The boy brings him some pig hairs instead. Thus, when the priest puts the spell into effect, a very amorous sow bursts into the church, chasing him upstairs and then out a window.

That's all for today, people :) Which story do you find the most entertaining?

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?

L is for Liver (Body Folktales)

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

Yeah, I could have done Legs or Limbs, but this one was more fun.

Pkharmat (Chechen legend)

Prometheus would have been an obvious choice for this topic, but instead I'm linking the Chechen version of the fire theft myth. The hero Pkharmat steals fire from the god of storms, with the help of the Mother of Narts in her bird form. After giving fire to humans, he returns voluntarily for his punishment, to be chained on the icy mountains. Every day a bird comes and asks him if he's regretted his actions but he says no; the bird then eats his liver, which grows back every day.

Why people have livers (Pengo people, India)

The creator makes the first boy and girl, but as they grow up they don't start to speak or walk. Eventually he asks his wife for advice. She suggests that he should cut her open as well as the children, and see what the difference is inside. The creator does so, and discovers that the children have no liver. He uses fig blossoms to make them livers. Ever since then, people can walk and talk, and fig trees have no flowers.

The liver of thunder (Miao people, China)

An old woman gives birth to seven brothers with magical abilities. When she gets sick, she claims the only thing that can cure her is eating the liver of thunder. The seven brothers manage to capture thunder, but while they wait to take its liver out, a robber accidentally frees it. Even since then, thunder doesn't harm robbers and thieves.

The liver of the wise and the liver of the foolish (Egypt)

A king is ill, and his vizier tells him that he needs to eat the liver of a foolish person and the liver of a wise person to get well. He immediately imprisons a judge ("wise") and a Bishari man ("foolish"). The Bishari man, however, proves him that his selection was wrong, saving his own life and the life of the judge (and throwing the vizier under the bus). From here, the story follows the Bishari man who marries the judge's daughter, and proves he is wiser than the judge himself.

Johnny and the liver (African-American story)

A classic horror folktale type in an American setting: a boy goes to buy liver but loses the money, so he cuts out the liver of a fresh corpse in the cemetery. At night, the corpse comes looking for its liver. In this version, the boy steals liver from another corpse and gives it to the first one - then lets them fight among themselves.

Were any of these stories familiar?

Question of the day: Are there any liver dishes that you enjoy? :)

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?

U is for Utah prairie dogs (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: Utah prairie dog (Cynomys parvidens)

Status: Endangered

The man saved by prairie dogs

Jicarilla Apache legend*

According to legend, forty-four warriors set out on a journey, forty-three died, and the last one was barely alive, dying of thirst. He finally collapsed by a prairie dog hole. The prairie dogs came out to see what happened, and asked him why he was lying there. When they learned he is dying of thirst, they took him into their home and gave him water from a small vessel - but no matter how much he drank, the vessel never emptied. They sent him on his way with the vessel. This is how people learned that prairie dogs have power over water and rain.
(One version of this story ends with "Prairie dog gave him no songs or ceremony. He just took pity on him and saved him from death.")

*Okay so I'm cheating here because the habitat of the Utah prairie dogs don't overlap with Jicarilla Apache lands, but I couldn't find any prairie dog legends that are more local. My resources are currently limited...

Sources: Read versions of the story here or here.

How can I help?

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

Have you ever seen prairie dogs in the wild? I only ever met them in a zoo...

S is for Singing Snails (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!

Partulina variabilis, image from here

Species: Lanai tree snail (Partulina semicarinata), Lanai tree snail (Partulina variabilis), Achatinellidae (tree snails)

Status: Endangered to Extinct

Kawelona and Lauka-ie-ie

Hawaiian legend

Lauka-ie-ie is a beautiful girl, raised by her aunt and uncle, who is friends with all the plants, flowers, and animals of her home in Waipio Valley. Her best friends are the singing sails; she sings along and plays with them every day. Lauka-ie-ie is protected by the goddess Hina-ulu-ohia, the red flowered ohia tree, who is also raising her brother.
When she grows up, Lauka-ie-ie sees a dream: she dreams of a handsome young chief whose face is bright like the setting sun. Her snail and plant friends all volunteer to set out to look for him together. They are aided in their search by the Wind, Lauka-ie-ie's brother, who carries the party from island to island, searching for the mysterious young chief.
Meanwhile, on the westernmost island of Kauai, young chief Kawelona also dreams about a beautiful young girl he's never seen. He sets out with the help of his friends, the iiwi birds (scarlet honeycreepers) to find her. The two traveling parties meet on the island of Lehua. They sail back to Waipio Valley on a white cloud and a giant shell, and throw an amazing wedding attended by all plants, kupua-spirits, gods, sharks in human form, and, of course, singing snails.
In some versions of the story Pupu-kani-oe, the singing snail, also falls in love along the way, and settles down on Oahu, only to return for the wedding along with her husband and daughters. 

Sources: Read the story here, here, here, or here. Read more about Hawaiian snails here.

How can I help?

Read about conservation efforts here, here, or here.

What plants and animals would you invite to your own wedding?

Image from here

O is for Otters (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: Sea otter (Enhydra lutris)

Status: Endangered

The girl who married a sea otter

Coos legend

There are various legends among the indigenous people of Oregon about women who marry sea otters. In one version a young woman rejects all her human suitors, and goes swimming in the ocean, after which she becomes pregnant. The boy she gives birth to keeps crying until he is given seal fat to suck on. A sea otter man comes from the ocean and takes the woman and the baby with him to the realm of the sea otters. The woman, now transformed into a sea otter, swims back up a river to visit her family. People shoot arrows at her at first, but they can't wound her, and she collects the arrows for her sun. After that, sea otters and humans live in peace; sea otters send furs to the people sometimes, and give them whales washed ashore.

In another version a girl rejects all human suitors and hopes for a sea otter lover. She gets pregnant from the sea and gives birth to a boy. A sea otter man comes from the sea and puts her to several tests, which she passes with the help of a friendly sea gull. She marries the sea otter, and her children bring valuable gifts to their grandparents as payment for them accepting the marriage. 

Sources: Find the stories in this book. Find another version in this book.

How can I help?

Read about conservation efforts here, here, or here.

If you were to live as a sea creature, what creature would you prefer to be?

Is there such a thing as a white American folktale? (Following folktales around the world 48. - USA)

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!

TL;DR: Hell yes there is.

I have heard it a lot from white Americans (even storytellers): "But... I don't have a culture! What tradition should I be drawing from?..." Not liking some stories is totally okay, but claiming they don't exist is a whole other issue. This is why I picked this wonderful collection for today's post.
(While it does contain some indigenous tales, I am planning on doing a whole separate reading challenge for indigenous nations soon). 

Cinderella in America
A book of folk and fairy tales
William Bernard McCarthy
University Press of Mississippi, 2007.

The goal of this collection is to offer a diverse selection of tales (122 to be exact) that are of European origin, but have become thoroughly and deeply American over the course of generations and centuries. They are American in their symbols, their performance, their setting, their characters, and their exceptional cultural diversity. The author accomplishes his goal with great efficiency, and includes delicious end notes, sources, and comments, making the book both enjoyable and fascinating. Chapters are divided by culture; after introducing some of the earliest collected tales, we get to read selections from Iberian, French, British, German, etc. traditions (including some rarities such as Armenian and Roma tales), as well as examples of European (or European-sounding) motifs that surface in African-American and indigenous traditions. Every chapter highlights a new slice of cultural diversity in the USA: For example, inside the Ibero-American chapter, we get sub-sections for Puerto Rican, Southwestern Hispanic, Louisiana Isleño, and New England Cape Verdean folktales. It was a treat to browse carefully selected gems from all of these sources.

Folklore map of the USA

The author states that the book focuses on American tales of European origins. If the collection was expanded to African, Asian, Native, etc. traditions, it might be a series of several volumes (and some volumes like that are already available separately). It still acknowledges the existence and richness of those other cultural sources, and manages to offer glimpses into them. It also accomplishes a very important goal: Showcasing that there are various "white American" story traditions that are rich, lively, and thoroughly representative of American culture.
If you don't believe me, read the book.

Highlights

One of the prettiest stories in the book is also one of the earliest: Lady Featherflight, a version of the Magic Flight tale type, was collected in Massachusetts in the 19th century. It is especially interesting (and stunning, so close to Salem) that the fairy princess that sits in a tree is accused of being a witch by the villages that find her, and almost ends up executed - until the priest shows up, listens to her side of the story, and finds Jack, the hero that eloped with her in the first place.
One of my favorite tale types, the Basil Maiden, also made an appearance among the Puerto Rican folktales. In it, a clever girl and a young king try to out-sass each other... until the girl wins, and they get married.
My love for Cajun folktales was affirmed through such wonderful selections in the book as Golden Hair (once again, a favorite tale type of mine) and Snow Bella, the Cajun Snow White who ended up marrying the youngest dwarf brother after he repeatedly saved her from the witch's assassination attempts (instead of meandering into the tale at the end).
From the African-American traditions came the tale of Peazy and Beanzy, a "Kind and Unkind Girls" type story, which was unusual because here the unkind girl ventured forth first, and the mother loved them both, instead of being cruel to the younger one. Also from black storytellers came a short, rhyming variant of Sleeping Beauty (La Dora), in which the girl was saved and awakened by a princess. This was explained by the author as the result of a mishearing... but it did not seem to bother the original teller.
From the Polish tradition came the tale of the Black Kitty, in which the hero had to cuddle and pet a black kitten (princess) while all kinds of horrors and illusions tried to get him to give her up. From Scandinavian sources came the legend of the Powder Snake, a giant reptile that spat venomous powder at everyone until a poor boy managed to kill it. The Armenian story tradition was represented by two variants (mother's and daughter's) of the same tale of the Two Dreams, in which a man followed his dream to find the love of his life - and then rescue her by trickery from her tyrannical husband.
Of course the Appalachian tale tradition was also fairly represented in the book. My favorites were Rawhead and Bloodybones, and other kind-unkind type tale, in which a girl had to clean and bleach talking, bloody skull drawn from a well - and White Bear Whittington, which, if my personal opinion was asked, I would nominate as the most beautiful American fairy tale I know.

Connections

I am not going to list all the connections, since by definition all tales in the book have their European counterparts. I simply want to highlight some less common examples: The book contained variants of Molly Whoopie (Polly, Nancy, and Muncimeg), Grimm's Crystal Ball (The enchanted sisters), the Irish's favorite Fairy Midwife (The fairy birth), The Princess in the Shroud (The Bewitched Princess), and Mistress Cockroach (Mousie Perez).
Due to the great cultural diversity, of course, the book's pages were teeming with tricksters. Hermana Zorra outfoxed Coyote with the help of a tar baby; Quevedo (Spanish author turned trickser) switched places with a shepherd who got punished instead of him; Lapin drank Bouqui's wine and claimed he'd beet at a baptism; Br'er Rabbit did the same with Fox, Wolf, and Bear, and then fell for the tar baby too; Hodja Nasreddin taught and learned important lessons; Coyote was defeated by Little Pig, and then a cannibal baby; and Tyl Eileschpijjel shared his crops with the devil, coming out the winner every time. And Jack... Jack was, of course, everywhere.

Where to next?
Saying goodbye to the Americas with Canada!