#folktales — Public Fediverse posts

The third volume is live:

The ePub Edition of Asbjørnsen & Moe, volume 3

Ten folktales and legends of the 150 that Asbjørnsen & Moe published during their careers.

- The Three Billy-Goats Bruse, Who Should Go to the Saeter and Make Themselves Fat
- Goodman Bear
- The Boy Who Went to the North Wind and
- Demanded Back His Flour
- Herding the King's Hares
- An Evening Hour in the District Governor's Kitchen
- Stupid Husbands and Trolls for Wives
- The Parson and the Sexton
- The Pig and His Way of Life
- Mackerel Trolling
- The Box with Something Strange In

Each text has been illustrated by some of the most accomplished artists Norway has known, including Hans Gude, Erik Werenskiold and Theodor Kittelsen.

your copy on Ko-Fi.com: https://ko-fi.com/s/5b01e52ce7
Get your copy on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HHKV8ZNR

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore #Folktales #Bookstodon

How did "prince rescuing princess from a tower" become such a universally referenced trope?

Rapunzel doesn't get rescued by the prince. Actually none of the classic tower folktales I can think of (Canary Prince, Daughter of the Sun, Zal and Rudabeh, Maid Maleen etc.) actually involve the princess being rescued from the tower by the man.

How did this become a thing?

#storytelling #folktales #folklore

The second volume has just been released:

Ten folktales and legends of the 150 that Asbjørnsen & Moe published during their careers.

* The Cormorants from Utrøst
* Of the Giant Who Hadn’t a Heart on Him
* The Boy and the Devil
* Little Thumb
* Mumble Goose-egg
* The Seventh Father of the House
* A Parson’s Story
* A Signing Wife's Stories
* The Widow Fox
* The Smith They Dared Not Let into Hell

Each text has been illustrated by some of the most accomplished artists Norway has known, including Hans Gude, Erik Werenskiold and Theodor Kittelsen.

Get your copy on Ko-Fi.com: https://ko-fi.com/s/a27c96810d
Get your copy on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HG7BG58P

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore #Folktales #Bookstodon

I've just posted the first volume:

Ten folktales and legends of the 150 that Asbjørnsen & Moe published during their careers.

* Legends from the Mill
* An Old-fashioned Christmas Eve
* A Capercaillie Lek in Holleia
* Peik
* The Pancake
* The Young Boys Who Met the Trolls in Hedal Forest
* Paul Nextdoor
* Matthias the Shooter’s Stories
* Little Åse Goosegirl
* The Man Who Should Look After the Home

Each text has been illustrated by some of the most accomplished artists Norway has known, including Hans Gude, Erik Werenskiold and Theodor Kittelsen.

Get your copy on Ko-Fi.com: https://ko-fi.com/s/17a1e4706e
Get your copy on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFC45YH6

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore #Folktales #Bookstodon

THE MAGIC BEHIND HOOKLAND, the ongoing open-source (re?)creation of a lost English county that has delighted social media for more than a decade, explored in ways that diminish none of the enchantment. A lovely guidebook. A MINUS

https://www.amazon.com/Hookland-Fragments-One-Remembering-Differently-ebook/dp/B0H7T6MKGX/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DtHrh2BMfXYN-K_UEEMswpjm-xD9F1UrnZRdXXh2PD2IdYs2GS3LdWWPxCaXwHBh7n5qzVh14GV4uSizxTr4vgn27AXzQ-c-vTN0JwHbgAk.6oVYkLFVXTvIBqHMZj6nMBW04gEYQD52ZivGeulXgdY&dib_tag=se&qid=1786329650&refinements=p_27%3ADavid+Southwell&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=David+Southwell

@bookstodon

#book #Books #bookreview #bookreviews #bookstodon #fiction #fantasy #alternatehistory #folktales #England #Fortean #SmallPressSunday

The Angel Took the Form of a Beggar (1921) by Jay Van Everen, from The Laughing Prince: A Book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales.

Source: New York Public Library / Internet Archive

Available to buy as a print.

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/fea7cd96-8c5b-476f-ba3b-dc9529c53a0e

#abstract #folklore #folktales #bookillustration #art #publicdomain

A unique #theatrical #performance inspired by #Yiddish #folktales features dead #Jews dancing at a cemetery, a prophet appearing in the form of a bunny rabbit and a stone-munching worm named Shamir. It all takes place within the confines of a 2’ X 4’ box known as a #cranky and it’s coming to #NewYork later this month as part of the International #Puppet #FringeFestival.

For those unfamiliar with the decidedly low-tech medium, #crankies are portable stages through which a panorama is scrolled by cranking a pair of wooden dowels. The characters and scenery on the scroll are usually accompanied by #narration and #music, in this case a live #klezmer trio. In backlit crankies, #shadowpuppets can also be used for characters.

The cranky performance of #ShternaandtheLostVoice was created by the #MagidEnsemble, a far-flung interdisciplinary collective that includes a #storyteller, a #graphicartist and three former members of the #Boston klezmer band #Mamaliga."

https://jewishpostandnews.ca/uncategorized/in-a-world-of-ai-run-amok-yiddish-folktales-are-making-these-theater-wizards-cranky/

The names of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812–1885) and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe (1813–1882) are in Norway nothing less than synonymous with folktales and legends. Their collection comprises the most influential work of Norwegian literature of all time. It gave Ibsen material for his metrical masterpiece, Peer Gynt (1867), which in turn inspired some of Edvard Grieg’s best-known music. It alerts readers to the prospect of riding white bears across mountain and valley – whether princess or pauper – and introduces the troll to the world at large. Knowledge of these trolls has since spread, and now permeates popular culture, from Tolkien’s high-fantasy universe, to the sewer of Stephen King’s IT (1996), and throughout modern literature and media.

I published the The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe in paperback in 2024; now I am releasing an electronic edition in fifteen volumes.

#Folklore #NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folktales #Legends #ScandinavianFolklore #FolkloreThursday #SelfPublishing #Bookstodon

(Volumes posted in the thread below, as each is made available.)

#StorytellingPSA:

The princess with the pea was faking it.

In the folktale Andersen based his story on, the girl (a miller's daughter) knows she is being tested for royal blood, so she pretends to be overly sensitive. It's a female-protagonist version of Puss in Boots, basically.

"But that's cheating!"

Yeah. This is what you get when you put people through blood purity tests instead of paying attention to what kinda person they are.

#folklore #folktales

Sudden thought:

Cinderella is a neurodivergent heroine.

I, too, fail to mask after midnight.

#neurodivergent #folktales

NY people, I highly recommend checking out Shterna and the Lost Voice at International Puppet Fringe Festival, 3 showings at Teatro Latea (107 Suffolk St) on August 13, 15 and 16.
https://ci.ovationtix.com/27335/production/1280062

#Crankie #klezmer #JewishMusic #folklore #FolkTales

Wondering what the Fedi's mytho-poets, Jungian analysts, investigators of the subconscious, & archetype explorers make of the folk tale The Raven, collected by the Brothers Grimm, translated by an unknown person, and performed so well by
Joey DeNoia at the link below.

Very much interested in how you personally understand the story - not what you've found others saying about it.

#JugianArchetypes #BrothersGrimm #TheRaven #FolkTales #RobertBly #JoeyDeNoia #PreModern

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zhx3QsfdxY

@WhiteEagleLodge

#BabaYaga #Polish #Folktales #Folkstories #Legend #ChickenHut

In 1916, the American anthropologist Mabel Cook Cole published a collection of #folktales from the Philippines, including mischievous spirits, talking jars, and the antics of personified celestial beings, bickering suns and moons. Read it here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/philippine-folk-tales-1916

In "Wise Women", Sharon Blackie & Angharad Wynne re-narrate a selection of European #folktales mostly from the British Isles on old hags, witches, grandmothers, fairy godmothers and other mature women, of middle age & beyond

#MothersDay #Folklore #FairyTales #Witches

Today's Small Town Legend is special: it comes from my late grandfather, Zalka Ottó, who was an amazing storyteller. He especially delighted in trickster tales and local anecdotes.
This was one of his favorite stories to tell.

Read here:
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/sokoropatka-how-to-eat-pig-small-town.html

#folklore #folktales #AtoZChallenge #blogging #SmallTownLegends

The #AtoZChallenge is still ongoing, so here is a Small Town Legend about someone accidentally slapping Empress Maria Theresa on the butt:

https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-queens-buttocks-small-town-legends.html

#blogging #folklore #folktales #SmallTownLegends

If you like dragon-slaying legends and a coat-of-arms featuring a cute dog, this blog post is for you!

It is about a brave woman who slays a ferocious dragon. With chemistry!

Read here:
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/nagylengyel-exploding-dragon-small-town.html

#AtoZChallenge #folklore #folktales #Hungary #chemistry

Meanwhile, the A to Z of Small Town Legends continues on my blog.

Hévíz: A king asks to be hosted in the house of a power greater than him
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/heviz-greatest-power-in-house-small.html

Istvánkirályfalva: The love of a Christian king and a Pagan woman
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/istvankiralyfalva-love-across-religions.html

Ják: The Devil goes to Rome
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/jak-devil-goes-to-rome-small-town.html

Kisbács: An encounter with the Card Demon
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/kisbacs-card-demon-small-town-legends.html

#folklore #AtoZChallenge #SmallTownLegends #folktales #history

#AtoZChallenge

Today's Small Town Legend is about a place where people decided sowing their fields with salt would yield the most valuable crop possible.

But wait! There is more!

Read here:
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/galagonyas-sowing-salt-small-town.html

#folklore #folktales #SmallTownLegends #legends #Hungarian

Hoda Afshar - Speak the Wind

'In the islands of the Strait of Hormuz off the southern coast of Iran a distinctive local culture has emerged as the result of many centuries of cultural and economic exchange...Central to these is a belief in the existence of winds-generally thought of as harmful-that may possess a person, causing her to experience illness or disease, and a corresponding ritual practice involving incense, music and movement in which an hereditary cult leader speaks with the wind through the afflicted patient in one of many local or foreign tongues in order to negotiate its exit'

#iran #hormuz #poetry #art #culture #mythology #folktales

https://www.hodaafshar.com/speakthewind

I am a bit behind on sharing my #AtoZChallenge posts so here are two of them - both featuring incredible women!

This one is about an incredibly buff woman fighting off a nobleman who wants to take her land:
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/ecsed-very-strong-woman-small-town.html

And this one is about a heavily pregnant woman fighting off Tatar invaders:
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/fenyeslitke-women-vs-invaders-small.html

#folklore #folktales #legends #Hungary #blogging

Blog/Review: Contemporary Stories are Failing Kids (And Adults)

One of the little-known facts about J.R.R. Tolkien was that he absolutely despised Disney. So great was his hatred of Disney that he described it as “vulgar,” said that Walt Disney was “a cheat,” and even said that, at times, the animation gave him nausea. The reason for this wasn’t because he had an arbitrary hatred for the mouse running around on screen. Rather his hatred of Disney was two-fold, beginning when he saw the 1937 adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in theaters with C.S. Lewis. For one thing, he saw it as a total bastardization of the original tale published by the Grimm Brothers that was made purely for money’s sake. For another thing, he disliked how the movie shied away from the grimness of the source material. The dark aspects of fairytales were something that Tolkien greatly appreciated, as he was a staunch believer that if a story for children couldn’t also be enjoyed by adults, then it wasn’t worth writing. In fact, in his essay, On Fairy Stories, he bemoaned the fact that in recent years, fairy tales have largely been associated with children, leading to their infantilization, something Disney’s adaptation of Snow White added to.

If Tolkien had only lived to see the slop being pushed on our kids, his already heartfelt disgust towards the infantilization of fairytales and stories in general would have turned into the fury of a thousand suns.

The contemporary fairytales being pushed on kids today are excessively childish. If they aren’t stories that are based on existing intellectual properties (such as any number of Disney-owned franchises) it’s online entertainment such as the stuff on Disney+. Just think about the last time that you saw a kids’ show that treated kids like they were capable of thinking for themselves, that treated them as having the potential to grow past their current mindset. Bluey is one such show from what I’ve heard, but many of the shows out there treat kids as kids. They don’t treat them as young humans who are gradually maturing, navigating the complexities of growing up.

As an example, think about the difference between Miss Rachel and Mr. Rogers. Miss Rachel is known for her infantilized online persona aimed at teaching kids various lessons about things (including Left-wing politics for some reason.) Meanwhile, Mr. Rogers spoke to young kids as an adult. He came at it not as though he was trying to be one of them, but as a wise grandfather. He reached both kids and adults, something that Miss Rachel can’t do.

A similar contrast can be found in stories today versus stories written in the past. Even if you go back 10-20 years, kids’ stories were a lot heavier than they are today and could be enjoyed by any age bracket. For example, How to Train Your Dragon came out in 2010, and, while it primarily targeted kids, it had themes in it that went a lot deeper than one would think. It dealt with themes of courage, family expectations, trying to navigate growing up, etc. At one point, Stoic straight-up disowns Hiccup. The second movie that came out in 2014 had some heavy themes in it. However, fast forward to today, and even the third HTTYD movie felt dumbed down compared to the previous ones. Look at the spin-off show on Hulu, and the contrast is even more stark.

Additionally, many of the stories targeted towards kids and adults nowadays have become soulless cash-grabs, often grifting off of pre-existing franchises. To make things worse, the morals they teach are few and far between, if there even are any.

One example of this is Pixar’s newest movie, Hoppers. While it doesn’t have anything blatantly objectionable in it, a deep dive into the morals taught in the story and the political messaging is disturbing. The YouTuber, Real-Life Fake Wizard did a deep dive into the messaging subtly hidden throughout the movie and not only does it justify the main character’s terrible behavior as a Greta Thunberg-like environmental activist, but it also justifies killing people for the sake of the state.

https://youtu.be/YTlHS3vkECc

Remember this is a movie aimed towards children pushing an anti-human, Leftist agenda on them covered up with smiles and laughter.

On that note, one of the things that made stories in the past appealing to adults and children were the strong moral lessons that they taught and the characters overcoming bad situations. This was important as not only did these stories give children profound truths that they could be reminded of throughout life, but they also prepared them in some ways for the adult world. In that way, the stories got better as you grew up as you could now interpret them through a wiser, more experienced lens. Nowadays, however, our contemporary folklore is encountering a massive divide between kids’ stories and adult stories.

To illustrate this point, just recently I went to Walmart and checked out their book section with my mom. The kids’ section was a small area, with mainly coloring books and picture books based on various franchises, most of them owned by Disney. The rest of the book area was a handful of young adult novels such as The Hunger Games and a few Percy Jackson and the Olympians books scattered around (with the main one being the Nico x Will LGBTQ+ adventure) hidden amongst the books aimed towards adults.

Several of these books I recognized from the #booktube and #booktok community as having explicit content in them, with the most notable ones being the Court of Thorns and Roses series and the Fourth Wing series, both of which, I believe, have been banned in public schools. I also saw the sequel to the infamous book, Haunting Adeline, a book which has become known for its glorification of stalking, physical abuse, and rape (including penetration with a gun.)

I wish I was making this up. That isn’t even mentioning the trigger warning on the first page of the book.

This goes to show how not only have stories aimed towards kids lost the plot (often literally) of being appealing to children while also appealing to adults with the moral messaging and overall story, but the divide between adult literature and kids’ is growing vastly. Even with young adult novels intending to be the buffer zone between kids’ books and adult literature, you still often lack clear morals and a sense of good and evil. Often, you are even being exposed to – at best – softcore porn. These stories don’t help you grow up; they dumb you down by appealing not to a higher sense of morality, but to your base impulses.

While children’s literature used to be considered to be stories for adults told amongst the elders of the village that children were privy to, learning profound universal morals and values along the way, what could be considered as modern fairytales have lost the plot entirely. They have either become something to meet kids where they are at and, in some ways, keep them there, or their idea of adult doesn’t come from the morals within the tale, but rather the increasingly explicit lack thereof. In this way, neither kids nor adults are maturing by reading these tales. They’re only being corrupted to something animalistic.

Until next time,

M.J.

#AtoZChallenge of Small Town Legends:

C is for Csíkménaság and Hoopoe Jesus

This one is a legend from Transylvania about a bunch of people who mistook a hoopoe for Jesus... and then tried to capture him

Read here:
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/csikmenasag-hoopoe-jesus-small-town.html

#folklore #folktales #legends #Transylvania

The #AtoZChallenge continues!

Today's legend takes place in the era of the Tatar invasions, and tells of a fortunate escape due to healthy snacks.

Bágy: Walnut Body Armor
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2026/04/bagy-walnut-body-armor-small-town.html

#blogging #folklore #legends #folktales #Hungary

Here we go!

The A to Z Challenge has begun. My theme this year is Small Town Legends: weird folklore from villages and small towns in and around Hungary.

First up: some very strange geese.

Ács: Zombie Goose Shenanigans https://share.google/Aa9plXTmBYbUrUPXM

#AtoZChallenge #SmallTownLegends #blogging #folklore #folktales #legends

#gamemastersbookclub Explores the Genres! Shenmo (Chinese Gods and Devils) #Shenmo #chinese #mythology #folktales #legends #fantasy #books #booksky
The Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
Jade City by Fonda Lee
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
The Ghost Bride by Yangze Choo
The Girl with the Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson

Some Irish folklore this St Patrick’s Day: the Sídhe, the Aos sí, the fair folk, the good people, or the people of the shee from Irish folklore, who live underground. You may know the banshee, or Bean sídhe or woman of the sídhe. In fact the very word Sídhe is the term for earthen mounds like the one in my #linocut and the Aos sí are “the people of mounds.” The Sidhe evolved from a mythological people known as 🧵

#printmaking #folklore #Sidhe #fairyMound #folktales #mastoArt

See also:

Native American Folktales by Thomas A. Green, 2009

#Folktales are at the heart of Native American culture. Prepared especially for students and general readers, this book conveniently collects 31 of the most important Native American folktales. These are drawn from the major Native American cultural and geographical areas and are organized in sections on origins; heroes, heroines, villains, and fools; society and conflict; and the supernatural.

#books
#fiction
#NativeAmerican

The fairy court in Northumberland was once up the Hartburn from Rothley, they say, until the actions of an over-proud miller offended them and saw them take themselves off up to the area around Dancing Green Hill and the Hurl Stane, near Chillingham, where the white, fairy cattle still roam.

But there's a lot of them up the Henhole too, and an outpost near Elsdon and Otterburn, all of them seeming more related to each other and to the other wild, little people of the moors than they are to the more lordly fairy folk of Eildon and the Borders.

#FairytaleTuesday #FairyStory #Folklore #Folktales #Northumberland #FairyLore #AncientEngland #Mythology @folklore