Thrymr thought he was marrying the greatest Beauty of the gods, Freyja, but what he got was a Beast: beneath that wedding veil was a Beast of a man, Thor himself, who came to destroy his enemies and win back his hammer through the deceit. #FairytaleTuesday
The leannán sídhe Is a fairy from Irish folklore. The name means “The Fairy Lover” She is an etheric beauty that takes a lover and will eventually drain their life force and sanity in exchange for creative Inspiration. So they live a short life but an inspired one.
Beware dogs in the mountains of Japan, for the Okuri-Inu, the Escort Dog, will walk with you for as long as your journey may take: but if you should trip and fall, the Okuri-Inu will devour you. To lose your furry fiendish friend, pretend to sit and take a rest. #FairytaleTuesday
Black cats with white spots on their chest are known to the Scottish as Fairy Cats, cat-sith, huge as a dog with an attitude to match. Prone to stealing souls, on Samhain if given a saucer of milk they offer blessings, and a curse without. #FairytaleTuesday
When a tree lives to be a century old, its spirit gains the ability to detach themselves from the plant, most becoming kodama: but the tsubaki tree is different. Associated with ominous dealings, a tsubaki's spirit is a trickster, sometimes fatally tricking people. Kodama are capable of violence, but often in self-defense: the furutsubaki no rei, the Old Tsubaki Spirit, has no such scruples. #FairytaleTuesday
Unicorns are an addition to the Bible: the King James translation describes great strength as comparable to that of unicorns. The original word, re'em, is more commonly translated as ox, auroch, ram, oryx, and rhinoceros. #FairytaleTuesday
The mušḫuššu is thought to be the first draconic creature in archeological record, being a chimeric hybrid of eagle, lion, long neck, and forked tongue. Its name, Sumerian in origin, means "splendid serpent," and it appears across Mesopotamia. #FairytaleTuesday
Kiyohime is a young woman who turns into a dragon when she is led on by a Buddhist monk. A simple inn-keeper's daughter, the monk Anchin promised he would marry a young Kiyohime when she came of age, but when she finally did, she expected him to fulfill his promise: he refused, laughing it off, so she began increasingly irate. He fled from her, and she pursued him to the River Hikada, where afterwards he hid in Dōjō-ji, a Buddhist temple nearby. There on the banks she turned into a rage-filled dragon and flew to the temple, where she found Anchin hiding in a bell. She burns the holy bell with fire, melting it around him, then escapes: never lead a dragon on. #FairytaleTuesday
The greatest monster-slayer in Welsh folklore was Peredur (Sir Percival), who slew giants, dragons, and more. He even slew a ravenous, savage unicorn that slaughtered any human it saw. But after Peredur killed the unicorn, he discovered it was a fairy's pet. #FairyTaleTuesday#unicorn#KingArthur#Arthuriana#Celtic#Wales
In Nordic folklore of yore, heading in any given direction for too long will eventually land you in one of the other Nine Worlds beyond our Midgard home: heading North lands one in tall Jotunheim's peaks; east and west both lead to the Bifrost, and Asgard. #FairytaleTuesday
In Buddhist-infused East Asian folklore and mythology, there's no more magical a place to go than due west, into India: this place of wisdom and mysticism is full of gods, demons, and magic that the heroes of China and Japan envy, seeking their wisdom. But to get there, you must go through con artists, seductive monsters, hungry demons, and bandits aplenty: the road to wisdom is paved with countless terrors. #FairytaleTuesday
Still popular to this day, the Kappa is a villainous occupant of Japan's waterways, a duck-faced turtle-shelled bowl-headed monster that seeks to eat your soul: except your soul is a gem located in your anus, so watch your ass, quite literally. Kappa are quite easy to deal with, however: be respectful and bow to them, and they are forced to bow back, which removes the water from their cranium bowl and thus immobilizes them, freeing you to get past them. Not able to take the time to save your ass? Throw a cucumber into the water with your name carved into it, so the kappa know who not to attack: it's a form of bribery that could save your soul. #FairytaleTuesday
The origins of Hekate are fraught in debate, on whether she is of Greek origin, an import from the Near East or perhaps even Egypt mutated through a Greek lens, or something else entirely. Our association with her as a goddess of witchcraft and the underworld gives preference to the Athenian form, which seems to date to the 6th century BCE with all of her classic forms: three-fold, facing in three directions, with torchlight and in abode, likely in the Underworld. Scholars have traced this to numerous other origins, connecting her to other goddesses like a pre-Olympian Artemis, the "Great Goddess" cult theory of Anatolian religion both pre-Hittite and post-Bronze Age, and even a frog goddess from Egypt called Heqet. Whatever her origins, by the times Athens gets their hands on the goddess of boundaries and crossroads and spreads her across the Mediterranean, she becomes a popular if dark deity of worship, with witchcraft rampant across the Mediterranean. #FairytaleTuesday
There is no more famous pirate in East Asia than the woman known in the West as Ching Shih, her true historical name being Zheng Yi Sao, Pirate Queen of the South China Seas. Likely a prostitute who married a well-known pirate, she soon proved a capable commander and soon organized a confederacy of pirates, helping one another against the Qing government and other foes. Taking over for her husband, she proved an even more capable pirate and many flocked to her, women especially, for her egalitarian attitude and redistribution of wealth from the aristocratic Qing Chinese government. Even aided by Portuguese ships, the Chinese could not capture her and could not stop her fleet. At her height, she sailed a fleet of 400 ships with 40 to 60 thousand sailors. When the end came and she surrendered, Zheng Yi Sao could not be killed by the Chinese due to her power and influence, and instead a retirement was negotiated, one that was quite favorable to her and allowed her an easy life: for a pirate career spanning 10 years from 1801 to 1810, that's quite something. She retied to Guangdong, running an infamous gambling house and dying at the comfortable and respectable age of 66 in 1844: hail the Pirate Queen of China! #FairytaleTuesday