I am currently writing an entire series of books with English-language translations of German folk tales - with each new book focusing on a different topic. The previous book was focusing on ghosts, the one I am close to finishing will be about Devil-tales, the one after that on magic, and so forth.
So I am curious - what kind of topic from German folklore interests you the most?
#FolkloreMoment When a folk tale is called "The Death of the Seven Dwarves", then you know it's going to be good.
Basically, a farmer's girl lost her way in the forest and stumbled across a hut inhabited by seven dwarves. She asked them for a place to stay for the night, and received it (after the dwarves argued about who would get the honor of giving up his bed for the girl).
A short term later, a farmer woman arrived. When the girl opened the door and explained that there was no more space, the farmer woman suspected her of being the lover of all seven dwarves, called her a wanton woman, and then fetched two men who killed the dwarves, buried the corpses in the dwarves' garden, and burned down the hut (the girl, however, had managed to escape).
According to Norwegian folklore, mare twigs ('marekvister') are structures that appear on a birch tree because a mare has been riding it. It was believed that hanging mare twigs in the bedroom would keep the nightmare inducing mares at bay. These structures are actually caused by the fungus Taphrina betulina.
Greetings, myth lovers! Join @AimeeMaroux for today's theme: Pumpkins. Which myths feature pumpkins, gourds or squashes? Tell us a the myth & tag #MythologyMonday with your #pumpkin lore. See you #Monday! 🎃
#FolkloreMoment: Once, a "devout and noble-minded" young man regularly visited his girlfriend who was equally "devout and noble-minded". She welcomed him into her chamber during every night of the full noon.
Once, he found her weeping and asked her what was wrong and how he could help her.
"You can't help me. Go and fetch me a woman!"
So he went out at midnight, and encountered Percht, a female spirit of the mountain. She asked him where he was going.
"I go to fetch a woman who can help my beloved!"
"Well, then I won't harm you - which I would have done if you were doing something bad. But I want to ask for a favor. Won't you carve a wooden nail for my wagon?"
The young man agreed to do so, and Percht told him to keep all the wood shavings, for he would regret it if he left one behind.
And when he finally returned to his beloved, she was well and healthy and "a large bird had lowered a little boy through the chimney".
Oh, and he discovered that all the wood shavings had turned into gold and silver coins.
... I think this is what the TV Tropes Wiki calls "Getting Crap Past the Radar". It sounds like the two of them could haveAnalyse und Review der Aktivitäten der Stadt zum Klimaschutz
used some sex education, but at least it all turned out well for them in the end.
The night of April 30th is Walpurgis Night (Valborgsnatten). According to folklore, witches from all over Scandinavia would gather in Troms in Northern Norway on this night to celebrate sabbat with the Devil, drinking wine from skulls and engaging in orgies. Walpurgis Night is still celebrated with bonfires in some parts of Scandinavia.
Teolls are Norwegian. There are 150 texts in The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe; 66 of them either feature or mention trolls. (42 of them feature or mention parsons.)
One aspect in which German folklore is lacking is giving its supernatural creatures cool names.
I mean, Japanese folklore apparently has names for any weird haunt you could name. But German folklore is like:
"Okay, there's a weird iron pig haunting the town. It has a tall shrub growing out of its back. It can also transform itself into bird and a porcupine and turn invisible, and has a tendency to pull off the trousers of miners.
But no, it doesn't have a specific name because Sod You, Encyclopedia Writers!"
And this isn't just a hypothetical example, either - I translated the tale featuring this critter last weekend.
German #folklore is full of tales of evil, prideful nobles who were eventually punished for their sins.
So why is modern media - starting with #Disney , and moving on from there - so full of pro- #monarchy propaganda instead? Lots of "Just Kings", "Plucky Princesses", and so forth. Why is the implication in media nowadays that being exalted by the circumstances of your birth is likely to make you a good person? Instead of being totally oblivious to your own class privilege - and that's probably the best case!
I wonder if anyone has done any scientific research on all these "pro-monarchy" narratives in modern media, and how they came into existence.
According to Norwegian folklore, trolls don't like the smell of Christians. They can smell Christians from far away, and the odour makes them furious. Trolls are known to have serious anger management issues, so Christians would be well advised to stay far away from them.
#art by Norwegian fairy tale illustrator Theodor Kittelsen (c. 1900)
#FolkloreMoment : In German-language folklore, when a woman from the spirit world lusts after a married human man, she will often give him a girdle "for his wife".
Fortunately, the mortals are usually suspicious and put that girdle around a tree first - which the girdle will then tear apart!
#FolkloreMoment : I've been translating a lot of vampire folklore from northeastern Germany as of late. And they are not at all similar to modern media portrayals of the phenomenon.
For starters, they rarely if ever actually leave their graves. Instead, all their "feasting" is usually done via some sort of sympathetic connection to their victims (usually their relatives).
The reason why someone becomes a vampire after death also varies a lot. But the account I am currently translating ("Der Vampyr im Wendlande"/"The Vampyre in the Wendland Region") has a particularly interesting take on this.
You see, people will become vampires if they have been weaned off their mother's breast twice as infants - that is to say, the first attempt at weaning them off mothers' milk didn't take. They must survive to become adults, but then, once they die, they will become vampires. They are also called "Dubbelsüger" or "Doppelsauger" - "Double Sucker" for this reason.
And then, once they are dead, they will sit up in their graves and attempt to suck their own breasts - presumably because they are so used to sucking breasts during their infancy. And this "sucking" is then somehow transferred to their next of kin, who will become pale, scrawnly, and weak until they finally die.
Quite a difference to the usual Anne Rice-type vampire, isn't it?
(Incidentally, I will publish the full translation of this account on my Patreon page this December.)
#FolkloreMoment : Once, a woman said that she would like to marry - but she did not want to bear any children, as she was terribly afraid of the pains of birth.
The couple went to their local priest, who said that he was unable to help them. So he sent them to the pope.
The pope said that he could help her, if she followed his instructions exactly. Then the pope told her that he could help her - if she agreed to follow his instructions exactly.
The woman agreed, and then the pope arranged for her to spend the night in a room with a snake.
The next morning, the woman was dead - but her wish was fulfilled, for now she would never give birth.
One of the more obscure finds I have uncovered in my research of German #folklore is a book of folk tales about Freemasons. And these tales are... not flattering.
I am still musing whether I ought to translate them at some point. There's probably enough to fill a book about how they and other secret societies were perceived in German folklore.
Still, for such a book I probably ought to get actual Freemasons as sensitivity readers...
Delighted that this is now published (open access) in TFH: The Journal of Folklore and History. It started life as a 90th birthday present for the great Jacqueline Simpson, and hopefully hasn't lost too much of the spirit that motivated it in the first place.