The Girl Who Got the Better of the Gentleman

It's hard to find a picture to fit this story, so here's a picture of Ireland.

This week, we travel to Ireland to look at one of their folktales, specifically, The Girl Who Got the Better of the Gentleman. It fits right in with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Well, almost.

In this tale, we have a wise girl with an old father. The man the girl's father works for keeps threatening to kill the old man unless he can answer these riddles. Of course, the girl figures them out and the old man's life is saved. What puzzles me is that this girl then agrees to marry the gentleman. Not only did he try to "take liberties" with her, but he kept threatening to put her father to death. Then again, they were beggars before the gentleman employed her father, and marrying a man who was so well off would ensure that she would never have to beg again. Hopefully, he respected her wishes after they were married.

In any case, I love these stories where the heroine answers the outlandish riddles to save someone's life. A riddle seems like a trivial thing to kill someone over, but it happens in several stories. Part of my enjoyment is that the woman is getting the better of the man asking the riddles, but also that these stories celebrate the intellect and not just brute strength. Many of our heroes are brave and strong, but we never really know how smart they are, because someone else always gives them the tricky answers to problems that they can't fight their way through. A perfect example of this was our story last week, The Fire Bird and Vasilisa. Of course, in this story, the wise partner is a horse, but that's another analysis entirely.

I suppose if we're looking for a moral to this story, there's a few. One is "Be careful not to damage your husband's fragile ego, or he'll try to get rid of you." Another moral could be, "The smartest girl gets the rich man." Or perhaps, it's simply, "If you are only able to take three loads out of the house with you when you leave, be sure to just have two kids."

Have another folk tale you want me to write about? Do you have a particular country or region you want to hear a story from? Comment below!

The Fire-Bird and Vasilisa

Get back here, you! Otherwise, the tsar will kill me.

Today, we're heading over to Russia to look at The Firebird and Vasilisa. I find it interesting that the story is titled this way when the firebird isn't a big part of it. Still, that's why I happened to choose this tale for today, so I guess it was a good move.

Firstly, I would like to talk about Ivanushka's horse. A talking horse is a rarity, but this horse also gives good advice and can cast spells. It's quite the companion. Also, it is only because of the horse that Ivanushka doesn't find himself on the run or dead. He gets in way over his head from the beginning and only through the horse's help does he come out on top. It's a pity this wise, important character doesn't have a name.

We need to talk about Princess Vasilisa as well. She tries to take a free lunch, and soon finds out that's not possible. She's been kidnapped to be married off to some old jerk. At least he's a tsar, I guess. What surprised me is that they take her requests seriously. Before she gets married, she needs a ring from the bottom of the ocean and for the tsar not to be so old. She probably didn't expect them to be able to get the ring, so she tries to kill the tsar next. I have to wonder what her exit plan was here. If she thought the tsar would just jump into a vat of boiling water because she told him to, she was overestimating her influence on him. However, if it did work and she managed to kill him, without first falling in love with Ivan, was she going to race out the door and keep running until she got home? Or was she expecting they would kill her next? Maybe she would overturn their values and declare herself tsar of that kingdom. That would have been interesting.

Fortunately for Princess Vasilisa, Ivan was the first one to try the boiling bath and he was able to come out more pleasing because of a spell from his wonderful horse. Then the tsar was only too willing to try it and, without magical protection, died. Of course, since Ivan is the hero of our tale, the princess fell in love with him and the people of the land decided that this archer turned kidnapper would be a good tsar. So, Ivan gets everything the old tsar wanted and then probably dances on the old man's grave.

If we're looking for a moral in this story, it's either if you're kidnapped and expected to marry some rich old man, demand outrageous things until he kills himself, or respect your friends, even if they carry you on their backs, because they may save your life. One of the two.

Have a fairy tale or legend you want me to write about? Comment below!

A Legend of Kanikaniaula and the First Feather Cloak

Look at this sweet feather cloak.

I've always wanted to visit Hawaii, so this week, we'll look at A Legend of Kanikaniaula and the First Feather Cloak, which is a Hawaiian folktale. It's a bit long, but worth the read.

We start off our tale with a bright young man, well respected at court, getting sidetracked from his duty by a pretty girl. So far, it sounds pretty normal. However, it soon becomes clear that she wants his help. What Eleio sees walking around is her spirit and she wants to be restored to life. Fortunately for her, he knows how to do this.

One of the things I find interesting about this story is that there's no villain. Eleio is overcoming death and, later, the king's extreme displeasure, but not a character who is trying to hurt him. Another interesting bit in this story is all of the detail. We know which plants they used to build the lanai and how they kept everything quiet, including their animals. Also of note is that Eleio does not marry the girl, even after she's offered to him. In some stories, a servant is sent to fetch a bride for the king (we can talk about treating women like property later), but generally if a young man wins a young woman, he marries her for himself. Not here. Eleio decides the girl would be a great bride for his king. This works out well for Eleio because otherwise he would have been burned to death. Ouch.

I have to wonder at Kanikaniaula's perspective on the whole thing. She obviously wanted to be brought back to life, but did she want to be indebted to and owned by some stranger? Her parents give her to this guy because he brought her back to life. Leaving my feminist outrage aside, that's not necessarily giving her back her life. That's taking it for another purpose that she doesn't necessarily want. Oh well. At least she can make awesome feather cloaks.

Have a folktale you'd like me to write about? Comment below and I'll make a post on it!

The Death of Baldur

Oh hey! That one hurt!

This week's legend is from the Norse library again. The Death of Baldur is a trickster tale where Loki just feels like being a jerk, so he  causes the first sign of the end of the world. It's a classic trickster thing to do.

This tale begins with Baldur feeling worried that he's about to die. Since he brings this up so publicly, Loki decides to do something to mess with him. Loki has a pretty dark sense of humor. So, he finds the one thing that didn't promise not to harm Baldur. And sharpens it. He also manages to get a blind god to throw the mistletoe dart at Baldur, so Loki can't be directly blamed.

In this story, we see a more serious impact of a trickster's actions. Loki doesn't care about consequences. If the rest of the gods know Balder's death will lead to Ragnarok (the end of the world), then Loki knows it as well. He just decides it would be too funny to kill Baldur with the one thing no one expected to be able to harm him. To me, that encapsulates a trickster perfectly. It doesn't matter what will happen later, Loki just wants the fun of the moment. Too bad his moment of fun ends the world, but these things happen, occasionally. Especially when you're Loki.

Have a folktale you want me to write a post about? Comment below and I'll write about it!

How Coyote Stole Fire

What a cute fire-stealer!

Hello again, reader. Today, I thought we'd take a journey down a different path in the folktale library. We'll be looking at How Coyote Stole Fire, which comes to us from the Native Americans. I wish the source for this story said which tribe this came from, but it's not there and I couldn't find out which one or ones it was.

In any event, this is a fun tale because a trickster is actually working to help someone out, and that "someone" is humans. Often, trickster tales begin because the trickster is bored or threatened, so this is a good change of pace. Coyote has one goal here: to give human beings fire so they can survive the winter. It's a surprisingly noble goal for a trickster. I also thought it was interesting that the Fire Beings had to sleep, but Coyote didn't. They're obviously different sorts of beings, so one of those differences must be the need to sleep.

I also thought it was noteworthy how they worked so many creation myths into this story. Not only do we have the title theft of fire, but we have why coyotes, chipmunks, squirrels, and frogs look the way they do. That's efficiency. Although, I do feel bad for the frog, since it lost its tail. Poor thing.

Across cultures, mankind has to steal fire in order to get it. Think of Prometheus, for example. Coyote has to steal fire for humans, and then he teaches them how to get it out of Wood. It is kind of elegant to think about fire that way. Wood has it inside and we just have to coax it out. There's a metaphor about hidden potential there. I also wonder what the Fire Beings did after that. If humans already had fire, did they still feel the need to guard it? Maybe they all got to get a good night's sleep for the first time in years. It's a nice thought, anyway.

Know of a folktale you want me to write about? Comment below and I'll check it out.