Share a folk tale from your country's culture

[jwabeasley]

Here's one that's on my mind. This is the plaque in front of the tunnel from the legend:

Here's their notes on the legends:

Disney's retelling is pretty good, though: https://dai.ly/x8j5793 (dailymotion)

There's a lot of truth to that legend - John Henry was a common name among the laborers constructing this tunnel that I was able to visit a while back:

John Henry's statue

The tunnel as it stands today.

The whole site:

John Henry's tunnel is the Big Bend tunnel on the right. It's not in use today.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

I heard his story in a cartoon, but it turned out he was a real man who outperformed the steam engine.

[NickRowler]

So this is a bit mixed. Johnny Appleseed was a real person, but the way his story has been retold sort of blurs the lines between fact and fiction.

He's depicted as a simple man with a pot on his head and often no shoes. He goes around planting apple seeds. This is often depicted as him creating apples to feed people. However, if you know anything about growing apples, this method of growing apples does not create edible fruit. A lot of the folklore often leave out the his apple more often went to alcoholic apple cider as apposed to pies or treats.

Here is some history about him

In 1948, Disney created a Johnny Appleseed animated short which pushed more of the folklore of the character as apposed to actual history
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xi99je

The short featured the song "The Lord is Good to Me" which I remember singing as a child and I have heard it still used in some modern media

[Oriflamme]

There is a classic French Canadian folk tale called La Chasse-Gallerie.

It is the tale of lumberjacks in a work camp in the middle of nowhere making a deal with the devil on christmas eve to be able to visit their families. He gave them a flying canoe to make the journey back home in one night and return to work the next day. I did not remember the rest of the story because there are a lot of different versions but it ends like any other classic deal with the devil story, which is to say badly.

The wikipedia article talks about how it’s a heavily modified version of a french folk tale (Only the name remains the same) who is also a variation on the idea of the wild hunt.

Chasse-galerie

[silverraven0]

Let me share a short tale called the crying stone.

Once upon a time, live a girl an her mother in a small village. The mother were hardworking, even though they're lacking in financial wealth, she did everything she could to raise her only precious daughter.

The daughter were blessed with beautiful appearance, unfortunately she's conceited and lazy.

Her mother can only works hard to supply her vain daughters with whatever little trinkets and beauty products she wanted to get, while the daughter never lift a fingers because she wanted to keep her beautiful appearance from tarnishing.

One day, they were invited to a party in the town, and along the way to the party, the beautiful daughter are greeted and praised by many, while her mother can only walk slowly behind her, with her tattered clothing.

Whenever someone asked who the person behind her was, the daughter will say that she's just her servant, as she's very embarrassed to have such ungraceful looking mother.

The longer the walks goes, the more she said it, and her mother whom been hearing it without able to say anything finally can no longer take it anymore. She weeps and pray to gods, all her heartbreaks can no longer keep.

Thunder rumbles, lightning flashes, and the sky darken with rain clouds, as if feeling the mother's anger and sadness. The daughter, who's been walking in front, felt her body slowly becoming heavy, then she could no longer walk, finding out her body has started to turn into stone.

She cried, begged, asking for forgiveness towards her mother, yet it was too late. The gods has given their punishment, and no one can take it back.

As her weeping mother and other people watch her turned to stone little by little, she kept crying, and in the end only those pair of eyes that turned into stone at last kept gushing out water.

(I said it's short but maybe it's a decent length)

The crying stone supposedly exist btw. That's why this story were born.

Just like many folk tales, there's several version of this story. This is just the version I know. In our folktale this girl ain't the only one who got turned into stone because they're being s*it to their parents lol. Filial piety stories are common, and there's a lot of legends and 'how this river/mountain/town/lake etc were created' in our folktales. A lot also got borrowed from other countries story.

[JollyMachen]

"La Garita del Diablo" (or "The Devil's Sentry Box" in English), from Puerto Rico.

In San Juan, there is the famous Castillo San Felipe del Morro, mostly just known as "El Morro", plus Castillo San Cristobal.

Both fortresses protected Old San Juan from attacks, El Morro from sea attacks, and San Cristobal from land attacks. These fortifications were full of garitas (sentry boxes), inside which sentries kept vigilance. One garita in particular, from Castillo San Cristobal, is the subject of this leyend...

From inside the sentry boxes, the soldiers would shout to each other "Sentry, alert!!!" to their comrades, with said comrades responding "Alert he is!!!" But one day, a soldier named "Sánchez" would be told to watch in a particular sentry box over a deep cliff, the most distant from the others.

But when it was his turn for the calling, no one would respond. The other soldier called again and again, but no response ever came.

The next day, when they went to search for Sanchez, there was only his fusil, his uniform and his bag. Terrified, the superstitious soldiers blamed his disappearance on the Devil himself. Some have claimed Sanchez merely deserted from his position to go live with a woman named Diana to Luquillo, having comunicated this to her through his guitar songs.

It is said you can still hear the sounds of a guitar playing acompanied by laughter, this being Sanchez and Diana laughing at whoever made up this story.

Well, at least, so goes the leyend...

[Lensing]

I´m from Germany and a lot of the really popular folk tales come from Germany and were
collected and rewritten or written by the Brothers Grimm.

Here is one that you guys maybe don´t know about. It also has a comic / sequential art connection.
It was an influence for lots of the early comics. The writer & illustrator is called Wilhelm Busch.
The tale is really cruel and brutal like most of the classic german folk tales.
This ones has a very dark humour. The illustrations are great. I loved this tale as a kid.

I´ll try to summarize it quickly. 2 naughty boys doing all kind of horrible pranks, they are
abusing and killing animals and all kind of pranks they do to adults. In the end they
get caught and a baker put them in the oven (!) and bakes them, but they can escape
and keep on pranking. Then they get caught again and put into a mill (!!) in the end
their remains get eaten by ducks. I remember that as a kid I was like, yeah you got
that coming guys. lol.

Wilhelm Busch wrote a lot of stories like that where people die, get killed, got body
parts cut off.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

Are you from Germany? The story's style of punishment reminds me of German stories.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

I heard about this story and was shocked by the brutal ending, But let me not lie, I liked it

The idea of teaching children literature through brutal stories seems strange, but I believe it has positive results.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

Did they sacrifice their lives to be reunited with their families? Well, considering the circumstances 200 years ago, there's a justification.

[jwabeasley]

Most retellings leave out that he was a committed Swedenborgian, too!

[silverraven0]

Nope, Indonesian. Our folktale wasn't really known outside Indonesia I guess. But since Indonesia was once got colonized by the Dutch for around 350 years maybe some stories does get localized here. One of the story i know is about the fisherman and his wife from brothers Grimm. The version I've read is about two pair of cow hide sandals tho lmao, but same premise. The two sandals got too greedy and then get turned back to become sandals again.

*Edit scratch that, the cow hide sandals story I've read probably is some bastardized versions after googling lol. There's another story about the cow hide sandals and it's also about greed, but somewhat different from the fisherman and his wife. The sandals just ask to get more cow hide and more from his king owner and it just envelopes the kingdom, which scares the people, so it got turned back to just become a cow hide sandals.

What I remember was somewhat different since the cow hide sandals lamented their fate as sandals, then somehow God want to fulfill their wishes and they asked to became a humble mice, then cat, then other (I don't remember), until they become human, merchant, king, and eventually wanted to became a pair of gods too, which of course the god say no so they turn back into a pair of sandals.

No idea why the version I've read got mixed together and become one story or if I just miss remembering, but there's the localized version of the fisherman and his wife called the greedy grandma and grandpa, which is just the fisherman and his wife story.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

Oh well, that explains a lot, as I've never been exposed to Indonesian culture before.
I'm sorry if I caused any inconvenience.

[ori-taggart]

fellow french canadian here, the story of the Chasse-Gallerie's been told a lot in classes, especially in history lessons.

[silverraven0]

Lol, it's fine. It's good that I can get a discussion out if it

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Warning: long and not 100% faithful, it's a loose translation and I'm too lazy to put all the context.

So there's a pair of god and goddess who are banished from the heaven and cursed into the form of a dog and a wild swine respectively. Dog god and swine goddess go their separate ways.

Later on earth, a king on a hunting trip pees on a leaf. The swine goddess, after meditation, is literally thirsty and she drinks the piss. Swine goddess magically gets knocked up and gives birth to a beautiful human baby girl. The baby girl is found in the forest and is adopted by the royal family. She grows up to be an extremely hot princess and every king and prince want her. She rejects all of their proposals like the stacy she is.

Tired of all the kingdom and politic and conflict and marriage proposals shit, Princess exiles herself for a me-time with her weaving kit. One of her tools fell and like a low-energy princess she is, she thinks to herself "Man, I would marry whoever picked it up." Somebody does actually picks it up. Guess who? Dog god.

Princess comes back to her kingdom bringing a big news. Ashamed of their daughter being into bestiality, the kingdom exiles the couple back to the forest where they live a simple life. Princess and dog god fricked (don't worry he turned back into a handsome dude that time) and has a human son. Son doesn't know dog god is dad and treat him like a family dog.

One day, Mommy wants deer liver so son with dog goes hunting. Son gets pissed because deer gets away so when he sees a fat ass wild sow he knows he can't miss it. Dog god recognises the sow as the pig goddess, which is the son's grandma. Son commands the dog to kill the pig but the dog just won't budge with everything he does. Angered, the psycho kid then kills the dog god, takes his heart, cooks it, and gives it to his mom.

After his mom finds out she actually have eaten her own husband, she was furious. She hits her son with a rice spoon hard enough to cause TBI and memory issue, then banishes him from the house. Scared on confused, the boy ran away. The mother eventually regrets it, but it was too late. She prays to the gods so they can meet again and do some fasting rituals.

Meanwhile, the son travels the world, learns many cool stuffs from cool people, and grows up to be some super strong, super handsome man. He eventually came back to where his mother was (she is granted eternal youth btw). The mother doesn't recognize the hunk being her son grown up, and the son doesn't recognise his mom due to TBI. So you know what comes next? They fall in love. Until one time Mom stroke Son's head and discover the wound where she hit him, confirming he's her son.

Panics, she rejects his proposal for marriage but he is the psycho who kills dog so of course he's pushy. Somehow, telling the truth doesn't cross the mother's head or she knows her son is dumb as shit she knows nothing get through him, so she came with a solution: she will only marry him if he makes 1000 boat and a lake by damming the flow of the nearby river, by the dawn.

Lvl 9999 Son uses his army of supernatural creatures to easily do it because of course. Lvl 100 Mom panics and do some trick like making the roosters crow, beating the mortars, and extending a giant red fabric at the eastern area to mimic the sunrise. Creatures thought it's morning already and scurry away like roaches, abandoning the project like they don't need to collect the pay. In frustration, Son kicked one of the boat and it became a mount because because (and actually many other origin myths about lical geological formations, but I'm too lazy you won't know the place anyway)

After he fails, the Son still never gives up and keep pursuing his hot mom. Mom begged the gods to not let herself taken away by him and instead of imposing a restraining order they turn her into a flower. Meanwhile the son disappears into another dimension.

The end.

There were some variations like the son realizing it's his mom he has been lusting over and begged for forgiveness from the gods (and actually got punished with. . . I forgot), but I'm not gonna mention them all.

[Lingering_Wanderer]

There's this one from my country (Singapore) that explains how a place named Redhill, got its name.

The full tale: https://medium.com/@danielcfng/legends-never-die-the-boy-the-swordfish-and-the-bloody-hill-the-origins-of-redhill-and-tanjong-fc51f5c16d38

Summary:

It's a tragic tale, actually. There was a village by the sea that kept getting attacked by swordfish leaping out of the water. A boy, who witnesses this, comes up with an idea to erect bamboo posts along the coast that trap the attacking swordfish. However, the village chief gets jealous of the boy's newfound fame and kills him.

The boy's blood stained the land forever, and thus the hill that he died on was named Redhill.

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

Is the title of the story "The Oedipus Complex"? Why would someone consider marrying their mother? What I mean is, what's the point of this detail?

[NOOR_ASAKZ05]

There's an Arabic proverb that says, "Do good and you'll receive evil." I feel sorry for the boy.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

He forgot she is her mother because of head injury, she didn't realize because he was no longer a little boy.

What make it worse is somehow the mother did everything but telling him the truth (or she did but he didn't believe him).