Some people liken the beginning of this folktale to Shakespeare’s King Lear. A rich man asks his daughters how much they love him. One answers in a way he does not understand. He mistakenly thinks she doesn’t love him and throws her out of the house. She makes a cloak out of rushes to hide her fine clothes and finds a job cooking and cleaning. That is, of course, until she meets her true love at a ball and turns her bad luck into a ‘happily-ever-after’ ending. Sadly, this sweet-sounding tale may have a more sinister underlying theme. More…
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Kate Crackernuts
What’s this? A folktale where a wicked queen doesn’t come to a terrible end and stepsisters love each other! Where’s the fun in that? A queen is unhappy that her stepdaughter is more beautiful than her own daughter. So, with a little magic, she pops a sheep’s head onto the prettier one’s shoulders. The two girls run away together and of course marry handsome princes. However, I am a bit worried about a possible message from the story, which seems to suggest that it is OK to steal from babies as long as you do it for a good cause. More…
Fairy Ointment
In this folktale, a strange looking little old man asks a nurse to come to his house to help his sick wife look after their baby boy. The man’s wife gives the nurse some ointment to put on the baby’s eyes. Being curious, the nurse puts some of it on one of her own eyes. The family seemed normal enough up to this point. However, the ointment helps her to learn their secret. The nurse pays a heavy price for her actions when the old man finds out what she has done. More…
Tom Tit Tot
The protagonist in this folktale is a lazy girl who doesn’t appear to be good at anything except eating. Her mother lies to the king by saying she is a whiz with the spinning wheel. For some reason this is just the kind of girl the king is looking to marry. The poor girl can’t even spin a top, so in order to avoid losing her head she accepts an offer of help from a small magical creature. As the creature helps the girl, she must try to guess its name. If she can’t, she shall become its. More…
The Three Sillies
Not all folktales are designed to teach or explain. Some, like this one, were popular for their entertainment value. In this story, a rich young man finds that the woman he loves and her family are not very clever. He decides that he will only marry the girl if he can find three people sillier than they are. A woman trying to push her cow up a ladder, a man who can’t get his trousers on, and a whole village trying to rescue a shadow from a pond prove that there certainly are sillier people in the world. More…
Mr Miacca
Mr. Miacca is an English folktale of the ‘bogeyman’ type, where adults tell stories of imaginary beings to frighten young children into being good. In the story, a boy does something wrong and finds himself about to be cooked for Mr. Miacca’s dinner. He gets away by tricking Mrs. Miacca. The forgetful boy makes the same mistake, and again finds himself on Mr. Miacca’s dinner menu. This time Mr. Miacca watches over the boy himself, and decides to cut off the lad’s leg (which he throws in the cooking pot) to make sure he doesn’t run away. More…
Hudden and Dudden and Donald O’Neary
No one can make fun of themselves like the Irish. This quite funny folktale is about two well-off but foolish farmers named Hudden and Dudden. They will do anything to get their hands on a small piece of land between their two farms. This land belongs to a poor but clever man named Donald O’Neary. The story begins simply enough with Hudden and Dudden deciding to poison Donald’s faithful cow. Things escalate from there with Donald becoming rich and three people dying. By the end of the story, justice appears to have been served. But has it really? More…
The Fish and the Ring
In this Scottish folktale, a rich and powerful man looks into the future and learns that the fate of his son is to marry a girl from a very poor family. He wants a high society wife for his son and does everything that he can to stop the marriage. He unsuccessfully tries to kill the poor girl twice, and is about to throw her over a cliff when she agrees to go away forever. A hungry fish brings them together again and teaches him that, no matter how much you try, you can’t change what is meant to be. More…
Molly Whuppie
This Scottish folktale is one of those rare stories where the character who successfully defeats a giant is a girl. As often happens in folktales, Molly achieves this through gruesome actions. First, she tricks the giant into killing his three innocent daughters. Later, she tricks him into severely beating has kind wife, who had helped when Molly and her sisters needed food. As a reward, the girls marry into the family of a cowardly king who is happy to send Molly into danger three more times to satisfy his greed. There don’t seem to be any true heroes here. More…
The Ass, the Table, and the Stick
In this English folktale, a young man works for a year and earns a magic donkey. An innkeeper tricks him out of it, so he works for another year and earns a magic table. The same innkeeper tricks him out of this. For his next job, the boy earns a magic stick. This helps the young man get his donkey and table back, as well as to marry his true love. Unfortunately, in winning the girl the young man shows a side of his personality that will make readers wonder if he really deserved all the magical help! More…
Lazy Jack
This English folktale is about a boy who isn’t very bright and doesn’t like the idea of work. However, thanks to following the advice of his mother, he marries a rich girl and, one imagines, never has to work again. Possible morals? For children: Always do what your parents tell you and you’ll have a good life. For parents: Teach your children the value of hard work so they can take care of you in your old age. For the rich girl: Sometimes laughter is the best medicine. For the rich girl’s father: Be careful of what you wish for! More…