Do not mock a hanged man, or else he might make a house call!

#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory #Hamburg
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Visit_of_the_Hanged_Man

The Devil will often accost those who walk on the wrong path.

#Germany #folktale #folklore #Devil
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Devil_Carries_a_Card_Player_Home

The people of Muggensturm allegedly once beat back a siege by throwing beehives at the attackers.

#Germany #folktale #folklore
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Muggensturm

Some people like to get up close and intimate with trees.

#Poland #folktale #folklore #tree
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Two_Publican%27s_Daughters_Squeeze_Trees

EP 339: The Three Stars; The Mountain and the Rivers; The Great Flood (Jeong)

Listen Here

Watch Here

The Three Stars 

Told by Son Jinte; Gupo (1926)

Long ago there lived a rich man who had one daughter. One year he went up to the capital to take a Government post, and left his daughter in charge of the house in his absence.

One day a Buddhist monk came begging for alms. The daughter told the maid to give him a little rice. But the monk asked her to fill the bowl up to the top, and so she told the maid to do so. Yet however much she put into the bowl it could not be filled. She fetched all the rice from the storeroom, and even unhulled rice and millet, and yet the bowl could not be filled. The maid was very puzzled, and she asked, ‘How can it be filled?? The monk answered, ‘If the daughter of the house comes and tries herself, she will be able to fill it without difficulty.’ 

So the daughter of the house came to the monk and tried to fill the bowl, but even she could not fill it completely. Then the monk said, ‘If you pick up each grain separately nine times with silver chopsticks you will fill it.’ So she did as he suggested, but still without success. ‘If you take off your undergarments in a pit, and then try, you will succeed,’ said the monk. So she did so, but even so the bow! was not filled.

Meanwhile the sun had set, and the monk earnestly begged her to give him lodging for one night. She refused his request, with the excuse that there was no guest room in the house, but he still persisted in his request, and would not leave the house. He said that he would be satisfied to sleep in the stable, and this she allowed him to do. About midnight he came and said, ‘It is too cold in the stable, will you not let me sleep in the corner of the kitchen?’ She took pity on him, and let him move into the kitchen. But a little later he came and said, ‘I cannot stand the cold here either, let me come and sleep in the annex of your room.’ This too she allowed him to do. 

Very soon, however, he came and said, ‘It is too cold here too. Please let me sleep behind the screen in your room.’ Even this she allowed him to do. And so it came about that the monk slept in the same room. When she awoke the next morning the monk had gone. 

On her father’s return, some time later, all the servants went out to welcome him, but she could not go, for she was with child. On hearing this, her father was very angry, and determined to kill her. She was taken into the garden and bound, and a servant was ordered to cut off her head. But when he lifted the axe, the handle broke in two, and it fell behind him. He took a sword, and tried to kill her with that, but when he flourished it over her head the blade snapped in half. Her father then had an underground cell made, and cast her into it. He kept the key himself, and gave orders that no food should be taken to her, so that she would starve to death.

From that time the monk appeared in the underground cell every night. No one knew when he came, or how he was able to get into the cell. He took food to the girl, and in due course she gave birth to triplets.

Some years later her father ordered the cell to be opened. He expected he would find only a skeleton. He was greatly astonished to find his daughter alive, with three children sitting beside her reading.

He asked her how it had come about and she told him the whole story. So he sent for the monk, and when he came, he asked him ‘Are these three children yours?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the monk, ‘and I will prove it.’ He lifted up the sleeve of his robe. ‘If these three children pass through my sleeve without touching it, that will prove that they are indeed my sons.’ 

Then the children passed through his sleeve without touching it. The monk said again, “Let them put on wooden sandals and walk on white sand. They will leave no trace whatsoever on the sand.’ They walked on sand without marking it.

So the truth was proved, and the father recognized the marriage of the monk with his daughter. And the monk was seen to be a miracle working Buddhist.

When they died his three children were set in Heaven as the three stars of the constellation Vega. They rise in a vertical line, and set in a horizontal line, just as the children were born one after the other downwards from the womb, and were buried in three graves side by side.

The End

The Mountain and the Rivers

Told by Bang Jong-Hwan ; Seoul (1925).

Long, long ago, when food ripened on the Food Tree, and clothes ripened on the Clothes Tree, there lived a giant. He was so big that even his ears were six hundred feet long. He could not wear clothes, because there was not enough cloth in the whole land to cover his body. So he went nearly naked the whole year long, and in winter he suffered bitterly from the cold.

The King in those days —it was, of course, even before the time of DanGun— was very sorry indeed for the poor giant, and he had as much cloth gathered as could be found, collected from all the provinces, and he ordered all the tailors to make a robe for him. After many months they finished the robe, but even then it was too short. Nothing more could be done since there was no more cloth, and so it was given to the giant as a gift from the King.

The giant gladly put on the robe, and danced for joy on the lofty mountain pass of Saejae. Suddenly the whole land darkened, for as he danced, his robe cut off the sunbeams. All of the crops failed in the darkness, and the people appealed to the King to send the giant away. 

The King was very angry, and ordered his army to exile the giant beyond the borders of the land. A party of the mightiest warriors set out to carry the royal message to him. When they reached the summit of the mountain pass where he was standing they all shouted together in a loud voice, but the giant could not hear them, because his ears were so far from his feet, So they climbed up his legs, and after many months they reached his navel. Once more they shouted, ‘HO, GIANT! Your robe cuts off the sunlight, and the crops don’t grow. His Majesty has ordered that you be expelled beyond the borders of the land.’ So the giant was driven out into the barren fields of Manchuria.

Soon he became very hungry and thirsty, and ate the soil of the fields, and drank the water of the sea. Then his stomach began to roar like a mighty flood, and instantly his bowels were loosened.

And his droppings became a range of mountains, the highest mountain in Korea, Baekdu-San (White Head Mountain). And when he made water, two mighty channels were cut, one in front him, and one behind. These are the two greatest rivers of the northern frontier of Korea. One is the Amnok-Gang (Yalu River), the longest river in Korea, and the other great river is the Duman-Gang (Tumun River). There is a great lake on top of the mountain where both these rivers rise, called Cheonji (Heaven Lake) or Yong-Dam (Dragon Pool). This lake was formed by the giant making water there.

The End

The Great Flood

Told by Kim Gitek ; Tong-Yong (1913)

ONCE upon a time there stood a big laurel tree. A fairy often used to come down from Heaven and rest there. She bore a son, whose father was the tree, and when he was seven years old she went up again to Heaven. 

One day there was a great storm, and the rain continued for many months, so that the whole Earth was flooded as if by a raging sea. The flood even began to drown the great laurel. So the tree said to its son, ‘My boy, you are my son. I am afraid I shall fall, so then you must ride on my back. In that way only can you be saved.’ Soon afterwards the tree was uprooted by the waves, so the boy climbed on to the back of his father the tree, and the tree remained floating on the water for many days.

One day a great crowd of ants came drifting by. They shouted, ‘Oh, Son of the Tree! Save us, please save us!’ So the Son of the Tree asked his father, ‘Father, may I save them?’ And the tree replied, “Indeed you may.’ The son called to them, ‘Get on to the tree.’ So the ants gladly climbed on to the branches and leaves of the laurel. Then a group of mosquitoes came past, and wearied with much flying, appealed to the boy, ‘Oh, Son of the Tree! Please save us, we implore you!’ So the Son of the Tree asked his father if he might save them. It gave its consent, and the mosquitoes alighted on the branches of the tree. Then a boy of his own age, who was floating on the water, shouted, ‘Oh, my friend! Save me, please save me!’

So the son asked his father, the tree, for permission to help the boy, but the tree said, ‘No!’ The boy shouted desperately in his distress, and the son asked his father again, but the answer was the same. Now the boy was screaming for help, for he was near to drowning, so the son asked his father a third time, ‘Father, do let me save the boy.’ This time the tree replied, ‘Do as you like,’ and so the son shouted to the poor boy, ‘Get on to this tree!’ And so the boy was saved too. At last the great laurel tree, carrying the two boys, the ants and the mosquitoes, came to an island. It was the summit of a lofty mountain, as high as Mt. Baekdu. The ants and the mosquitoes then went away, after bidding farewell to the boy, and expressing their gratitude, ‘Thank you, Son of the Tree. You saved our lives, and we are deeply indebted to you. Good-bye!’

The two boys, who were very hungry, went and found a house, where there lived an old woman and her two daughters. One of them was her own daughter, and the other a foster-child. She received the two boys kindly, and gave them work in the farmyard. There was no one else left alive, as all the other people had been drowned in the flood. 

Now the rain stopped, the waters subsided, and they started farming again. The old woman thought it would be advisable to arrange marriages between the young people, and decided to match her own daughter with the cleverer boy, and her foster-daughter with the other.

The second boy detected the old woman’s plan, and decided to take advantage of his opportunity. He said to the old woman maliciously, “The Son of the Tree is a most unusually clever boy. Though you scatter a great bag of millet grains on the sand he can pick it all up within half an hour. Let him try it, and you will see for yourself.”

So to test his skill the old woman scattered a great bag of millet on the sand, and bade the son of the tree collect it again. He refused at first, but she repeated her demand, and in the end he had to agree. He tried to pick the grains up one by one, but he was so slow that it seemed unlikely that he could finish in half a year to say nothing of half a day. So with his head bowed in despair he wondered miserably what he could do.

Then he felt something biting his heel. It was a big ant, and it said to him, ‘I am one of the ants you saved from the flood. Why are you so sad?’ The boy told it what a difficult task he had been set, and then the ant brought thousands of its friends and picked up all the grains, so that the bag was filled in a few minutes. But the other boy was jealous, and watched the scene from a distance. He went and told the old woman that the task had not been done by the Son of the Tree himself.

So the old woman could not decide which of the boys she favoured, and said to them, ‘I love both of you equally, and so I cannot decide which of you should marry my daughter, and which my foster-daughter. Now I have a plan. You shall choose your own destiny. There will be no moon to-night, for it is the last day of the month. You must go and wait outside the gate in the dark, and I will

put one of the girls in the east room and one in the west room. Then I shall call you, and you may enter whichever of the rooms you may choose. Thus you shall make your own choice, and you will not be able to complain at the result.’

After supper the two boys went and waited outside. After a while the old woman called them to come in. In the summer night the Son of the Tree stood wondering which room he should enter. Just then he heard a big mosquito flying near his head. It came and whispered in his ear, ‘Son of the Tree! Go to the east room, the east room!’ So he went to the east room, and there he found the old woman’s beautiful daughter. And the other boy found her foster-daughter in the west room. It is said that these two couples had many children, and that they are the ancestors of the whole human race to-day.

The End

Source: Folktales from Korea by Jeong In-Seob

Photo Credit: “⁠File:白頭山・長白山瀑布 Baekdu waterfalls 白頭山・長白山 China N-Korea border 中国・北朝鮮国境.jpg⁠” by ⁠Isamukitafuji⁠ is licensed under ⁠CC BY-SA 4.0⁠.

Old churches had all sorts of special attractions for pilgrims.

#Church #Germany #folktale #folklore
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Golden_Louse_at_Bismark

The "Wahles-Books" contained many secret signs of where treasures could be found in the German mountains.

#Germany #folktale #folklore #Venice
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Excerpts_from_Wahles-Books

The Wild Women of the Schweinschied valley gather at their forest church to worship on every Sunday. But to which gods do they pray?

#Germany #folktale #folklore
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Wild_Women%27s_Hole_near_Schweinschied

A headless horseman roams the Mückenloch forest near Neckargemünd.

#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Rider_without_a_Head_(M%C3%BCckenloch)

Martin Luther saw some weird shit during his life.

#Germany #folktale #folklore #hare
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Uncanny_Hare