Enchanting Tales
Magical and mysterious folktales from around the world
Compiled & Edited by
Praveen Dabré
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Praveen Dabré on Smashwords
Enchanting Tales
Copyright © 2010 by Praveen Dabré
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a compilation of traditional folklore from across the world. By definition these are in the public domain and free of copyright. However, the author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of those tales that are so copyrighted and have inadvertently been included in this collection.
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Enchanting Tales
Magical and mysterious folktales from around the world
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Paddy Corcoran's Wife
PADDY CORCORAN’S wife was for several years afflicted with a disease that nobody could properly understand. Nobody could tell what the matter with her was. She lay a bedridden invalid, trying doctors and quacks of all sorts, sexes, and sizes, till Paddy at last had just one comfort: she wouldn't be long with him—long troubling him.
The seventh year was on the point of closing, when, one harvest day, as she lay moaning over her hard condition a little woman who was dressed in a neat red cloak, came in and sat down by the hearth, saying, “Well, Kitty Corcoran, now you have been lying on your back for seven years, and just as far from being cured as ever. But you may be blamed for it.”
“How is that?” asked Kitty bewildered. “You see, for the last seven years you have been annoying us, the good people, and since I have a regard for you, I have come to let you know why you have been sick so long.
While you have been ill, your children have thrown your dirty water out of the door after dusk and before sunrise, just when we are passing your door, which we do twice a day. Now, if you avoid this, if you throw it out in a different place and at a different time, your disease will leave you, and you will be as well as ever before. If you don’t follow this advice, why, remain as you are, and all the arts of man cannot cure you.” She then bade her good-bye, and disappeared.
Kitty, who was glad to be cured on such easy terms, at once complied with the injunction of the fairy; and next day she was in as good health as ever, enjoying life once again.
– Ireland
The Tailor on the Brocken
A TAILOR heard that during the night between the last of April and the first of May witches gather on Glocker Mountain and perform incredible dances there. Being curious, on the preceding day he set forth and climbed Glocker Mountain. He hid himself among the branches of a willow tree and saw for himself how many hundred witches flew there through the air, had a lovely feast, and then danced joyfully.
One of the witches noticed him and shouted to another one, “See what a large burl that willow branch has. I’m going to drive my ax into it, so I can find it again next year.” And she drove her ax into his back. He only felt a single stab, but from that moment onward his back was very heavy, and when the sun came up he saw with terror from his shadow that he was now a hunchback.
Nevertheless, the following year when the first of May was approaching he could not restrain his desire to return to Glocker Mountain, because the dances had pleased him so much.
Seated once again in the willow tree, the witch saw him, as before, and said, “I want to pull my ax out of the willow burl, so I won’t lose it.” She reached for his back, and he felt a light stab. From that time onward his hump was gone. When the witch pulled her hand back, she was holding an ax.
– Germany
The Boa-Constrictor
OGUNFUNMINIRE, the famous hunter, lived to such a great age that he was no longer able to go into the forest and chase the deer and the leopard.
Life had no other pleasure for him than hunting, so he went to a magician and asked for some charm which would enable him to continue his occupation.
The magician gave him two pots, each containing a charm. Every day Ogunfunminire dipped his head into the first pot and was at once transformed into a boa-constrictor, in which form he glided into the forest and hunted to his heart’s content. At night he returned and dipped his head into the second pot, and so became a man again.
This went on for a long time without the knowledge of the old hunter’s family, but when at last they chanced to discover the secret, they were filled with horror, and his son in a rage kicked at the pots and overturned them both.
Ogunfunminire was at that moment hunting in the forest, and when he returned to his house and found the magic pots overturned and empty, he was filled with dismay, for he had no means of regaining his human form. For some days the boa-constrictor glided about near the house, seeking a few drops of the charm, but in vain, and at last he disappeared into the forest and was never seen by his family again.
– Yoruba, Nigeria
A FARMER was once ploughing his field located near a cavern called Dwarf Cave, when his wife came to bring him freshly-baked bread for breakfast in the field. She had brought it in a little towel and laid it on the edge of the field.
Soon thereafter a little dwarf woman came and asked the farmer for his bread: Her bread was also then in the oven, but her hungry children could not wait for it and she wanted to replace the farmer’s borrowed bread with her own baked bread at midday.
The farmer agreed and the little woman indeed came again at midday and spread out a very white sheet and set on it a loaf of bread that was still warm, adding many a thanks and beckoning the man to eat freely of the bread. She wished to retrieve her sheet later that day.
When she came to retrieve her sheet the dwarf woman stopped to converse with the farmer. She said that since so many hammer mills were being constructed she, being disturbed by that, had to move away and leave this dear place. Also the swearing and great cursing of people, as well as the disregard for Sunday, where farmers went to their fields before church, a great sin, drove her away.
Shortly thereafter on a Sunday several farmhands went into the cavern with lit torches, finding inside a collapsed low-lying passage. They finally found a broad industriously-constructed place, four-cornered, higher than a man’s height, with many doors on each side. Then a great fear came over them and they left without looking in the little rooms behind the doors.
– Germany
Esbern Snare and the Kalundborg Church
WHEN ESBERN Snare was about building a church in Kalundborg, he saw clearly that his means were not fully adequate to the task. But a troll came to him and offered his services; and Esbern Snare made an agreement with him on these conditions, that he should be able to tell the troll’s name when the church was finished; or in case he could not, that he should give him his heart and his eyes.
The work now went on rapidly, and the troll set the church on stone pillars; but when all was nearly done, and there was only half a pillar wanting in the church, Esbern began to get frightened, for the name of the troll was yet unknown to him.
One day he was going about the fields all alone, and in great anxiety on account of the perilous state he was in; when, tired, and depressed, he lay down on the Ulshøj bank to rest awhile. While he was lying there, he heard a troll-woman within the hill saying these words:
Lie still, baby mine!
Tomorrow cometh Fin,
Father thine,
And giveth thee
Esbern Snare’s
eyes and heart
to play with.
When Esbern heard this, he recovered his spirits, and went back to the church. The troll was just then coming with the half pillar that was wanting from the church; but when Esbern saw him, he hailed him by his name, and called him “Fin.” The troll was so enraged at this that he went off with the half pillar through the air, and this is the reason that the church has only three and a half pillars.
– Denmark
The Magical Cooking-Pot
A MAN once brought home to his wife a very old cooking-pot, and told her to use it every day when preparing the evening meal.
The woman was not pleased at the idea of using such a battered vessel, and feared that her friends would ridicule her, but she dared not disobey her husband, and began to use the pot as he demanded.
Little did she guess that the pot was a magic one, and had the power of turning the ashes of the fire, on which it rested, into gold. Every night the husband crept out, when all were asleep in the huts around the compound, and gathered together these golden ashes, which he stored safely away.
One day a young man in the village was about to set off on a journey; he came to the woman while her husband was absent, and asked a favour of her. He said that he had taken a fancy to her old cooking-pot, and would give her a fine new one in exchange for it. The woman hesitated, but she was ashamed of the ugly old pot, and was glad of an excuse to get rid of it.
When her husband found what she had done, he was very angry, and beat her soundly; but it was now too late to recover the pot, as the young man was already far away in the forest. Naturally he had not obtained the pot without knowing its secret, for he had observed the actions of the man who so mysteriously collected the ashes every night; and it is said that from that day the young man spent his life cooking!