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Getaro In reply to manamoppet [2012-08-02 08:54:24 +0000 UTC]

Can you tell me the short version of the tale of "huldra"?
It looks so interesting yet I don't know it!

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manamoppet In reply to Getaro [2012-08-02 22:03:40 +0000 UTC]

There are many wandering tales. I'll try and translate from some of the norwegian wikipages regarding a few tales of the hulder folk. But it's very general, as there seem to be many versions of every story. Google Translate wasn't that good to translate either.
(Here's the mentioned tales, and I've translated the first two summaries below: [link] , [link] , [link] , [link] , [link] , [link] ).

There are many more tales I'm sure, but in general, to sum up, it's equivalent is the japanese Kitsune, and your german Holda. Some of the stories are on the english wikipage of Huldra (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldra). One of them tells of a man that nearly dies because of too much sex. Another tale tells of her blowing down the barrel of a gun/rifle, making it so the owner never misses its target ([link] ) save for her own animals. She's also a rå ([link] ), a keeper of the woods and marshes.

This is my favorite tale, but also provided on the english wiki page. (Btw, in Sweden, Huldra has a fox's tail, and in Norway, a cow tail and/or bottom here ) :

A boy in Tiveden went fishing, but he had no luck. Then he met a beautiful lady, and she was so stunning that he felt he had to catch his breath. But, then he realized who she was, because he could see a fox's tail sticking out below the skirt. As he knew that it was forbidden to comment on the tail to the lady of the forest, if it were not done in the most polite manner, he bowed deeply and said with his softest voice, "Milady, I see that your petticoat shows below your skirt". The lady thanked him gracefully and hid her tail under her skirt, telling the boy to fish on the other side of the lake. That day, the boy had great luck with his fishing and he caught a fish every time he threw out the line. This was the huldra's recognition of his politeness.


First link:Kone av Huldreætt(Wife of Hulder lineage), "Reidar Th. Christiansens vandresagnkatalog" tale nr. ML 50 90, short summary:

A man stumbles upon a hulder on the mountain pasture/farm ([link] ) and one of the hulder girls look especially pretty. He throws steel over her, or catches her by some other means. Then it appears that she's not really that pretty after all, but the other hulders demands that he must marry her. He takes her down to the village, and when they stand in front of the altar in the church, she loses her cow-bottom (literally: cow-ass, but huldra have just a cow tail in other tales). He is constantly mispleased with this marriage and unkind to her. One day she summons him in for dinner while he's in the smith. He answers bluntly that he will not come before he has bent the horseshoe right. She then comes out and into the smith, grabs the hot-glowing iron with her bare hands and bends the horseshoe to fit. "Like this I could also do with you, had I not been so fond of you!", she says. He's kind to her from then on.


Second link: Nærsøkjen huldrejente (Close-bond-seeking hulder girl), short summary. NB!...The dialect and meanings of some of the sentences and words are sadly not properly translateable and had to rewrite some (e.g. "mile" is a simple oven used for making tar or coal):

Old Ola Helldal was laying down and making tar one time at Ostebakkje (literally transl. from dialect: Cheese slope) below Åsebru. The hulder then came in the appearance of his wife. "But dear me, why is it that you come here?" he said. "I just wanted to see upon you" she answered. She lay with him at night, but when she stood up in the morning he saw her bottom. He himself later told that she had kissed him the night before, and then instantly licked him over the chin just after. Where she had licked, there never again grew beard.

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Getaro In reply to manamoppet [2012-08-02 23:53:19 +0000 UTC]

Wow!!
Thank you so much on this, so much information, translation even!
Thank you very much!

Even the german version of that tale isn't well known here, I heard of it but didn't knew as much.
Thank you very much, again and again!

Tell me if there would be a thing I could do for you.

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manamoppet In reply to Getaro [2012-08-03 13:52:36 +0000 UTC]

You're very welcome

Know of any good tales or folklore from Germany?

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Getaro In reply to manamoppet [2012-08-04 11:53:56 +0000 UTC]

Actually no.
I am really interested in folklore, I know some chinese, japanese, russian, and other folklore tales, but german?
I only remember some creatures...

Like the "Hanghuhn" wich would roughly translate to "hillside-chicken".
It is told that in regions where there are many hills and rivers, the farmers had those animals wich would look like normal chicken, but one of their legs would be much longer so they could easily stand on a slope of a hill. To catch one of these you just have to stand behind them and call them, as soon as they turn around they would fall over because of their different sized legs

Then the german version of the american "Boogeyman" would be the "Nachtgiger", "Nacht" means "night" and "giger" is old german for "kriechen" wich would translate to "crawling" or "creeping".
But some say that "giger" comes from an old word for "rooster" and so they say tht the Nachtgiger would have the wings of an rooster.
He is told to creep around in the night in villages to catch children that wander around in the dark, to drink their blood.

And then I remember the "Winselmutter", translation would be "Crying Mother", well "Winsel" is an old word for "crying" or "sobbing".
And that would be a white clothed or even white glowing old woman that would be crying all the time. As soon as you see one of them it would mean that someone you love is going to die or something bad happens to you.
In houses where someone lies with a serious disease you would eventually hear a Winselmutter, or even see one, sitting in a corner of the room, sobbing.

That's all I remember and I am really not that found of german folklore, you don't hear, read or see german folklore anywhere these days. It's weird, hard to find.
Hope I could tell you something interesting though

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manamoppet In reply to Getaro [2012-08-06 16:00:14 +0000 UTC]

Thank you, folklore is always interesting
German folklore is probably outshined somewhat by the brothers Grimm popularized/modernized tales.

I can almost see in my head an animation short of a Hanghuhn struggling to find a way to get down a slope after having dropped something or seen a sunset, or along those lines

All civilisations probably has a Boogeyman. No way around it in order to make children go to bed

On another note, an interesting thing about that Winselmutter, is that it sounds very much like the welsh "Hag of the mist"([link] ).

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Getaro In reply to manamoppet [2012-08-06 16:57:40 +0000 UTC]

Exactly! The "Gebrüder Grimm" really made it difficult to tell wether something is a real german folklore tale or a fairy tale...

Haha, I thought about drawing Hanghuhn and make it like a documentation and stuff so people believe that it really exists

Yeah I read somewhere that the "Nachtgiger", the german Boogeyman, was used frequently to just make children afraid of the dark, of the night and so on. As you said

I guess the Winselmutter and the Hag of the mist really are kind of related. Or, like the Boogeyman, a random similarity
Interesting though!

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manamoppet In reply to Getaro [2012-08-13 20:43:11 +0000 UTC]

Oh, and this too: [link]

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manamoppet In reply to Getaro [2012-08-13 20:34:38 +0000 UTC]

Anyway, you might find something interesting while reading this book (The Mythical Creatures Bible: The Definitive Guide to Legendary Beings) .

Good luck further

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Getaro In reply to manamoppet [2012-08-14 19:45:37 +0000 UTC]

Thanks a lot my friend!

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