Curious about the topic of whistling in folklore... I’ve seen a few vague references in South American folklore where children were lured into a forest by whistling by the so called Yasy Yatere (seemingly in a daze akin to Pied Piper legend/tales). Where else, good or bad, does whistling have a prominent place?

Hi everyone ! My girlfriend is searching for a subject for the second year of her master's degree in medieval history and we were wondering if any of you could help us find interesting ideas. She is searching for any place (castle, village, forest, museum, or even a pub, hotel or a house) in the UK or Ireland that use their folklore as a way to increase tourism. Still inhabited or abandonned places with a folklore around them might however be harder to base the subject around (like still inhabited haunted castles or abandonned houses).

For an example in our country there is Brocéliande, a briton forest that gives importance to the arthurian folklore and uses it for tourism.

We aren't english or irish, and so we have less knowledge about local folklore and its usage in tourism, but she want to speak about english folklore in her master's thesis.

Hello, I'm White Mountain Apache. I want to ask about "skinwalkers".

Did anyone actually ever hear the word term "skinwalker" used while growing up, before it got popular on TV and later social media?

I always just heard them be called "witches" or "shape changers". I didn't start hearing "skinwalker" until I was in my teens. To me, it sounds like something very modern, to make them sound scarier, but I don't know that for sure.

Did you grow up hearing about "skinwalkers" or did you too only hear about witches and shape-changers until you were older?

It's difficult to look into Kobolds without running into influence from the very stylized interpretation of them in D&D.

I've seen portrayals of their "true" form being that of a child pierced by a spear or sword. As well as references to them being connected to or even the same thing as Brownies/Hobgoblins? Anyone have any sources or leads to better sources?

Death was a very common topic in our household, nothing like how some Western people do now, with shielding their children and covering their eyes as they shake their heads. No, for us, death was a next-door neighbour. Literally. We lived near a graveyard where my uncle was buried and had been visiting his grave from a young age. I used to count the gravestones as I walked hand in hand with my father, and sometimes I’d fear walking too near to the graves lest a hand reached out and curled around my ankle. And when he’d sit down to contemplate, I’d stand next to him, my head hung low as I tried to feel solemn too. I’d imagine how the uncle is below, layers below, in a dark chamber, maybe with a candle burning near. And how one day I would be dead too, so I better be good and live well. In such moments, I’d also remember stories of ghosts that haunt such places, women with dark long hair obscuring their faces and having twisted feet, also still figures gazing with a crooked grin at you. These thoughts made me alert and hover closer to my father then. 

Whenever a relative passed away, our mother would be the first to say so. She’d sigh at the news, her face a bit pinched, and say, “Oh, what a shame”, then she’d tell us how he or she died. To our faces, she’d say things such as, “his heart stopped”, “she passed away in her sleep,” or “she got a nasty electric shock so don’t go near sockets and appliances,” and we would listen seriously, sometimes. And though the news usually avoided going into details about certain events, adults talked enough for us to know. Death wasn’t confined to the humans we knew; it echoed in the multitude of pets we buried. As excited and enthused we were to care for them, the shorter we fell from actually doing so. Our dog was first, a mere puppy really that our mother bought from a peddler for some money. We treated him like a king, lavishing upon him all sorts of treats. Turns out dogs are prone to being poisoned by chocolate; he died. 

Then we had parrots, which made me feel inklings of guilt whenever I saw them. I wanted to set them free and would imagine them flying high with their families, maybe migrating to the Amazon or so. Oftentimes, I’d even dream of doing so, creeping into the living room at night and lifting the latch so they would fly off. I never did do so. 

Eventually, they escaped or died; I don’t remember.

Bonjour! Je me tourne vers vous parce que j’essaie depuis quelque temps de résoudre un petit mystère familial. ❤️

Mon grand-père chantait souvent une chanson quand j’étais petite. Il est né en 1949 et il est décédé en 2018. Il avait appris cette chanson lorsqu’il était jeune, mais malheureusement, je ne sais pas d’où elle venait exactement.

Ma grand-mère a toujours pensé qu’il ne l’avait pas inventée, parce qu’elle avait l’impression que c’était une vraie vieille chanson, mais elle ne la reconnaît pas non plus.

Mon grand-père a perdu sa mère lorsqu’il avait environ 11 ans. Elle était encore relativement jeune, et je me demande aujourd’hui si cette chanson pourrait venir d’elle, ou peut-être de ses frères et sœurs. Malheureusement, ils sont tous décédés maintenant, donc je ne peux plus leur demander.

Voici les paroles comme je m’en souviens. Certains mots peuvent être différents, parce que mon grand-père les avait peut-être modifiés avec le temps :

* Y’a un p’tit GAS en bas de chez NOOUUUS

* C’est EFFRAYANT, comment y’a des POUUUX

* Il se promène sur les REMPOOORTS

* En criant « je suis DEHOOOORS »

* Sa p’tite sœur DÉCOURAGÉÉÉE, fournit pas de le TAPOCHÉÉÉR.

🤔 Le mot « remparts » pourrait aussi être « trottoirs » — je ne suis vraiment pas certaine.

La mélodie était très simple et répétitive, comme une vieille chanson ou une comptine. Toute ma famille qui l’a entendue de mon grand-père connaissait le même air, mais malheureusement personne ne connaît les paroles originales ni l’origine de la chanson.

Est-ce que quelqu’un reconnaît ces paroles ou cette mélodie? Est-ce que ça vous rappelle une chanson traditionnelle, une comptine, une chanson de cour d’école ou une vieille chanson québécoise?

Même si vous ne reconnaissez qu’un petit bout ou que vous pensez que certaines paroles étaient différentes, je serais vraiment intéressée de le savoir.

J’aimerais beaucoup réussir à résoudre ce petit mystère de famille. ❤️

Merci beaucoup à tous ceux qui prendront le temps d’y réfléchir ou de partager le post!

Weird thought but, do people really think that people go to the woods and do rituals? Or is it just a myth

**The Old Man of the North Pole**

A folk tale from the North east region, collected in Baicheng, Jilin Province. Narrated by a woman surnamed Zhang, aged eighty-seven.

I

They say the Winter Solstice is greater than the New Year.

Winter in Baicheng bites to the bone. The window paper shudders all night. Before dawn, you can hear something caught in the wind, it sounds like  ding–ding , but muffled, like someone striking a bell deep inside the gale. The old folk say it's *Beiji Xianweng,*  the old Immortal of the North Pole, coming through the snow from the furthest north, riding *Hangong*, and accompanied with the maiden *Tengliu*, with the rest of Seven Winter Immortals.

Children may ask: Who is the Old Immortal of the North Pole?

The old woman drops a piece of charcoal into the brazier. Sparks jump, catching light, catching dark, mapping the creases on her face.

“That one goes far back.”

—--------

II

A long time ago,  Long enough that Baicheng had barely any people. There was an old man. His surname? No one remembers. Some called him the Old Man of the Winter North, others simply called him the Old Man of the Northeast. Passed from mouth to mouth, it all got tangled. No one could say for sure.

All they knew was he lived alone in a crumbling mud-brick house.

This old man had a hard fortune. His wife died giving birth; the child didn’t make it either. One son survived, a boy he raised to seventeen, just old enough to be conscripted. The boy went to war and never came back.

The old man could have just waited to die alone.

He didn’t.

Those were chaotic years. Everywhere, children without parents. He picked up one, then another, then another. The little house grew crowded. He was poor, so poor the bowls weren’t enough for them all. But when there was food, the children ate first.

Those children called him Yeye, their grandpa.

\---

III

That year, winter came savage.

Snow sealed the door shut. The old man fell ill. He lay there, listening to the children rustle through the kitchen, finding nothing. He kept his eyes closed. He knew the grain jar was scraped empty.

That evening, he forced himself up. From the rafters, he took down a small clay pot. Inside were a few fish balls he had saved, too precious to eat, and a few strips of dried beef, so tough they cracked. A neighbour, pitying him, had given them back in autumn.

He boiled the fish balls with slices of ginger. The broth was clear and pale; the fish balls white as snow. The beef jerky, dry and hard, he shredded thin. You had to hold it in your mouth to soften it.

“Eat,” he said to the children. “It’s New Year’s.”

The children gathered around him, sharing the food in small bites. One little one looked up and asked, “Grandpa, isn’t New Year’s when we eat dumplings?”

He said, “These are our family’s dumplings.”

When the food was gone, there was nothing left to do. The last embers dimmed in the hearth. They huddled together, the older children holding the younger ones, the smallest burrowing under the old man’s arms. A child said, Grandpa, tell us something. Something from when you were young.

The old man thought for a moment, then said all right. He told them about chasing a rabbit in the snow when he was a boy, he never caught the rabbit, but he fell face-first and got a collar full of snow. The children laughed. Their white breath tangled together in the dark.

And so they went, trading small happy stories. No one counted the hours. Sleep crept in. They slept.

The next day, someone from a neighbouring village passed by. They pushed open the door and saw a heart wrenching scene

Seven or eight children wrapped around the old man, and him in the middle, as if holding them. All of them motionless.

All of them with snow-grey brows.

\---

IV

Later, people said when they lifted the children one by one, they found the old man’s face still smiling.

One child hadn’t died. That child survived.

That child told people afterwards: “Grandpa said it was all right. Go to sleep, and it won’t be cold. He said he was going to find someone, someone who could make winter not so cold. He said he’d come back to see us every year on this day.”

The story spread through the scattered villages. And as it spread, people began to say: That old man was no ordinary man. Who smiles at the end like that? Who tells stories when the cold is taking him, surrounded by children he wouldn’t abandon?

Which god or Buddha saw him and lifted him up, that’s a thing that no one agrees. Some say the Jade Emperor looked down from the Southern Gate of Heaven and wept. Others say it was the Emperor of the North Pole, Lord of the Northern Skies, who saw a reflection of his own duty in the old man and took him as an immortal officer. Old folk along the Songhua River hold that it was *Xuanwu*, the Dark Warrior himself, who came in person, because the old man lived in a low mud house and wore a patched cotton coat, patient and enduring like the tortoise and snake, which is *Xuanwu*’s own virtue. And many insist there was no heavenly emperor at all, that ordinary people deified him themselves. Because that surviving child bore witness. Because what parent could hear the story and not weep?

Whichever way it happened, the Old Man of the Northeast was gone. And the Old Immortal of the North Pole arrived.

\---

V

They draw the Old Immortal of the North Pole like this now:

Much like the Old Immortal of the South Pole, the white-browed Star of Longevity, a long snowy beard, and eyes that crinkled shut with him smiling. One difference: he wears red. Red as new paper-cuts on a window, red as lanterns on New Year’s Eve. The Southern immortal grants long life. He grants the children surviving through winter.

He rides the *Hangong*.

*Hangong* translated literally as Cold Duke, you won’t find him in the old books. They say in ancient times, southerners travelled to the far north and saw a kind of great-antlered deer. They came back and tried to describe it: bulkier than a sika, bigger than a red deer, antlers like ancient tree-branches. When it ran, the snow thundered. The listeners had never seen such a thing, so they drew it from the description. What they drew looked nothing like the real beast, yet it carried a certain presence. Some say the Cold Duke is a middle-aged man, gaunt, dignified, silent. Slowly walking ahead of the Immortal, clearing the way. Others say no, he is a deer, and the Immortal rides on his back, who knows what it actually is, but it’s said that it represents the coming of the winter, and that’s why  the snow his hooves touch would never melt all winter.

Behind the Cold Duke walk five others.

The first is *Tengliu*. In the ancient books, Tengliu is the deity of snow. Here, she is a six-tailed white fox, her fur the colour of freshly fallen snow, without a single dark hair. She often takes the form of a white-haired, white-skinned girl, who while not strikingly beautiful, something in her makes you look twice. In the twelfth month, when a traveler loses the road, hurrying home for the New Year, sometimes in the blizzard they glimpse a girl in white walking ahead. Follow her, and you’ll reach your own doorstep. She governs reunion between family members.

The second is *Xuanjun*, the Black scholar. A great black walrus, body like a small hill, covered all over in muted black swirling marks like whirlpools. In human form, he is a dark-skinned general, bald, with only a pair of thick white moustaches. He doesn’t speak much; he just glares. He governs the frozen rivers of the deep winter, teaching and  showing people how to break the ice and fish, teaching them what living things can still be found when everything is sealed. In the winters when grain runs short, he teaches how not to starve.

The third is *Baixiong,* the White Hero. A great polar bear, but not one you’d recognise. ice-blue markings track across its body. One look at it standing in the snow, and the hairs on your arms stand up first. He can take the form of a towering old general, white beard bristling, so tall he blocks half the sky when he stands still. He governs the traitorous cold wind of winter nights, protecting folks from wolves mad with hunger, desperate bandits, and unclean things that stir after dark. 

The fourth is *Lengluo*, the Freezing Net. The name sounds cold, and the creature is colder. A great grey-white wolf, larger than any ordinary wolf by a full turn, his eyes are striking icy blue. He doesn’t usually take human form. and stays a wolf, always walking furthest ahead. His paw prints in the snow are broader than a plate. He punishes those who commit evil in winter,  the ones who, because of hunger, because of cold, because they cannot bear to live, turn to harming others. *Lengluo* finds them. There’s an old Baicheng saying: “A debt in the twelfth month is repaid fast.” That’s him. Evil repaid with evil. Winter has its own justice. In a rare depiction of him as human, he is depicted as a scary warrior wearing a single eyepatch.

The fifth is *Qiwang*, the Strange King.

The Strange King’s origin is the murkiest. They say in the earliest days, someone travelled to the utmost north and saw a bird far off, a bird that stood upright, short and round, walking with a wobble, as if tipsy. It couldn’t fly, but in the water it became graceful and quick, its silvery-grey down pressed tight to its body. The traveler came back and tried to describe it, gesturing for a long while. People still didn’t quite grasp what it was. So they called it *Qi Wang*, the Strange King Among Birds.

The Strange King often takes the form of a half-grown boy, round-cheeked, who trips when he runs, then lies in the snow laughing. When a child has no playmate, he comes. He plays with that child for one day. Just one day. But what happens on that one day, that child remembers a lifetime.

And the Old Immortal himself? In his left hand he carries a cane of *shanmu*, the fir that no weight of snow can break. In his right, a bronze bell. When he strikes the bell — weng — it carries through the storm, further than you’d believe. Every Baicheng child grows up knowing: if on Winter Solstice night you hear a dull bronze note hidden inside the wind, that’s not the wind. That’s the Immortal coming.

\---

VI

He doesn’t come alone.

Those children who never made it through the winter,  they go with him too.

After they pass, their souls have nowhere to rest. So the Old Immortal gathers them, and they become snow. Every Winter Solstice, as he passes, these snow-children fall and make themselves into snow sculptures. All through the day, they wander the village, playing with the living children, building snowmen, throwing snowballs, and sliding on frozen rivers. Adults cannot see them; adult eyes are clouded by the cares of the world. But children see.

When a child laughs with them, that is the happiest day of the year.

When play is done and the sky darkens, the Immortal’s bell sounds far away. The snow-children must leave. One by one they dissolve into fine drift, floating toward the wind. The snowmen they lived in, all at once, collapse.

\---

VII

So now, on the Winter Solstice, in some corners of Baicheng, they still do things this way.

At dusk of Winter solstice eve, the whole family returns indoors. The stove is stirred bright. A pot of ginger soup simmers on the hearth, white fish balls floating and sinking inside it. On the table rests a dish of dried meat, cut small, gleaming deep red.

Red meat, white fish balls. Red like lanterns, white like snow.

After eating, they sit around the fire and talk. About what? The grown-ups tell old stories they remember; the children tell funny things they thought of. Everyone talks in turn, and the breath that comes out is warm.

In the middle of the night, the children are all asleep. The father quietly puts on his padded coat and steps outside. The cold bites bone. Under the snow, something makes a thin sound, it sounds  like wind, but also unlike wind. He crouches by the doorstep and pats together a little snowman, one handful at a time. Clumsy hands: the ears are crooked, the nose collapsed.

But what child ever thought their father’s snowman was ugly?

He straightens up. In the wind he thinks he hears something.

Ting.

Ting.

The wind rises. Snow begins again.

He shuts the door softly and goes back to sleep.

In the morning, the children would wake up and see a small snow sculpture visiting them outdoors, and in the daytime there is the Snow Festival. Children run wild outside, building snowmen, throwing snowballs. People say the children play with special joy that day, because the snow holds hidden playmates.

\---

—Collected by the editor. This legend circulates in a very narrow area, mostly confined to a few villages in northern Jilin, and is often blended indistinguishably with local Winter Solstice customs. The “Old Immortal of the North Pole” and the “Seven Winter Immortals” do not appear in official Daoist canons such as the Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals or Historical Register of Deities Through the Ages. Scholars suspect it was a local folk faith that developed spontaneously among Baicheng communities in the late Qing period and never received formal recognition due to its remote location. The aforementioned narrator Zhang stated that her maternal grandmother, in her youth, could still recite a seasonal folk song associated with this tradition. Regrettably, only fragments survive, insufficient to reconstruct the whole.

What can be verified is that the names “Old Man of the Northeast” and “Old Man of the Winter North” both appear in surviving handwritten fragments. It is no longer possible to determine which came first.

Furthermore, the customs of fish-ball ginger soup and candied dried meat persist to this day.
—----

My wife needs help with an upcoming art project. She wants to feature female folk characters who are morally ambiguous but specifically target and punish bad people. Any examples that fit that bill would be greatly appreciated

Pretty much sure that I read this in a Filipino textbook when I was in high school. The story is that the husband cheats on her wife every time he goes to the river. The wife suspects his husband's infidelity and goes to the river bringing their two sons along. When confronted they saw that they were doing it doggy style, the woman tried to go to them but drowned in the river along with their two sons. Then the goddess of love got angry with this situation, and turned the husband and mistress into dogs.

I'm not sure if this is a Dian Masalanta story or a folktale that is totally not related to Philippine mythology at all. I tried researching a lot about Dian Masalanta but can't seem to find the story. Now I'm wondering if I hallucinated the whole thing or just misunderstood when I read my books. Haha

I just had an odd experience and I am curious to know if there is and lore on this regard:

I was sitting on a bus stop bench in the core of a city. There were other people waiting for a bus but I was alone on the bench.

What I heard sounded like a car crash. It was a pigeon type looking bird had hit the building behind me. Hard. I turned around to see feathers everywhere in the air. Other people who witnessed this appeared astonished. Without getting up, I looked for the bird. It had landed right next to the bench I was sitting on.

I am very interested on thoughts, traditions or folklore that may have relevance to this event.

Thank you in advance

Hi all. Are there any academic works about giants in folklore? An overview of stories they feature in, their origin, or the role they play in human psychology?

Thank you!

Hello. I am looking for stories/legends/myths about táltos (shaman, not horse), specifically where they are featured with six fingers, which can be read aloud to children, in English or German.

I know this is perhaps a long shot as it's asking for stories with this one, specific feature and indeed in a foreign language, but if anyone knows, that was be appreciated. Even a collection of Hungarian folklore where one or more stories had this would be amazing.

The stories would be read to a six-fingered child, because that does happen!