Japanese Folklore: Fushimi Inari-Taisha and Kitsune Fox Legends
Follow the path marked by red torii gates and enter a world outside of the city, a world of meandering paths, where there are more foxes than people.
Fire and Fur: The Many Guises of the Grimms’ Fairy-Tale Witches
The fairy-tale witch is a compelling, frightening, and reliable stock character in our contemporary society. Mention “witch” and the hag of fairy-tale picture books for children comes to mind far more frequently than any other, more nuanced image.
A Pied Piper Mystery
hile the Pied Piper of Hamelin is undeniably a fairy tale, it’s uniquely grounded in real-world specifics – the date for one – June 26. That’s the date in 1284 when the town lost a significant portion of its population, a matter treated as fact in the first written allusion to the incidents, the initial […]
Swan Folklore: Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
What is it about swans? They feature heavily in Western European folklore, a graceful animal for a human to be transformed into as a curse, or shapeshifting into humans at will.
Il Gatto Mammone: The Italian Legend of the Cat King (Or Cat Demon?)
The Gatto Mammone is an influent folktale that very few people remember.