The White Hind of Hope
What does it mean if you see a white deer in the woods? Lisa Schneidau explores the folklore and folk tale of this mythical creature and the inspiration it brings for our times.
What does it mean if you see a white deer in the woods? Lisa Schneidau explores the folklore and folk tale of this mythical creature and the inspiration it brings for our times.
If you have heard or read the folktale “The Three Billy-goats Gruff,” you are aware of the existence of Norwegian folklore, and that it deals with trolls.
‘Snow-White & Rose Red’ is a literary tale, adapted by Wilhelm Grimm from a short story ‘The Ungrateful Dwarf’, written by the German children’s writer Karoline Stahl.
Snow-White and Rose-Red are sisters living with their mother, a poor widow, in a cottage by the woods. Red and white roses grow together by the door. One winter night, a bear knocks on the door. He is half-frozen and they let him warm himself by their fire. The girls play with the bear, and he comes back every night for the rest of that winter. When summer comes, the bear tells them that he must go away for he needs to guard his treasure from a wicked goblin. Later the girls rescue the goblin whose beard is stuck in a tree, but he is ungrateful and yells at them for cutting off his beard. The girls encounter him again and again, helping him each time, but he continues rude and ungrateful. Eventually the bear kills the dwarf, and reveals himself as an enchanted prince.
I became fascinated by boggarts about a decade ago. If I turned to the fairy and folklore dictionaries, I learnt that a boggart was a type of house goblin or perhaps, at a stretch, a poltergeist.
19th century Japan was obsessed with ghost stories. These stories are so influential that they serve as direct inspiration for today’s horror films.
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