Friends

i_hope_that
For many of us, the holidays can be kind of rough. If you're searching for a network of understanding friends, this ultra-nurturing community encourages you to express your heartfelt wishes and offer other members encouragement and acceptance. Not for the terminally snarky or emotionally-challenged, this is a good-spirited place to lend comfort and support.

diygifts
Feeling crafty? If you've got a few last folks on your holiday gift list, this is a great place to seed your creativity and generosity. You'll also discover wonderful DIY tips to decorate your home and entertain guests. Offering a no-frills-no-skills attitude that welcomes the cash-challenged and arts-phobic, you're sure to get ideas and make friends in the process.

cooking_club
A fun and friendly community dedicated to those who love to cook, whether you're a meat-and-potatoes type, an aspiring gourmand, and/or a vegan. In search of a brilliant dish to use up those weekly leftovers? Post your ingredients and you'll be whipping up a feast by dinner. You can also share favorite recipes. For Type A chefs, you can spice up your culinary repertoire with exciting cooking challenges.

This is one of my favorite children's stories in Gaelic, the sing-song cadences of the memory list amuses me. I was going to post it as a response to goldenmoonrose's request to tell her a story, but thought it might be a bit much for a response.

( Morechan and Minachan )

Stories of this sort are thought to have been composed as memory building exercises - to help children become accustomed to keeping things in memory. i think that they're just a lot of fun and the simple sing-song repetition appeals to little ones (how else could they stand shows like Barney and friends?)

There are a number of other such memory stories that I can think of in English - The Twelve Days of Christmas, The House that Jack Built, The Rattlin' Bog, There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Well, and one about a little old lady coming home from market. What other memory building stories are out there?

eta - I just remembered another one - There was an Old Lady. Also found this website - http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html#c scroll down to Chain Tales. There's a whole slew of them!

I work in an afterschool program, and, during snack time, the kids are always demanding that I tell them stories. I love it, but I'm beginning to run out of stories. I try and tell them obscure ones, ones that aren't well known, that they haven't heard before. They tend to enjoy the gory ones, the darker/scarier ones, and ones with clever heroes (like Jack and the Giant or Odysseus). Their current favorite is Blue Beard. They love anything: ghost stories, fables, fairy tales, mythology. Any recommendations for specific tales or sourses?

For anyone who hasn't seen this yet -- there are 4 episodes out now. Check them out on the Riese the Series channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Riesetheseries

As some people might remember, I have a hobby of translating Swedish fairy- and folktales from time to time when I feel like it. However, I don't do it too often so I often refrain from linking them here. However, I think I've managed to collect enough to post them now...

The first is your typical fairytale of enchanted items and good helpers, Golden Apples with Silver Leaves, from the southermost part of the country.

And some time after that, I decided to do this little thing where I translate one myth or legend from each of Sweden's 25 provinces; some of them are very general, other special for the area they hearken from, and some I just found really nifty. I've posted a link to a map of all the provinces in each post, so you'll have a clue of where they are from.

The first post features a ghost story from Skåne and a medieval legend from Småland...

... And the second a tale of abduction from Gotland, giants building bridges from Öland, and an enchanted forest in Halland.

I hope you'll enjoy. :)

"Beannachd nan siubhal 's nan imeachd. 'S e an-diugh Dihaoine, cha chluinn iad sinn."

on 25 Dec. 1999, The Boston Globe published an account of a fact of life in Iceland. This is the article. One point I find of interest (not mentioned in the article) is that at the time of the article, there were no operational rail-lines in Iceland. Two private lines had been in use in the early part of of the 19th c; a harbour railway which operated from 1913 to 1928 and a private farm rail-line which had been built in the 1930s, but was no longer in existance by the time the article was written. A light rail system was built after 1999, constructed in connection wit the Kárahnjúkar hydro-electric power project. (information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Iceland)

As we all know, iron is inimical to the Other Folk. It seems logical to me that networks of iron rails crossing and quartering the country would have a detrimental effect on the Good Neighbours.

Anyway, here's the article (taken from http://www.seattlepi.com/national/elvs25.shtml - I had clipped it out at the time, but I've lost the clipping).

( the body of the article )

Wikipedia has some additional information, including statistics in the numbers of people admitting to a belief in the Other Folk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldufolk

*"A blessing on their travel and their departure. Today is Friday, they can't hear us."

stepstomarrow
When granddaughter, Jada, was born with leukemia, a donor-match was located and Jada made a miraculous recovery. In honor of her grandaughter's health, Jeanna has decided to walk across the country (in the dead of winter) to raise awareness and build support for the bone marrow registry (all that's required is a cheek swab). Follow Jeanna's remarkable journey as she travels the United States by foot.

Does anyone else think the new Alice in Wonderland trailer makes this version look a lot like The Looking Glass Wars?

I wonder if anyone can tell me the origins of the tale of the Kalikantzari.
It's a Greek tale that the Kalikantzari spend all year chopping at the roots of the World Tree, deep within the earth. On Christmas Eve, they cannot help but want to spoil the festive mood emanating from the world above, and they abandon their axes to crawl forth and cause mischief among the humans. All night they give themselves over to the instantaneous pleasure of wreaking havoc, and while they do, all their efforts of the previous year are undone, as the World Tree heals its roots completely. (I believe there's also a part in there about specific acts with which humans are able to provoke the Kalikantzari into emerging.)

Now, I thought a World Tree, or Tree of Life or such, was Norse, and that Greek folklore would have more in common with Greek Myth or Greek Orthodoxy.

Being Greek myself, I'm a little ashamed to be asking, but there it is: I want to know how this story came about, and where it originated, and if anyone can point me in the right direction I will be glad of it!

Heart's Blood is Juliet Marillier's newest fairy tale retelling, and she's turned out a masterful Beauty and the Beast, keeping the bones of the story while bypassing the cliches of one of the most frequently retold tales there is.



Honestly, this may be my new favorite Marillier book (although Daughter of the Forest, as my first book of hers, will always hold a special place in my heart). With her usual graceful prose, she's created an original and strange telling of the familiar story. I don't want to give too much away, but I REALLY loved the concept behind this one.

So as far as plot goes, all I want to say is: Juliet Marillier's Beauty and the Beast. (Of coures you can discover more from the amazon.com reviews, but that's up to you. :)

As far as the writing goes, well, I'm completely in love with Marillier's style, and this one was more quick paced than some of hers -- while I love her writing I do occasionally find parts of the story to drag a little, not so in this one. She brought in a lot of unexpected elements, was really creative with the story in a way I haven't seen in other versions. I think a lot of retellings like to really focus on character development while keeping an old story absolutely in it's original frame. This version is just... more creative -- which is not to say she shortchanged her character development at all.

Agh! Just go read it! You won't regret it!



Comments may contain spoilers!

taste_buds
Holidays provide a built-in excuse for indulgent entertaining. This all-purpose foodie community covers everything from homemade hangover cures to dinner party menus. Need quick advice? Get five-minute snack suggestions, low-fat ingredient substitutes, and even measurement conversions. Delicious recipes garnished with humorous advice. Yum.

naturesbeauty
Always on the lookout for compelling images, we were delighted to discover this flourishing community of artists who share a love of nature. Honoring the subject with photographs, paintings, sketches, prose, poetry, and other creative works, you'll be simultaneously riveted to your monitor and inspired to run helter skelter towards the nearest wooded dale.

I found these and thought I would share in case anyone else might enjoy them!

http://www.freeonlinegames.com/adventure-games/rapunzels-escape.html You play as Rapunzel and use your hair to kill bugs and things that try to keep you from escaping! I'm not sure how many levels there are since I died once I got to the witches and my hand started cramping...


http://www.freeonlinegames.com/adventure-games/goldilocks.html This is just a "find the differences" picture game, but it shows a different telling of the story AND you can choose the ending!

http://www.freeonlinegames.com/adventure-games/alice-is-dead.html This is a game where you pretty much just click everything and try to escape. It looks like there might be a sequel coming out eventually judging by the ending once you escape...


http://www.freeonlinegames.com/adventure-games/little-red-riding-hood.html This is the same as the Goldilocks one, but with Little Red Riding Hood.

So if anyone else has issues sleeping and needs something to do or just something to kill some time, here you go! Enjoy! :)

(from Best-loved Folktales of the World (1982) selected by Joanna Cole)

(The Ashanti are a West African tribe, around what is now Ghana)

( Once, not far from the city of Accra... )

Hello,

Thought you might enjoy my film adaptation of "Brother & Sister" which is now online in its entirety for all to view!

http://www.vimeo.com/7878756 (starts with the behind the scenes doc or you can skip that)

It's based on both the traditional fairy tale and contemporary poem by Terri Windling, with music by Priscilla Hernandez.

:) Lisa