#swedish folktale

[sassafrasmoonshine]

John Bauer, illustrator (Swedish, 1882–1918) • Agneta and the Sea King, illustration to Swedish Folktales • c. 1911

[mugoki]

(source / source)

[froggytroll]

Some of you don't know Trolska Polska and I'm here to change that. If you like the goblincore aesthetic this might be your new favorite band.

[chunkathang]

I drew some trolls I love Swedish trolls so much aaaaa

These are just two trolls I made. Helgan and Boldr. Helgan is like a grumpy mama figure and Boldr is shy and surprisingly polite compared to many of the other trolls.

[drunkenclown555]

FUCK ALL OF YOU I am drawing a troll

[snigepippi]

I cannot recommend Heimskringla.no enough

Every original Norse text is digitalised and uploaded. All translations that are creative commons are there. More modern folktales and oral stores are there. Several research papers, analyses, commentary and opinion pieces have been added. And they offer very cheap physical prints of many things that are out of print.

They now have 7600 texts!

Of course most texts are old Norse, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finn. But you can find English papers and translations too.

If you want to learn one Scandinavian language I recommend Norwegian. Then you can read Danish and understand Swedish.

[littlestpersimmon]

Last ditch effort trying to look for this music vid. Maybe someone who follows me might know. Have asked everywhere on reddit. Animated, fairly recent, I got it on my youtube recs maybe last year? I genuinelu do not remember. Looking for a music video of a Japanese artist. Very very well made animation, like on levels of Makoto Shinkai. I don't remember the song nor the music video exactly, but I remember it was fantasy, had the vibes of norse or Scandinavian culture. Saw a couple of people also say it was based on a Swedish? Folktale. Somewhere along those lines. Characters were a boy who looked like a girl, and he had someone with him whose gender is unknown, but also androgynous in appearance, and they had long black hair and taller than the blonde boy. This second person was associated with crows or ravens or something. Plz help, I have been looking for this vid for months now.

Edit. Thanks! It's white snow by eve.

[creature-wizard]

how is she (Lilith) closed when she exists in Swedish folklore with a different name (Her name is Lucia but it developed into the Saint Lucia tradition to be exact but in northern Swedish folklore she has a darker past where she was adams first wife and her story is very similar to Jewish Lilith).

Edit to add: It's extremely likely that this story about Lucia being the first wife of Adam is more of a modern Internet tale than an old Swedish folktale. I can find no reputable sources to back it up, and people who have familiarity with Saint Lucia/Lussi have informed me that they've heard nothing of this kind, either. That said, my point that similarity between figures does not justify appropriation still stands.

The uniqueness of figures has nothing to do with whether they're open or closed. Your argument is like saying, "well how can this storm god from an African traditional religion be closed when Thor exists?"

The ATR god is closed because the people who whom that tradition belongs said so. If you want to worship a storm god, Thor is right there. Likewise, you are free to work with this folkloric version of Saint Lucy.

Lilith isn't closed because she's supposedly unique. That never had anything to do with it. In fact, "oh but this open figure and that closed figure are basically the same though, that means I'm entitled to the one you're claiming is closed" is the rhetoric of spiritual colonialism, used to justify the misrepresentation and commodification of spiritual figures from marginalized groups, to that group's detriment.

Now, not every Jew agrees that Lilith is closed, because Jews aren't a monolith. But I have seen no shortage of Jews arguing for Lilith as a closed figure, and I find their arguments pretty damn compelling

So, Christians have spent centuries digging into Jewish traditions to find something they could weaponize against Jews; EG, getting into Kabbalah to try and find places they could project Jesus so they could try and convince Jews to convert to Christianity. Something very similar is absolutely happening with the gentile Lilith worshipers. There's a strong tendency toward antisemitic conspiracy theory among them; EG, believing that patriarchy was a Jewish conspiracy that was later expressed through Christianity.

These people often claim that Lilith was this ancient mother goddess who was demonized by the Jews. They try to claim that these old mentions of lilitu are somehow evidence. In reality, ancient cultures in the Near East worshiped a number of mother goddesses (EG, Ninhursag), and none of whom were Lilith.

Many deities did get demonized at some point (EG, Astarte became Ashtoreth, and Baal became Bael), but this had nothing to do with a patriarchal conspiracy; rather it was a generalized demonization of rival gods. And Lilith was not among them, because Lilith was never a goddess.

In fact, I have yet to see a single gentile Lilith worshiper who isn't deep into conspiracy theories and doesn't quote pseudohistory of some kind. Not a single one. So yeah, I will continue taking the side of the Jews who say that Lilith should be closed, because I've seen the bullshit gentiles are pulling with her.

[olderthannetfic]

Here's a random observation I made recently about dumb buzzword salad in trad publishing. And another reason I have a big fucking beef with how lazy and copy paste trad publishing is, and how little of a shit they actually give about properly representing their talents and the talents experience.

My local bookstore has a section which is basically just the "written by diaspora" corner. If you're "diaspora"-(insert other country) your book will probably end up there. It's a bit weird but makes sense when you consider the community in my town and surrounding area.

I saw a book that was a "(Asian) reimagining of a (Western) story" Here's where the buzz-description came in. The blurb on the back praised the author for combining their own heritage, with that of a "Western" story. This is a fake example to not put any negative attention on the book: Dealing with being Asian in the UK. The focus of the blurb was 100% on them being a diaspora and how that affected their writing. If you've seen one of these blurbs you basically know all of them.

The thing is, the story they reimagined had absolutely nothing to do with the "UK" UK culture, folk lore or anything else. Let's pretend it was Baba Yaga. Nothing else implied that they had any other connection to the the culture Baba Yaga comes from. Yes it's a reimagining, but how does reimagining a story with absolutely no ties to your life count as fusing your specific experience of being diaspora and living the UK?

Once again, the example isn't real, and just to explain the basics of it: If a Chinese-British person wrote a book reimagining the story of Baba Yaga with a "Chinese twist." You can do that, could even be super fun. But a British person, Chinese heritage or not, Baba Yaga isn't "your culture". The UK and Russia are not interchangeable, neither is Chinese and Russian. So why does trad publishing treat it like the Chinese-British writer is just conflating the two? Why not make the focus on the Chinese-British writer having a passion for Slavic folk tales, specifically Baba Yaga? No, instead they do this copy paste fusion bullshit, that doesn't even match the experience.

It just makes it so painfully obvious how little trad publishing cares about the writers works. And I've seen this several times, some times with more obvious examples. Some times titling the Western story with a general wording, so it isn't too blatantly obvious that the story's from the completely wrong country and culture.

It's be just as silly if a European, Idk Swedish lived their whole life in Thailand, and then in order to "deal with being a Thai-Swede" wrote a book reimagining Indian folktales with a Swedish twist. "UK and Russian" isn't interchangeable. Thai and Indian isn't interchangeable. So why does trad publishing have the guts?

--

[bestiarium]

The Bäckahäst [Swedish folklore]

Evil aquatic horse spirits are a common trope in Germanic, Nordic and British folktales. The Scottish Kelpie, the Icelandic Nykur, the Norwegian Nøkk etc are all variations of (and derived from) the same story. In Sweden, this role is given to the Näck: an evil supernatural horse creature that convinces people to mount it and ends up drowning the victim.

In southern Sweden however, the Näck is replaced by the Bäckahäst, a similar monster. Originating in Skåne, this creature appears as a pale white horse (although this isn’t set in stone and some artists portray it as black) but otherwise resembles the Näck in most aspects, sometimes the two terms are even used as synonyms. But there are some regional differences. Interestingly, the Bäckahäst seems less dangerous than the more traditional Kelpie-like creatures. There are stories of these beings being tamed simply by putting a bridle on them, although they could also be forced into submission by using iron and steel. Once tamed, the creature could be used for ploughing or other agricultural activities which it excelled at because it needed neither rest nor food.

The name ‘Bäckahäst’ translate roughly to ‘stream horse’ or ‘brook horse’. The creature is also related to the Sjörå from northern Sweden.

Egerkrans’ popular modern book ‘Nordiska Väsen’ describes the Bäckahäst as having a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth and claims that it has a particular fondness for human children, preferring them over other prey.

Interestingly, according to Höök, an old Swedish tradition claims that Bäckahäst is only able to hurt unwashed people. Clean people who have recently bathed cannot be harmed by the monster. Supposedly, this is because supernatural monsters were traditionally associated with filth and a lack of hygiene. Being clean and hygienic would hold evil at bay, and you can’t really blame people for believing in that superstition because many stories of evil spirits at the time were associated with real diseases. If illnesses were the work of evil monsters and personal hygiene was an effective tool against illness, it only makes sense that proper hygiene was thought to also keep evil spirits at bay.

Sources: Egerkrans, J., 2013, Nordiska Väsen, B.Wahlströms, 126 pp. Lindow, J., 1978, Swedish Legends and Folktales, University of California Press, 219 pp. Höök, L. K., 2004, Vattnets renande och läkande kraft: Om hälsobrunnar, offerkällor och volontären Johan Lundin, Tio tvättar sig, Nordiska Museets Förlag, 47 pp. (image source 1: Jessica Hardarson on Artstation) (image source 2: Johan Egerkrans)

[winterswordsx]

i would like to think that caregiver skwisgaar likes to read to his little stories from his own childhood or swedish folktales.

he would surprisingly be quite expressive while he reads to them, in contradiction to his normal stoicism. if the book has pictures, he will point them out to his little and ask them questions like, “cans you tells to me what color this is?” and praise them when they get the answers right.

idk the thought brings me a lot of comfort when im feeling little :)

[mixed-up-media]

HOW THE LAIKA MOVIES CONNECT TOGETHER!!!!!

Also known as history of the beldam!

Warning: most of this is just crack. This was my shower thought this morning and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. None of this is canon. This is just dumb crap. It is held together by 2 strings, 3 old gum pieces, a roll of duct tape, and a used bandaid I found behind the school bleachers. This post is also a long one. You have been warned.

Ok, let's start off with something that has been bothering me, and the rest of the Coraline fandom, FOR YEARS! What is the Beldam? As far as the internet is concerned, she's the villain in Coraline, not much more than that. However, other sources say that another meaning of beldam is "old hag" or "witch" which makes sense. Something that also stuck out to me was another website stating she was an evil fairy. I feel like a beldam is not a singular term for the other mother but rather a species of evil fairies. Once again this connects to one of our favorite detail in that movie, the mushroom circle.

Mushroom circles are known throughout folktales as gateways to fairy realms. Keep this in mind! So what other thing is connected to fairy realms? OH YEAH, TROLLS!

So, I have not read "Here be monster," that is my summer reading goal, it just has to come. So I don't know what lore drops are in there, all I know is that the book is the reason people say Egg's real name is Arthur, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯! What I do know that that in most mythologies trolls are evil and here that is not the case. Something that I noticed in Boxtrolls and in the little info piece on amazon for "Here be monsters" is that both towns end with a bridge. Cheesebridge, Ratbridge, you get the picture. So that means to me is that the trolls are connected to bridges. If you don't know what I'm going for here is the trolls that live under toll bridges. You know that thing that we were all terrified of happening to us from Monty Python and the Holy grail, yeah that thing. They make it very clear there is some sort of connection." Lindow states that the etymology of the word "troll" remains uncertain, though he defines trolls in later Swedish folklore as "nature beings" and as "all-purpose otherworldly being[s], equivalent, for example, to fairies in Anglo-Celtic traditions". (Wikipedia)

Otherworldly you say? Well as a fandom, WE KNOW PLENTY ABOUT THAT! So I'm getting that there is some sort of fairy world situation going on. Like there's a world with magic separate from our own where creatures come from, K.

Some else I noticed was the similarities between Kubo's aunts and the other mother.

Notice the white faces,red lips, and lack of eyes. Now I'm aware that the sister's designs are biased off of the Geisha, however there is something else that connects them, the obsession with ripping a child's eye out, which I would assume is something Geisha women don't do ( I could be wrong.) So I feel like there is some sort of connection between the Beldam and the moon king. A partnership, a teacher of how to remove the eyes of kids, the biological mother of his children. (Low key shipping them)

Then there the witch situation. Witches have been known throughout history as evil, but we watched ParaNorman, and we paid attention! WE KNOW THEY'RE JUST MISUNDERSTOOD! So we've established that there's magic, but we've never really come up with where the magic comes from. I have a whole theory on why Norman can see ghosts, ( I'll post that one later) but I'm pretty sure the magic effects genetics. Now, hear me out, what if the magic comes from the magic fairy realm thing from earlier.

SO POSSIBLE TIMELINE, MAYBE!

A LONG LONG LONG LONG TIME AGO, the Pre-Beldam Fairy was just livin her life. She discovers some sort of dark magic and turn evil. She goes down to earth but uses a portal thing to get there. Out from that portal thing comes some trolls that find a home under a bridge. After years of evolution they become boxtrolls. Then Beldam fairy meets the moon king and has his daughters helps him tear his grandsons eye out. The fairies in charge are like: Dude, the frick is wrong with you, and banashes her to what would become the american continent. They also strip her of her powers which then finds its way to the other side of the soon to be continent. There her magic connects to several families including the one of a little girl with long black hair. Over in Oregon country the beldam finds herself hiding for years and years. Eventually a family of pioneers show up and build a house. Not wasting any time, the beast uses her dark powers and finds a small hole in the wall. She discovers that it's made out of some of the magic ripped from her and uses it for her advantage. Eventually she develops the persona of "The Other World," and The other Mother. She eats kids souls until a blue haired girl defeats her. Who knows if she actually killed her or not!

How does Missing Link fit all this? Well TADA

Lionel found an old monkey carving from a old Japanese town, a newspaper clipping from a few years back about "Boxtrolls" and an old book from back when the mayflower first set sale (I feel like the book was something Aggie's mom brought with her to the new world and read it to Aggie for years)

THE END

People who might find this humorous

@evenceflux18

@officermaddie23

@kpyeeper

TAG MOREEEE

[buckets-and-trees]

haunting thoughts on Silent Screams

read it here: SILENT SCREAMS IN WILDEST DREAMS

Fandom: MCU Characters/Pairings: Bucky x Reader, side of Steve Word Count: 8k Content Warnings: dark dark DARK tale, smut, main character death, rough sex, fingering, oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v sex, creampie, talk of wounds, slight dub/con, elements of somnophilia

RECAP: A dark tale with an unhappy ending. Just when you’ve married the man of your dreams, only just closed the chapter of your honeymoon, happily ever after is wrenched away, and you’re met with a nightmare you never could have imagined.

I published this in late November 2022, but I worked on it on and off between other projects for about six weeks from concept to research to writing. I wrote it for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor's Hallo-Cream Extravaganza, which was a cool challenge because there was a collection of numbered images you could choose from, and then when my image was confirmed, there was a prompt to go along with it.

It was also my first time participating in a challenge since getting back into writing fanfic. When I thought I was getting the sun alone, I was thinking vampires, but when I got the phrase along with the image, it halted the vampire idea I thought I would go with, and since I was already going to re-evaluate, it got my mind going even more. At the time I was also redefining a lot of pieces in my life and I had signed up to go solo on this 5-day retreat to a cabin in the woods... I ended up talking about some of the research and concept ideas for this fic on the six-hour drive to and from that cabin with a girl I carpooled with (we talked about so many things as you do with a stranger you just met when you're both going to the same retreat and want to save on gas). But I'll put the rest under a cut so as not to spoil for those who haven't read it.

When I realized it wasn't going to be vampires, I really wanted to then get totally outside of the box of things we see all the time. I decided I wanted to look up Scandinavian folklore as I was also trying to throw off some of the USAmerican culture I'd just been sitting in my whole life and explore some of my ancestral heritage. I figured there had to be a ton of stuff I'd just never learned about or heard of before and of course there was. One of the ideas I have buried for another day is to do kind of a Grimm or Phillip Pullman thing and do an anthology retelling of some of Scandinavian folktales because they were fascinating, and there were elements I was familiar with alongside very new pieces. It was so cool to begin to uncover the stories there...

But I was looking for a story that would also fit my prompt and lend itself to Bucky x Reader application.

I found the Gengångare. The lore is that they're a revenant/walker, and particularly in the Swedish tradition they're a corporeal form of a spirit that comes back after death. The spirit would have been murdered or killed and came back for mixes of revenge or unfinished business. That I could give Bucky - going on a mission, being killed, and having both revenge he could seek (against still living HYDRA folks who tormented and used him) and unfinished business in a promise that he makes to you, his reader newlywed bride, to come back to you.

And so the story begins with what I was hoping to be this blissful newlywed haze - the first morning after your honeymoon. Bucky is leaving for a mission - he'd said they were leaving later than he's actually going to leave because he didn't want you to get up hours before you needed to in order to send him off, but he does wake you up to share some kisses and say goodbye, it gets a little more heated, but there's no time for smut since he has to go, but he promises to pick up where you to left off when he returns, and there we have the tie he makes to come back to you.

I listen to music heavily throughout the day, but I wrote this fic with some very specific music through different sections. And for the opening, I was listening to This Love by Taylor Swift because its very romantically evocative for me, but some of the lyrics I knew could also be ripped into the horrific elements of this story, and so I truly loved it for that even more! - this love is good/this love is bad/this love is alive back from the dead

Then there are some other deep musical cues that when I was writing the rest of the fic, I was literally listening to these songs on repeat - a track from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, two tracks from Netflix's The Empress series, etc - and so I actually embedded the Spotify players for them at particular parts for the particular songs. That's the only fic where I've so heavily "scored" it.

I put into the narrative that they didn't recover a body from Bucky for what I never specifically defined but figure was an explosion or an accident of some sort where not finding a body would be believable - but it's the Gengångare Bucky escaping. His undead soul seeks some revenge first, then he's pulled back to your door, but I wanted/tried to imply that he moves by these motivations and doesn't really remember much until he encounters something. So he shows up back on your doorstep, and it's as he interacts with you that he remembers more and more pieces of himself that are added back into the primal gengångare motivations.

The sex after he returns is frequently more rough and desperate, but since you're just as desperate for him, you don't question that it's the fact that his nature has changed - no longer human, but a creature that needs to leech the energy of another living thing to survive. He doesn't realize it at first either. But the first night he returns, his body is very cold, and he gets warmer the longer he's with you.

His bruises haven't healed, and you notice that, but he brushes it off. There's an inadvertent pinching on your back that's the beginning of the marks he can't help consuming you. He's truly insatiable, but since you were so consumed with grief and so deeply and desperately in love, you don't question it. When you finally do bring up having Bruce examine him or bringing Steve into things, he doesn't want that and presents good reasons - not wanting to be a body poked and prodded, and not wanting to worry Steve until he has more of his memory cleared up.

There's only a little bit of Alpine in this fic, but Alpine can tell that something is wrong with Bucky and so she is not around when he is at all after he comes back. The sex is exhausting, but it's because it's with this creature form of Bucky taking more and more of your life.

And then the spill of the story/the reveal. And it's all discovered when you're basically doomed by your love. And he literally makes love and fucks you to death, and is still so in love with you while doing it. Very sad. And his goodbye is the same goodbye he said to you in the first scenes of the story.

This was the darkest thing I'd written up to this point, and I really just wanted it to feel gothic and doomed, but twisted up in this all-consuming love. As I knew where the story was headed, I sort of just took deep breaths and steadied myself to dive into letting it have its dark ending. And I loved taking it there even though it was kind of scary for my first time. It was very haunting to write and I really tried to convey that feeling and have it bleed through.

↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

read more from the Dark Forest Fest

[furashuban]

Do you have any Random Sketchbook Headconnons?

Surprisingly I don't have as many headcanons about them as I thought I did, but I've still got a handful to share nonetheless :>

Since Johanna found out she could play the pan flute super well in The Forgotten Lake, a headcanon I have is that one of the cassettes Kaisa listens to on her Walkman is a homemade compilation of Johanna playing somft songs on the pan flute just for her to have and listen to.

(I also like to think that in between songs, Johanna leaves in these quick and rambly intermissions saying things like "I don't know what I'm doing exactly *chuckles*, but I hope you like this next one, dear." <33)

This next one I remember sharing a long time ago in the Sketchbook Ship server when it was still around :0 being that Kaisa speaks Swedish (I could've chosen any other Scandinavian language but I just settled with Swedish sdfgsdw) and Johanna makes an effort to learn the language so she could have another, more special way of flirting connecting with her, just that she's prone to grammatical mistakes and pronouncing some words wrong and she gets flustered every time Kaisa would have to gently correct her, but Kaisa would still understand what Johanna was going for anyway and feels all warm inside nevertheless.

This last and rather brief one I have is that Johanna and Kaisa share the same taste in books as children, being ones about folktales (something I wrote in at Chapter 1 of my fic Visitations :>)

[inspofromancientworld]

Legendary Creatures: Nixie

By Nils Blommér - Nationalmuseum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52118377

The Nixie, Nyxy, Nix, Näcken, Nicor, Nøkk, or Nøkken is a shape-changing humanoid water spirits from Germanic mythology. The variety of names are from the various Germanic people groups including German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Faroese, Finish, Icelandic, Estonian, and Old English. This spread of cultures places the origin before the peoples separated geographically. They have a common Germanic root of *nikwus or *nikwis(i), which comes from the Proto Indo-European root *neigw, which means 'to wash' and are related to the Sanskrit nḗnēkti, the Greek νίζω (nízō) and νίπτω (níptō) as well as the Irish Gaelic nigh, which all mean 'to wash' or 'to be washed'.

By Ernst Josephson - Nationalmuseum, Stockholm: Näcken Folktales and traditions, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7657940

Since the Nixie changes shapes, it's difficult to know exactly how they looked, that generally dwell in lakes or rivers. Regardless what form they have, they have some way of attracting victims to drown. Among the Nordic and Germans, the primary form was humanoid. Among the Faroese, they were white supernatural horses that are closely related to the Scottish Kelpie and the Welsh Ceffyl Dŵr or as a handsome youth.

By Full steam - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15167624

In addition to being shape-shifting, the Nordic Nixie also is an expert musician. If approached properly, they can teach a musician to play so well 'that the trees dance and waterfalls stop at his music', a trait also found among the Norwegian Fossegrim or Grim or the Swedish strömkarl. They were most dangerous to women and children, most active during Midsummer's Night, Christmas Eve, and Thursdays, superstitions that developed after the spread of Christianity to northern Europe, like many superstitions about faeries. They can be stopped from carrying someone off by calling out their name, which might cause their death, or by a gift of three drops of blood, a black animal of some type, some type of alcohol or snuff dropped into the water.

By Theodor Kittelsen - 2. Nasjonalmuseet: No.21. kittelsen.efenstor.net, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1340906

Among the Germans, the Nixie were a type of freshwater merperson who lured men to their deaths by drowning. The males were more capable of changing shapes while the females usually had the tail of a fish. A wet hem was the give away of a Nixie in human form. Female Nixie were also known as the Rheintöchter (Rhine maidens).

[adarkrainbow]

Since people have taken an interest to some of the "Hansel and Gretel" variations I have been posting about, here is a few more ones for your delight.

I will start with a very important yet currently unreadable one. It is commonly agreed that when the Brothers Grimm re-edited and rewrote Hansel and Gretel, in their post-1842 versions of the tale, they were influenced by an Alsacian story that had been collected and written in German by August Stöber, as "Das Eierkuchenhäuslein". The translation would be "The Little Pancake House" - the Eierkuchen being indeed quite close to a pancake, being an Alsacian variation of the French crêpe, but thicker and crunchier. Notably several expressions and turn of phrase in the final text of the Grimm came from this story. Stöber's work is very famous and influential in the Alsace region, since he was basically the great soruce and collector of folktales and fairytales there - unfortunately his work cannot be easily accessed today. I do not speak German, and there is no online French translation of his work. They exist - his great-great-nephew did a French translation of his "Legends of Alsace" work in 2008 for example, called "A Thousand Years of history, legends, and oral traditions in Alsace", but I couldn't find any copy of the story or any access to the book anywhere. There was also a scientific edition of "Legends of Alsace" done in French in 2010, but again no luck finding it.

The Internet Archive has a big collection of August Stöber's works, but given they're in German, I can't use them.

I also talked previously of the variation of the story involving "a wolf in a sugar house", instead of a "witch in a bread house". The brothers Grimm, in their research notes, wrote that this story existed in the region of Schwaben, but they did not include it in their version of "Hansel and Gretel". And, as I said and described previously, this story survived in the Flanders region of Belgium, where it was collected and stays a known Belgian fairytale usually called "The Sugar-Candy House". (You'll find it under the tag "Belgian fairytales")

One variation that I have access to, however, is a French variant of the story, called "The Cabin with a Cheese Roof".

It was collected by H. A. Gueber in "Contes et Légendes", an 1895 collection of French folktales and legends. "The Cabin with a Cheese Roof" is noted by Gueber to be descending from a Swedish variation of the Hansel and Gretel tale. It goes as such:

Once upon a time there was an old and cruel witch who lived in a cabin, in the middle of the woods, upon a high mountain, and she liked to eat little children. So, she had the habit of placing all of her various cheeses upon the roof to attract the children of the neighbourhood. [Note: You can DEFINITIVELY tell this story is French when the candy is replaced by cheese. France loves its cheeses.] Near the witch's cabin, lived a poor peasant who had two children - a little girl who was very stupid, and a little boy who was very intelligent.

One day, the peasant sent his children in the woods to gather strawberries, and they came upon the witch's house. Since they were hungry, the boy climbed on the roof and took a cheese. The old witch, hearing a noise, asked "Who is here, upon my roof?". The boy answered with the softest voice he could: "It is little angels." "Then, dear little angels," the witch said, "eat as much cheese as you want", and she stayed sitting by the fire. The boy then took as much cheese as he could, and left with his sister.

The following day, the children returned to the witch's house, hoping to trick her again. But this time, when the witch asked who was on her roof, while the boy answered "This is just little angels!", the girl, who was said to be a chatty girl, couldn't help but answer "And I'm here too!". The witch immediately got out of the house and seized the children. "Oh yes, you are two pretty little angels, and you will make a good roast. How does your mother kills her pigs?" she asked.

The little girl said: "She cuts ther head with a big knife." But the boy said: "No, no, she places a rope around their neck." The witch placed a rope around the boy's neck, and he fell onto the ground as if he was dead. "Are you dead now?" the witch asked. "Yes." the boy answered. Of course, the witch was no fool and pointed out that if he was still speaking, he couldn't be dead. The boy answered: "If I am not dead, it is because my mother always fattens up her pig before roasting them - she says they're more delicious that way."

So the witch placed the children into a cage. "How does your mother fattens up her pigs?" she asked. "With grain." the little girl said. But the boy replied: "No, no, my sister is too young, she gets everything wrong! My mother fattens up her pigs with cakes and sweet milk." And so the witch gave them plenty of cakes to eat and sweet milk to drink.

[Note: The fact that the witch asks all that does a double effct. On one side it reduces the children to the state of pigs to be fattened and slaughtered - which is a subtext in other variations of the tale, but here is explicit - on the other, it also portraits the witch as an evil double or caricature-twin of the children's mother, trying to imitate her for perverse purposes]

One day (the story does not precise how much time passes), the witch went to the cage and said: "My eyes are hurting, and I can't see if you are fat enough." So she asks for their finger, of course. The little girl was about to give her finger, but the little boy prevented her, and rather gave a little stick - and since the witch found them "very skinny", she gave them twice as much cake and sweet milk. A few days after she asked for their finger again, and this time the boy gave a "cabbage's tail" (you know, the thick stump/stalk of a cabbage]. Finding them fat enough, she got the children out of the cage and into her cabin, asking the little girl to prepare a great fire in the oven. When it was hot enough, she asked the kids to climb, one after the other, onto the oven's shovel, so she could cook them.

The little girl was about to obey when her brother took her place. But as the witch was about to shove the shovel, the little boy rolled onto the ground. As the witch was getting angry, the boy said: "Madam, we are stupid and clumsy. Show us how to climb on the shovel!". The witch did just so, and the boy pushed her into the oven and closed the door.

The children took all of the witch'es' cheeses and returned to their father. The witch died burned in her oven, and nobody cried upon her death.

I've got more stories, but I'll place them under the cut:

Another French fairytale (folkloric one, not literary) that is often compared to Hansel and Gretel is a story called "The Lost Children" (Les Enfants Egarés). Originally collected by Antoinette Bon, Paul Sébillot took it back for his collection of Auvergne folktales - mentionning the story came from the Cantal area. It is actually a sort of cross between Hansel and Gretel, and Little Thumbling.

The story goes as such: In the past, in the village of Gargeac lived an avaricious coupled called Jacques and Toinon. Toinon was even more avaricious than her husband. They had two children, one boy and one girl, who suffered greatly due to their parents' greed and selfishness, but they were obedient and loving and so they went on in life without complaining. The boy, Jean, was twelve, the girl, Jeannette, was younger than him.

Since Jacques and Toinon hated spending money for their children, they decided to abandon them in the woods. The mother took them in the woods to gather dead wood, planning to abandon them there, so that the wolf might eat them at night. The children called their mother everywhere once they realized they were alone, to no avail. They cried and tried to find back their way, failing at this too. Jeannette told her brother to climb on a tree, to see if he could find anything. He climbed but only saw branches ; his sister told him to climb higher, but he still only saw "the green branches of the forest", she told him a third time to climb higher, and this time he saw two houses. One white, one red. Jeannette was asked by her brother which house they should go towards - and the girl chose the red house because it was "the prettiest". Spoiler: This was the wrong choice.

Knocking at the red house, they met a woman "who was as tall and strong as a man". The wife accepted to let them in, but told them to hide, because her husband was "wicked" and would eat them. She hid them as best as she could, but her husband smelled "a Christian's smell" and discovered the children. He then beat up his wife as a punishment. Something of importance: the husband is the devil. Now, it isn't the actual religious devil of Christianity, but the folkloric devil. In French fairytales of the folkloric kind, a lot of times you'll find the "devil" as an antagonist, but actually replacing what is commonly known as an ogre or a giant. Which is why you find tons of stories about man-eating, giant devils killed by heroes: this is just a Christianization of the old tales of giants and ogres. In this precise case, the devil is clearly an ogre by another name.

When the devil took Jean by the hand, he perceived that he was skinny, so he locked him up in a little stable, so that he might be fattened up - and once he is fat enough, he shall be killed. As for Jeannette, she became the servant of the household, and she regularly fed her brother (Trivia: there is an inconsistency here, as the opening of the tale mentions Jean is the oldest, but here it is said he is the "little brother" of Jeannette). Since the devil was too big/too large to enter in the stable, he couldn't check by himself Jean's atness. After a few days of fattening, he asked Jeannette to cut the tip of her brother's little finger, and to bring it to him. Jeannette rather cut the tail of a rat, and the devil was fooled into believing Jean was too skinny.

Some times later he asked again for a piece of Jean's finger, and Jeannette brought another rat tail. But the third time, the devil realized it was a rat's tail - so he placed his own hand within the stable and took Jean out of it, realizing he was fat eough to be eaten. He prepared a trestel to bleed Jean, but then decided to do a promenade before cooking. He told his wife to watch over Jean - and especially keep an eye on Jeannette, that he greatly mistrusted. However the devil's wife got drunk and sleepy. Jeannette opened the door to the pigs stable in which Jean was imprisoned [Note: we have a confirmation here of the "pigification" of the boy, already hinted by the fact that the devil wanted to bleed Jean, the same way farmers bled pigs]. Jeannette than pretended not knowing how to tie Jean to the trestle. The devil's wife, finding her stupid, placed her body onto the trestle to show her - Jean promptly tied her up, and cut off her neck. The children then took the devil's gold and silver, and fled with his horse-drawn carriage.

When the devil came back, and found his beheaded wife and the pig-stable empty, and his carriage missing, he understood what had happened. He wandered through the area searching for the children, and met a plowman. The devil asked him in a rhyme: "Vous n'avez pas vu Jean, Jeannette/ Ma charrette, / Mon cheval rouge et mon cheval blanc, / Couvert d'or et d'argent?". In English: "Have you seen Jean, Jeannette / My carriage / My red horse and my white horse / Covered in gold and silver?". The plowman however understands that the devil is saying he is badly plowing his field - and the devil has to clear up the misunderstanding before finally hearing the plowman didn't saw anything.

The devil later met a shepherd and asked him the rhyme again, but the shepherd understood that the devil was telling him his dog was not barking enough. So after the shepherd told his dog to bark after the devil, the devil had to repeat himself once again, and once more the shepherd saw nothing. The devil finally reached a river where washer-woman were working. He asked them the rhyme, the washer-women understood that the devil was telling them "You are not beating up the cloth enough", and once again he had to repeat himself to be understood. This time the washerwomen understood, and told the devil the kids had crossed the river with their carriage. But there was no bridge, and the devil complained about it. One of the washer-women understood that it was the devil they were talking to, and she informed her companions, telling them they should play some "tricks" to him.

What the washerwomen did was ask the devil to let his hair being cut, so that the women could make a bridge out of it. The devil agreed, and once his hair was cut, they elongated themselves and formed a bridge over the river - that was held by the washerwomen. But once the devil was in the middle of the bridge, they let go of the bridge, which fell in the water with the devil - and the devil drowned. The washerwomen then went to Jean and Jeannette (who had returned home), and informed them that the devil had drowned. [Note: Yes they seem to be some fairy, witchy, washerwomen, though the text doesn't say anything beyond them just being badass washerwomen].

Jean and Jeannette made their parents rich, and "everybody was happy". The moral of the story is apparently "One must be good for their parents, even when they were bad for their children". A... very debtable and questionable moral. The story ends with : "Night came, the rooster sang, and the tale ended."

To conclude this post, I will leave one final variation of the Hansel and Gretel story, that was name-dropped by the Wikipedia article about the fairytale: the Moravian fairytale "Old Grule". Collected in 1899 by Marie Kosch, the fascinating thing with this story is that it clearly takes after the German version created/collected by the brothers Grimm - for example, having the two sibling-protagonists being named "Gretel and Hans".

In this story, Gretel and Hans are naughty, disobedient children who are often beaten by their parents. One day, the two wanted to go pick strawberries in the woods, but their mother told them no, because a thunderstorm was approaching. The children being disobedient, they still went in the woods - and ended up caught in the dreadful storm (hail, rain, branch-breaking winds, thunder and lightning). They hid in a rocky cave and when the storm died own, they realized they were completely lost. [Note: It is fascinating how the beginning of this tale is the very reverse of "The Cabin with the Cheese Roof"]. As night fell, Gretel urged Hans to climb to the top of a tree, and from there he saw a light they followed.

The light led to a little cottage made of gingerbread, with a marzipan roof. [Note: Given this story is ulterior to the Grimm's H&G, we see here clearly how the idea of gingerbread and marzipan settled itself in popular imagination] The children took a ladder lying narby and climbed on the roof to eat the marzipan. The inhabitant of the house was about to go to bed when she heard the noises: she was a witch named Grule who loved to eat children. Running outside, she said with a deep voice "Who is robbing my house?" and Gretel answered "The wind, the wind" with a soft voice. The witch, satisfied, went to bed... But as the moon rose up, the witch noticed a large hole in her roof, and poking from it a child's head. So she quickly captured the two children on her roof, and locked them up in a chicken coop, enraged that they were ruining her house.

For a few days she fed the children only the best foods (cakes, sweets, fruits) to fatten them up so they could make a good roast. When it came time to check if they were fat enough, she took a knife and asked Gretel to stick out her finger - but she held out her apron's string, and as the witch cut it she said "Skinny, skinny". Same thing with Hans who gave his trouser's string. The witch, understanding that her meals of good things didn't work, switched to a diet of exclusively flour porridge. And the children grew so tired of eating flour porridge every day they didn't trick the witch the next time she came ith her knife: each time they gave their finger for her to cut into it, and as she saw one drop of blood come out from each child's finger she said "Fat, fat".

The witch went to her kitche, and the narrator describes how she prepares her oven: she makes a fire in the oven, when it dies out she takes a wooden crook to spread the coals over the entie surface of the oven, she then uses a wet straw whisk to sweep the coals in front of the oven, and then takes them out. Going to the chicken coop, she took the children, claimed she had some baked plums in her oven, and needed the kids to retrieve them for her. The kid gladly agreed, hoping they could eat the plums instead of the flour porridge. The witch went to fetch a baker's peel (what I called an "oven's shovel before) and meanwhile Gretel looked into the oven, seeing no plum at all. Understanding what the witch tried to do, Gretel played dumb and pretended not knowing how to sit on the peel, falling onto the ground every time she tried. Old Grule gathered her skirts and sat on the peel, only for the kids to burn her to death in her oven.

They returned to their parents, who were happy to see them alive - because they thought the children were dead. But the two kids still received a good beating because they had disobeyed their parents. The end.

As you can see this story is... WEIRD. There is definitively something meant to be dark humor and almost a parody of the original with how the kids are naughty brats, who enjoy being fattened up, and ultimately are not morally good heroes. In fact, the two children stay blissfully unaware of the witch's true intentions until the very end: the reason they trick the witch at first is because they actually wanted to keep eating sweets, cakes and fruits all day long, not knowing they were to be cooked later! Similarly, the whole "the witch notices a big hole in her roof" seems almost like a joke - showing how from the German story collected and spread across Europe by the Grimm, a sort of more down-to-earth, humoristic tone was added typical of many "peasant versions" of fairytales, that usually involve more jokes and like to point out a tale's own absurdity or moral ambiguity.