European Folklore
45 findings, grouped by tradition.
English folklore18
- First-footingAt Stamfordham the visitor had to be a bachelor and brought coal. Henderson’s Durham account did not require a bachelor.
- Turning Coins at the New MoonHenderson also records turning money on first hearing the cuckoo. The same prosperity wish could attach to different seasonal signs.
- Spilling SaltBeing served salt by someone else carried a separate warning of sorrow. Henderson records a second helping as its countermeasure.
- A Knife Gift and the Return PennyHenderson’s example concerns a schoolmaster rewarding a pupil. The return penny appears in a classroom exchange, not only between lovers.
- Counting MagpiesHenderson records two endings to the rhyme. One makes five heaven and six hell; another makes them sickness and a christening.
- A Robin Entering the HouseHenderson records a different Suffolk warning: a robin calling at the door. The feared sign did not always require the bird to enter.
- Protecting Swallows’ NestsA farmer’s wife near Hull connected a family’s bank failure with their destruction of nests. Henderson records her explanation, not a demonstrated cause.
- Sneezing OmensThe same chapter records Durham nurses blessing children who sneeze. Blessing the sneezer and predicting by the weekday are distinct recorded responses.
- Breaking a MirrorThis account does not specify seven years of bad luck. It records death and family ruin, so those meanings should not be merged into a single rule.
- Nail-cutting DaysHis Sussex version gives the Sunday warning a deadline: grief before Saturday night. The longer rhyme lists different fortunes across the week.
- Candlemas WeatherHenderson pairs the English verse with a Latin proverb about Mary’s purification. Both forms predict more wintry weather after the feast.
- Oak Before AshHenderson prints this leafing rhyme beside English and Latin Candlemas sayings. It forms part of a sequence of seasonal weather signs in his collection.
- Keeping Good Friday BreadHenderson records another use in Sunderland: wives sent some of the bread to sea with their husbands to avert shipwreck.
- St Agnes’ Eve DreamsHenderson also records a Northumberland variant with an invocation to St Agnes. The different forms show that the custom had more than one recipe.
- Telling the BeesHis Yorkshire correspondent describes putting food from the funeral feast before the hives. In Lancashire, marriage could also require an announcement to the bees.
- Jack and the BeanstalkJacobs says he omitted a fairy who explains that the ogre stole Jack’s father’s property. He follows the telling he heard in Australia around 1860.
- The Three Little PigsThe wolf eats the first two pigs. The third eventually cooks and eats the wolf; the story is harsher than versions where all three survive.
- The Three BearsThe intruder is an old woman, not Goldilocks. After she jumps from the window, the narrator leaves her fate uncertain.
German fairy tales8
- Hansel and GretelHunt’s translation describes a house of bread, a cake roof and sugar windows. Gretel escapes the oven trap and releases Hansel.
- RapunzelThe prince leaps from the tower and is blinded by thorns. Rapunzel’s tears restore his sight when he finds her living with their twins.
- Snow WhiteSnow White revives when a jolt dislodges the poisoned apple from her throat. This version does not wake her with a kiss.
- RumpelstiltskinA messenger overhears the spinner singing his name. The queen uses that report within his three-day guessing challenge to keep her child.
- The Frog KingThe transformation follows the princess throwing the frog against a wall. A kiss does not break the spell in this version.
- The Bremen Town MusiciansThe animals never reach Bremen. They settle in the robbers’ house because it suits them, so their promised musical career remains a plan.
- The Golden BirdThe helpful fox is the princess’s enchanted brother. His human identity is disclosed only after the prince fulfils the fox’s final request.
- The Goose GirlFalada’s severed head continues speaking to the princess. Killing her horse fails to silence the witness to her identity.
French fairy tales5
- CinderellaCinderella forgives her stepsisters and arranges their marriages. This telling ends with their advancement alongside hers.
- Little Red Riding HoodThe wolf eats the grandmother and the girl, and the tale ends there. This version has no rescuer who cuts them free.
- Sleeping BeautyThe story continues after the awakening: the prince’s ogress mother tries to eat his wife and their two children. A cook hides them and substitutes animals.
- Puss in BootsThe cat persuades the ogre to become a mouse and eats him. The ogre’s castle then passes for the supposed marquis’s home.
- BluebeardThe wife’s brothers kill Bluebeard before he can murder her. She inherits his estate and uses it to support her sister, brothers and a new marriage.
Danish literary fairy tales4
- The Ugly DucklingThe bird hatches from a swan’s egg. He grows into his own species rather than becoming a swan because he earns a magical transformation.
- The Little MermaidThe air spirits say her trial lasts three hundred years. They also say children’s good or bad behaviour can shorten or lengthen it.
- The Emperor’s New ClothesThe emperor continues the procession after the crowd declares him unclothed. Exposure does not immediately end the performance.
- The Snow QueenThe story closes with a Gospel saying about becoming like children. Its Christian frame remains explicit even after Gerda and Kay have grown up.
English and Scottish folklore3
- Rowan and Red ThreadThe recorded pocket charm is a short piece of wood. Henderson also records a gardener who thinks a rowan growing beside a house keeps witches away.
- The Borrowing DaysHis Highland comparison has February borrow from January instead. There, cold and storms during the borrowed days are treated as a favourable sign.
- Rocking an Empty CradleIn Durham and Yorkshire, the same action instead foretells another baby. Henderson records a Sussex rhyme giving that second meaning too.
European Folklore3
- Goblins and HobgoblinsThe earliest goblin on record is not a race of mine spirits but one demon in one city. About 1127 Orderic Vitalis wrote that the people of Évreux called the spirit St Taurinus had expelled from Diana's temple the goblin, a haunting that harmed no one.
- Sirens and MermaidsHomer never says what the Sirens look like. Ovid, about 8 CE, gives them feathers and birds' feet with maidens' faces. The fish tail comes in the Anglo-Latin Liber monstrorum, surviving in ninth- and tenth-century manuscripts, which makes them sea-maidens, women to the navel with scaly fish tails.
- Herne the HunterThe 1602 quarto calls him Horne, a dead hunter whose stag-shaped ghost women used to frighten children.
Scottish folklore2
Northern European Folk1
Scandinavian Folklore1