Folk tales from around the world

[taimatsu]

It's another Links on a topic post!

I'm using ths post to collect folk tales or stories which are suitable to be adjusted for use as Kul-Tha mythology for the Shards LARP system. The comments will set the stories in that context (a completely fictional religion). I'll probably add more stories to this in future.

From Siberia: Ankakumikaityn the Nomad Wolf tells why the fox is red, and of his trickster nature.

From Native America: How Coyote Stole Fire tells... how Coyote stole fire. Needs some tweaks to work for us, but is generally very appropriate.

From Africa: The Eagle and the Tortoise is about hospitality and pride.

From the Ojibway Americans: Forsaken Brother can be used as a cautionary tale, but also as an indication of how the Spirits come close to those in need.

From Native America: How Bear Lost His Tail - it was all Fox's fault.

From the Comanche nation: Skunk Outwits Coyote - Coyote isn't always the most cunning of creatures.

Comments

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

my favourite story like that is about a deer and a spider. but i doubt you will be needing to tell stories about spiders!

[taimatsu]

Oh no, spiders are fine! If you have a reference for/link to the story, that would be great.

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

i only know it in a book fo mine - folk tales from around the world. i cannot find anything about it on the net. but then i've not looked very hard.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I shall dig out my little book of stories about trees....

[taimatsu]

Bring it to the event if you find it :)

[purpleheather.livejournal.com]

I'll have a potter!

[darcydodo]

Sorry, precisely what theme is this on? Just any sort of world-shaping animal tales?

[taimatsu]

It's hard to explain; it's things which fit in with the fictional Kul-Tha religion. The group mythology (lots of which I wrote) focuses on a Mother creator-goddess, associated with the moon, and a panoply of animal spirits, very like the Rabbit, Wolf, Bear etc. in the stories above. I have looked at many more stories than I include above; I rejected a lot for reasons like having a particular animal display characteristics which don't work for the character who's adopted that animal in the game (eg Raven, which in stories I read was a trickster and fraudster, but in-game symbolises wisdom), or involving personifications of the sun, which we don't have, or involving people living in the sky, which we don't have, and so on.

People stories are good too, but as the group history involves a particular kind of terrain (forest and river-margin) and type of society (nomad just moving to agrarian) there are many stories which don't work there, too (ones that rely on bad weather, or 'fairy' type stories with supernatural beings - we have none really except the Mother-goddess, the animal Spirits, and the spirits of the dead).

This is a link to our creation myth, in its current form.

As I say, it's a bit complex, but if you have links to stories or collections of stories which might be useful, do let me know. :)