quietblogoflurk:

On a lighter note.

The main reason I ever wanted to write a Hungarian mythology-based urban fantasy is that I needed to see someone do Bread Magic in a mundane modern setting.

Bread Magic shows up in a variety in Hungarian fairytales. It works like this: when someone evil, usually the devil, sometimes a dragon, wants to come into your house and hurt you, usually by taking your children, what you do is put a loaf of bread on the windowsill. It will speak for you.

When evil demands admission, the bread will say: First, they buried me under the ground, and I survived. When I sprouted, they cruelly cut me down with sickles, and I survived. They threshed me with their flails and I survived. They ground me to flour with their millstones and I survived. They put me in a bowl and kneaded me, then they put me in a hot oven to bake me, and I survived. Have you done all these things? Until you do all these things and survive, you have no power here.

This is pretty powerful magic I think, and it makes sense in a country where wheat is the staple crop and bread is the staple food. If you have bread, you are alive, if you have no bread, you are dead, therefore bread is life. It was customary to refer to wheat as “life” well into the twentieth century, and not in high literary circles either: rural seasonal workers negotiated their wages in so and so many sacks of life.

And I totally want someone to do bread magic with a shitty store-bought muffin.

we-are-rogue:

There was a similar Greek fairy tale where narrating the torments of the flax was used as a delay tactic. Like, the parents would be out working in the field and the ogre would come to take the child away, and the clever grandma would say “sure, BUT FIRST, you must let me tell you the passions of the flax”. (As in “the passions of Christ”, meaning the sufferings.) Making cloth out of flax is a hell of a job with many many stages, you dunk it in water for days, you dry it, you shred it, all sorts of things (I don’t actually know what things, I’m a city kid…), so grandma would start droning very slowly and very sadly “they taaaaaaaaake the flaaaaaaaaax, they drowwwwwwn it in waaaaaaaater” and the imagery was out of a medieval torture manual and it sounded like a funeral dirge and it went on for ages, until the ogre couldn’t stand it any more and went “fuck this, I’m out, keep your damn child”.

Folk tales have some Good Takes, such as “brains over brawn” (that’s why they’re so fundamentally roguish – once in a while you’ll get a mighty warrior bashing things, but mostly it’s common peasants tricking the powerful with nothing but wits and sheer nerve), “storytelling will get you a long way”, and “grandmas are awesome”. Which may be a little self-serving (I mean, grandmas tell the tales…), but still: they earned it.

For the torments of anthropomorphised plants see also: John Barleycorn.

There were three men came out of the west,
their fortunes for to try
And these three men made a solemn vow
John Barleycorn must die

They’ve ploughed, they’ve sown, they’ve harrowed him in
Threw clods upon his head
And these three men made a solemn vow
John Barleycorn was dead

They’ve let him lie for a very long time,
‘til the rains from heaven did fall
And little Sir John sprung up his head
and so amazed them all

They’ve let him stand ‘til Midsummer’s Day
‘til he looked both pale and wan
And little Sir John’s grown a long long beard
and so become a man

They’ve hired men with their scythes so sharp
to cut him off at the knee
They’ve rolled him and tied him by the waist
serving him most barbarously

They’ve hired men with their sharp pitchforks
who’ve pricked him to the heart
And the loader he has served him worse than that
For he’s bound him to the cart

They’ve wheeled him around and around a field
‘til they came unto a barn
And there they made a solemn oath
on poor John Barleycorn

They’ve hired men with their crabtree sticks
to cut him skin from bone
And the miller he has served him worse than that
For he’s ground him between two stones

And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl
and his brandy in the glass
And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl
proved the strongest man at last

The huntsman he can’t hunt the fox
nor so loudly to blow his horn
And the tinker he can’t mend kettle or pots
without a little barleycorn

madgastronomer:

OMG THERE’S A FOLK TALE ABOUT THE PASSIONS OF THE FLAX I MUST FIND THIS OMGOMGOMG

@we-are-rogue Where can I find this marvel?

we-are-rogue:

I HAVE NO IDEA, I remember vaguely the story from when I was a kid, but I can’t remember where I read it (or heard it?), and I didn’t find it online. ‘Cause I searched.

It’s also an expression in greek, though it’s a bit outdated, you can say “that poor man has gone through the passions of the flax”, meaning he’s had a very hard life. Or, if you’re a drama queen, you can say something like “fucking bureaucracy! I went through the torments of the flax to get that bloody permit!”. This makes searching for the fairy tale all the more difficult. I’m sorry. :(

we-are-knight:

@wearebeguiler this sounds like your kind of mischief.

bold-sartorial-statement:

In Swedish, two of the steps in working with flax are called “arguing with the flax” (bråka lin) and “heckling the flax” (häckla lin). That says something about how the fiber is treated…

sophus-b:

Etymology! Fairytales! Folk Music! Bread magic!

This post has everything!

Tags:

#long post #food #death tw #history #music #story ideas I will never write