176 Fun Facts About Folklore

Who coined the word 'folklore' in 1846?

William Thoms coined 'Folk-Lore' in an 1846 letter to The Athenaeum, proposing it as a good Saxon compound to replace 'popular antiquities'.

Who expanded Antti Aarne's 1910 folktale classification into the standard European system?

The Aarne-Thompson index gives every tale type a number, so Cinderella is ATU 510A wherever it is told.

Besides verbal, material and customary traditions, folklorists recognise a fourth genre devoted to what?

Childlore includes playground rhymes, counting-out games and the rules of tag, passed from child to child rather than from adults.

The Brothers Grimm first published their Children's and Household Tales in which year?

The first volume of the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen appeared in 1812, a second followed in 1815, and the brothers revised the collection through seven editions ending in 1857.

Which of these tales was NOT popularised by the Grimms' collection?

The Little Mermaid is a literary tale by Hans Christian Andersen, published in 1837; the other three all appear in the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen.

Paul Bunyan is customarily accompanied by which animal?

Babe the Blue Ox is Paul Bunyan's giant companion; the pair stand as oversized statues beside Lake Bemidji in Minnesota and in many other towns.

Paul Bunyan was popularised by a 1916 promotional pamphlet for which kind of business?

William Laughead, an advertising man for a Minnesota lumber company, wrote the pamphlet, turning loggers' oral tales into the firm's advertising mascot.

Which term did folklorist Dorson apply to invented traditions like Paul Bunyan?

Dorson coined 'fakelore' in 1950 for manufactured traditions passed off as genuine folk tradition; Bunyan's tales began among loggers but were rewritten as advertising copy.

In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga's forest hut stands on what?

Baba Yaga's hut stands on chicken legs and turns to face whoever commands it; she can be villain or helper depending on the tale.

Baba Yaga flies through the air in what?

Baba Yaga rides in a wooden mortar, propelling it with the pestle and sweeping away her tracks with a broom, as Afanasyev's 'Vasilisa the Beautiful' describes.

What is the leprechaun's principal occupation in Irish folklore?

The leprechaun is a solitary fairy cobbler, forever making and mending shoes; the tapping of his hammer is said to give away his hiding place.

Before the 20th century, what colour was the leprechaun generally said to wear?

The green outfit is a modern makeover; the earliest reference to the creature is in the medieval tale Echtra Fergus mac Leti.

John Henry, the American folk hero, is said to have raced and beaten what?

John Henry beat the steam-powered rock drill through the rock but died with his hammer in his hand, a contest told in dozens of ballad versions.

The Big Bend Tunnel traditionally linked to John Henry's contest is near Talcott in which state?

Big Bend Tunnel lies at Talcott in West Virginia's Summers County, though historian Scott Nelson argues the race actually took place at Virginia's Lewis Tunnel.

What was Johnny Appleseed's real name?

John Chapman, born in Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1774, was a devoted Swedenborgian who handed out religious tracts along with his apple seeds.

Apples grown from Johnny Appleseed's seeds were mostly good for making what?

Hard cider: apples grown from seed vary wildly and are rarely good eating, but they press well, and cider was the frontier's everyday drink.

According to period accounts, what did Johnny Appleseed wear on his head?

He wore a tin cooking pot, which doubled as his mush pot, while planting apple nurseries across Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana.

The Pied Piper legend is set in Hamelin, a town in which country?

Hamelin lies on the Weser in Lower Saxony, Germany; the traditional date of the children's disappearance is 26 June 1284.

How many children is the Pied Piper said to have led away from Hamelin?

The earliest accounts say 130 children were led away on 26 June 1284; the Grimms compiled the tale from eleven earlier accounts for Deutsche Sagen in 1816.

What is banned on Hamelin's Bungelosenstrasse, said to be the last place the children were seen?

Music and dancing are forbidden on the Bungelosenstrasse, the 'street without drums', because the children were last seen there.

The first clear reference to 'rhymes of Robin Hood' appears in which 1370s poem?

William Langland's Piers Plowman (B-text, c. 1377) has Sloth, a lazy priest, confess he knows 'rymes of Robyn Hood' better than his Paternoster.

Robin Hood is traditionally dressed in what colour?

Lincoln green, a cloth dyed by the woad-and-weld dyers of Lincoln, is the outlaws' traditional colour in the ballads, where the band hides in Sherwood Forest.

In the Robin Hood legend, which absent king does Prince John try to usurp?

Richard the Lionheart was away on crusade and then held captive abroad from 1192 to 1194, which is why later tellings set Robin in the 1190s.

Anansi, the trickster of Akan folklore in Ghana, is most commonly depicted as what animal?

The name literally means spider, and the tales crossed to the Caribbean with the Atlantic slave trade.

In the famous tale, Anansi sets out to buy all the stories in the world from which sky god?

Nyame, the Akan sky god, set the price of the stories at four creatures, including Onini the python and Mmoboro the hornets, which Anansi captured by trickery.

In Japanese folklore, a kitsune is a spirit taking the form of which animal?

A kitsune is a fox spirit; in the tales it grows extra tails as it ages and delights in taking the form of a beautiful woman.

In Japan, rain falling from a clear sky is called 'kitsune no yomeiri', meaning what?

'Kitsune no yomeiri' means 'the fox's wedding'; a sunshower was taken as the sign of foxes holding a wedding procession unseen by humans.

In Irish folklore, what does a banshee's wail foretell?

The banshee's keening foretells a death in the family; her name, bean sídhe, means 'woman of the fairy mound'.

In Jewish folklore, a golem is a being fashioned from what?

A golem is shaped from clay or mud; the most famous, the Golem of Prague, was said to be moulded from clay taken from the banks of the Vltava.

In some golem tales, erasing one letter from the word on its forehead leaves what?

Erasing the initial aleph from emet (truth) leaves 'met', meaning death, which deactivates the golem; the word golem itself appears once in the Bible, in Psalm 139.

La Llorona, whose name means 'the Weeping Woman', is said to roam near what?

La Llorona wanders beside bodies of water weeping for the children she drowned; the tale keeps children away from dangerous rivers, and some scholars link her to the Aztec Cihuacoatl.

The bunyip, said to lurk in swamps and lagoons, comes from the folklore of which country?

The bunyip belongs to Aboriginal Australian lore; the word comes from the Wemba-Wemba language of Victoria, and 1840s colonists took it for an undiscovered animal.

Aesop, credited with the famous fables, is described as a storyteller of what status in Greece?

Aesop is described by Herodotus as a slave on Samos, living around 620 to 564 BCE; Ben Perry's 1952 index numbers the fables.

In Alpine folklore, which horned figure accompanies Saint Nicholas on the night of 5 December?

He carries chains and a bundle of birch branches, and young men dressed as him chase crowds in the Krampuslauf.

What are the horned Alpine figure's chains said to symbolise?

The chains are said to symbolise the binding of the Devil by the Christian Church; the figure also carries birch rods for beating naughty children.

Swiss folk hero William Tell is famous for shooting what off his son's head?

Tell shot the apple from his son's head with a crossbow at Altdorf in the canton of Uri, traditionally in 1307.

Which composer's 1829 opera about William Tell was based on Friedrich Schiller's play?

Rossini's Guillaume Tell, his last opera, premiered in 1829; Schiller's play dates from 1804, and the overture's finale became the Lone Ranger theme.

In Spanish-speaking countries, the tooth fairy's role is played by Ratoncito Perez, which is what kind of animal?

Ratoncito Pérez is a little mouse, introduced in an 1894 tale that Luis Coloma wrote for the eight-year-old King Alfonso XIII; French children get 'La Petite Souris'.

The earliest documented mention of the American tooth fairy appeared in 1908 in which newspaper?

Lillian Brown's 'Household Hints' column in the Chicago Daily Tribune of 27 September 1908 suggested the tooth fairy as a plan for mothers of children reluctant to have loose teeth pulled.

Nasreddin Hodja, the wise fool of folklore, is traditionally buried in Aksehir, in which modern country?

Akşehir lies in Turkey's Konya Province; tradition places Nasreddin's birth in 1208 at Hortu near Sivrihisar and his death in Akşehir in 1284.

Japanese folk hero Momotaro was born from what?

An old childless woman found the giant peach floating down a river; the boy inside later set off for Onigashima with a dog, a monkey and a pheasant.

Which food did Momotaro share with his animal companions to win their help?

Momotaro handed out kibi dango, millet dumplings; the pun on Kibi Province later gave Okayama its claim on the hero, a link made only in modern times.

The Menehune of Hawaiian tradition build temples, fishponds and roads under what constraint?

The Alekoko fishpond on Kauai is the best-known structure credited to the dwarf-like people of the forests.

In which state did taxidermist Douglas Herrick invent the jackalope in the 1930s?

Douglas Herrick made the first mounted jackalope in Douglas, Wyoming, which sells novelty jackalope hunting licences; rabbits with horn-like growths from Shope papilloma virus may underlie the legend.

In Washington Irving's 1820 tale, the Headless Horseman is the ghost of what kind of soldier?

Irving's Horseman is the ghost of a Hessian trooper, a German mercenary who lost his head to a cannonball in the Revolutionary War; Ireland's dullahan is an older headless rider.

In 2002 the family of Ray Wallace revealed that he had faked the 1958 Bigfoot tracks using what?

After Wallace died in 2002 his family produced the carved wooden feet he had strapped on to make the Bluff Creek tracks; the Patterson-Gimlin film was shot nearby in 1967.

The name chupacabra literally means what in Spanish?

The first widely publicised sightings came from Puerto Rico in 1995.

In which year did the Loch Ness Monster first come to worldwide attention?

Nessie became world news in 1933 after the Inverness Courier reported a sighting that May; the earliest monster report near the loch is Adomnán's 7th-century Life of St Columba.

The word Yeti derives from Tibetan words meaning 'rocky place' and what animal?

Yeti comes from Tibetan g.ya' dred, 'rocky-place bear'; folklorists trace the legend to Sherpa lore and misidentified Himalayan bears.

Near which town were Mothman sightings reported from 1966 to 1967?

The sightings centred on Point Pleasant, near the Ohio River; John Keel's 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies linked them to the Silver Bridge collapse of December 1967.

Which birds are believed to be the likely source of the Mothman legend?

The first newspaper report was headlined 'Couples See Man-Sized Bird'.

According to legend, the Jersey Devil was the cursed thirteenth child of a woman known as what?

Mother Leeds, in the legend, cursed her thirteenth child in 1735, and it flew out into the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, which it is said to haunt.

The wendigo comes from the folklore of which language family of peoples?

The wendigo belongs to Algonquian-speaking peoples such as the Ojibwe and Cree; 'wendigo psychosis' was described as a culture-bound craving for human flesh.

The term for a skin-walker, yee naaldlooshii, translates as what?

Yee naaldlooshii means 'by means of it, it goes on all fours'; the skin-walker is a witch who takes animal form and is never confused with a healer.

Which Danish bishop is usually credited with the first full description of the kraken, in 1753?

Erik Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen, described the kraken in his 1753 Natural History of Norway as a beast so vast it could be mistaken for an island, with arms able to drag down ships.

How does a selkie change from animal to human form?

A selkie becomes human by shedding its seal skin; stealing and hiding that skin traps it on land, the basis of many Orkney and Shetland tales.

The Kelpies, two 30-metre steel horse-head sculptures, stand in which Scottish town?

The Kelpies stand in The Helix park at Falkirk, by the Forth and Clyde Canal; Andy Scott's sculptures, completed in 2013, honour the shape-shifting water horses of Scottish lore.

What is the Latin name for the will-o'-the-wisp?

Ignis fatuus means 'foolish fire'; the marsh lights are usually explained by the oxidation of methane and phosphine from decaying vegetation.

What did folklore call a piece of wood magically made to resemble a kidnapped human?

The enchanted wooden likeness was called a stock; in British changeling lore it would sicken and seem to die, while the real person was kept in Fairyland.

A fairy ring is actually a naturally occurring ring of what?

Fairy rings are circles of mushrooms that fruit at the edge of an underground fungal mycelium spreading outward; some grow to more than 10 metres across.

In English folklore, what must you leave by the hearth to keep a brownie doing chores?

A bowl of milk or cream left by the hearth keeps a brownie working; offer it clothing, though, and it takes offence and leaves forever.

According to Lancashire lore, what happens if you give a boggart a name?

A house boggart may follow a family wherever they flee.

The redcap goblin of the Anglo-Scottish border soaks its cap in what?

The redcap dyes its cap in its victims' blood and must kill regularly to keep it wet; reciting Scripture or showing a crucifix drives it off, leaving a large tooth behind.

Black Shuck, the ghostly black dog, roams which English region?

Black Shuck haunts East Anglia; the famous account of 1577 describes it bursting into churches at Bungay and Blythburgh in Suffolk during a storm.

Who proposed in 1939 that the Green Man carving was a pagan mythological figure?

Lady Raglan coined 'Green Man' in a 1939 article in the journal Folklore; her pagan-survival theory lacks evidence, and art historians prefer the term foliate head.

Herne the Hunter, the antlered ghost of an oak forest, was first mentioned in which play?

Herne first appears in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597), where Mistress Page describes him as a former keeper of Windsor Forest who haunts an oak.

Which scholar developed the concept of the Wild Hunt in his 1835 Deutsche Mythologie?

Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie (1835) drew scattered legends of spectral riders into the 'Wild Hunt', led by Wodan; seeing it was thought to foretell war, plague or death.

Before pumpkins, jack-o'-lanterns were carved from which root vegetables?

Turnips and mangelwurzels were hollowed and carved in Ireland and Scotland; immigrants brought the custom to America, where the native pumpkin proved larger and easier to carve.

In Cornwall and Devon, what are the small mischievous fairy folk traditionally called?

Pixies, or piskies, are the small mischievous fairy folk of Cornwall and Devon, said to lead travellers astray on the moors, hence the phrase 'pixie-led'.

Historically, young women performing the Bloody Mary ritual hoped to glimpse what in the mirror?

Seeing a skull instead meant they would die before marrying.

Whose 1981 book popularised the vanishing hitchhiker urban legend?

Jan Harold Brunvand's The Vanishing Hitchhiker (1981) was the first popular collection of urban legends and made the term widely known; the title tale has pre-automobile antecedents.

The 'Hook' urban legend gained wide attention in 1960 through which advice column?

A reader's letter printed in Dear Abby on 8 November 1960 is the earliest known publication; the hook-handed killer stalking a parked couple circulated from at least the mid-1950s.

Sewer-alligator legends are most associated with New York and which other city?

Paris has its own sewer legend, fed by a real Nile crocodile caught in the sewers beneath the Pont Neuf in 1984 and later housed at the Vannes aquarium.

What was the British name for the wall-peeking doodle that merged with 'Kilroy was here'?

Mr Chad, the bald head peering over a wall with 'Wot, no ...?', was Britain's wartime doodle; it merged with the American GIs' 'Kilroy was here' slogan.

Cornish miners tossed the last bite of what into the mine to appease the knockers?

Miners left the last corner of their pasties for the knockers, whose tapping was said to warn of an impending collapse.

Which writer invented Pecos Bill in a 1923 Century Magazine story?

Edward 'Tex' O'Reilly wrote the first Pecos Bill stories for Century Magazine in 1923, claiming cowboy oral tradition that folklorists later showed to be his own invention.

According to legend, Pecos Bill was raised as a feral child by which animals?

Pecos Bill fell from his family's wagon near the Pecos River as a baby and was raised by coyotes, believing himself one until a cowboy set him straight.

Casey Jones died in 1900 when his train hit a stalled freight train at which Mississippi town?

Jones died at Vaughan, Mississippi, on 30 April 1900, driving engine No. 382 on the Illinois Central's 'Cannonball' run; his fireman Sim Webb jumped clear.

Mike Fink, 'king of the keelboaters', earned which nickname as a teenage marksman at Fort Pitt?

Fink's marksmanship at Fort Pitt won him the name 'Bangall'; on the rivers he later styled himself 'the Snapping Turtle' of the Ohio and 'the Snag' of the Mississippi.

Who collected the Br'er Rabbit tales in the 19th century?

Joel Chandler Harris published Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings in 1880, retelling tales he had heard from enslaved storytellers on a Georgia plantation, rooted in African trickster traditions.

In the Uncle Remus tale, who builds the Tar-Baby to trap Br'er Rabbit?

Br'er Fox fashions the Tar-Baby and sets it by the road; the more Br'er Rabbit strikes the silent doll, the more stuck he becomes.

Which US president recalled hearing Br'er Rabbit tales from his aunt as a child?

Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography that his Georgia-born aunt, Anna Bulloch, told him Br'er Rabbit tales; his uncle Robert Roosevelt took some down and published them in Harper's.

Coyote is the tutelary spirit of 'Coyoteway', a curing ceremony of which people?

Coyoteway is a Navajo healing ceremonial, documented by Karl Luckert in 1979; Coyote plays a trickster role similar to Raven's on the Northwest Coast.

In some Indigenous tellings, the thunderbird creates thunder how?

The thunderbird makes thunder by flapping its enormous wings and shoots lightning from its eyes, in tellings from the Pacific Northwest to the Great Lakes.

El Silbón, the whistling lost soul of Venezuelan folklore, murdered which relative?

El Silbón killed his father, in most versions for failing to bring home the deer offal he had demanded; his grandfather then whipped him and set a dog on him.

The Curupira, Brazilian guardian of the forests, is famous for what unusual feature?

The Jesuit Joseph of Anchieta first recorded it in 1560.

How many legs does the Brazilian trickster Saci have?

The Saci hops about on one leg, wearing his magic cap and puffing a pipe; catch him inside a dust devil and you can trap him in a bottle.

Which writer's 1917–1921 collections shaped most modern Saci folklore in Brazil?

Monteiro Lobato ran a newspaper inquiry into the Saci in 1917, published it as a book in 1918 and then gave the figure a starring role in his Sítio do Picapau Amarelo children's stories.

In Slavic folklore, what is the spirit of the bathhouse called?

The bannik haunts the bathhouse, or banya; a steaming was left for him, and anyone bathing after dark risked his anger.

In Ukraine, the water spirit rusalka was known by what name?

In Ukraine the rusalka was called a mavka, a spirit of drowned or unbaptised girls; northern Russian names included loskotukha, 'the tickler', from her habit of tickling victims to death.

When angered, what does the Slavic vodyanoy do to water mills and dams?

Fishermen, millers and even beekeepers made sacrifices to appease him.

Koschei the Deathless hides his death inside a needle inside an egg inside what animal?

The duck is in a hare, in a chest, on the island of Buyan.

The suffix in 'kikimora' shares a root with which English word?

The -mora element is the Slavic mara, the night-demon that gave English the 'mare' in nightmare; in Polish lore mora were souls of the living that roamed at night as moths.

What food does the Nordic nisse or tomte expect as a yuletide reward?

The nisse expects a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on Christmas Eve; a famous tale has him kill the farm's cow when the butter is missing.

The beautiful huldra of Scandinavian folklore hides which giveaway feature under her clothes?

The huldra hides a cow's tail in Norwegian tellings and a fox's tail in Swedish ones; some also have a back hollow like a rotten tree.

The names of the Germanic water spirits nix, neck and nøkk derive from a root meaning what?

The names go back to a Germanic *nikwus from the Indo-European root *neigw, 'to wash'; the German Nixe was the female river mermaid of the family.

In Scandinavian folklore, some landmarks are said to be trolls that were exposed to what?

Trolls caught in sunlight burst or turn to stone, which folklore uses to explain standing rocks and sea stacks across Norway and Iceland.

In Icelandic sagas, the draugr typically lives where?

The draugr is an animated corpse that dwells in its burial mound guarding grave goods; Grettis saga's Kárr the Old is a classic example.

Iceland's Yule Cat eats people who fail to receive what before Christmas Eve?

Jólakötturinn, the Yule Cat, devours anyone who receives no new clothing before Christmas Eve, a threat that spurred autumn wool-work; it is the pet of the ogress Grýla.

How many Yule Lads visit Icelandic towns, one per night, before Christmas?

The 13 Yule Lads arrive one per night from 12 December, leaving gifts in shoes on windowsills, or a rotten potato for disobedient children.

On which night does the Italian Befana deliver gifts to children?

La Befana comes down the chimney on the night of 5 January, Epiphany Eve, filling stockings with sweets and leaving coal for bad children.

Perchta, the Alpine goddess-figure, is often identified as the southern counterpart of whom?

Perchta is paired with Holda, the Frau Holle of northern German lore; both oversee spinning and roam during the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Knecht Ruprecht first appears in written sources as a figure in a 17th-century procession in which city?

Knecht Ruprecht is first recorded in a 17th-century Nuremberg Christmas procession; he became Saint Nicholas's most familiar attendant in German lore, carrying a sack and a rod.

In the popular origin story, what was Père Fouettard before joining Saint Nicholas?

In the tale Père Fouettard was an innkeeper or butcher who, with his wife, murdered three boys; Saint Nicholas resurrected them and bound the killer to his service.

The Heinzelmännchen, gnomes who did the townsfolk's work by night, belonged to which German city?

The Heinzelmännchen did Cologne's work by night until a tailor's wife scattered peas on the stairs to see them; they tumbled and left the city for good, as August Kopisch's 1836 poem tells.

Which poet first used the name Erlkönig, in his 1778 ballad 'Erlkönigs Tochter'?

Johann Gottfried Herder introduced 'Erlkönig' in his 1778 translation of the Danish ballad 'Erlkönigs Tochter'; Goethe's 1782 poem, later set by Schubert, made the figure famous.

How tall is the Lorelei rock on the Rhine?

The Lorelei rises 132 metres above the Rhine near Sankt Goarshausen; the name may mean 'murmuring rock', from the echo and the currents at its foot.

The most famous golem legend involves which 16th-century rabbi?

Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague, is the rabbi who in legend shaped the golem to protect the city's Jews; the story was popularised in the 19th century.

Whose 1920 play The Dybbuk popularised the possessing spirit in literary circles?

S. An-sky's The Dybbuk, premiered by the Vilna Troupe in Warsaw in December 1920, made the clinging spirit famous; the Hebrew root of dybbuk means 'to cling'.

Which 1786 Orientalist novel first used the word 'ghoul' in English literature?

William Beckford's Vathek, published in English in 1786, gives the first recorded use of 'ghoul'; the Arabic ghūl comes from a verb meaning 'to seize'.

The legendary roc is consistently depicted as large enough to carry off which animal?

The roc is described as big enough to seize elephants in its talons; it appears in the Sinbad voyages and in Marco Polo's account of Madagascar.

The Japanese tengu are traditionally depicted in the garb of followers of which practice?

Tengu wear the dress of Shugendō's mountain ascetics, the yamabushi, including the small black cap and pom-pom sash; the link dates from medieval tales.

A kappa is severely weakened if what happens to the 'dish' on its head?

A kappa loses its strength when the water in its head dish is spilled, which is why bowing to one, so it bows back, is the classic escape.

Japanese oni are typically shown wearing loincloths of what and carrying what weapon?

Oni wear tiger-pelt loincloths and carry an iron club, the kanabō, an image tied to the 'demon gate' in the north-east, the direction of the Ox and Tiger.

How can one survive an encounter with Japan's Slit-Mouthed Woman, Kuchisake-onna?

Saying she looks 'average' leaves her confused long enough to escape; answering 'Am I beautiful?' with yes gets your mouth slit to match, with no gets you killed.

Where does the Japanese schoolgirl ghost Hanako-san lurk?

Children dare classmates to summon her.

Which shape-shifting raccoon dog of Japanese folklore is shown with a sake bottle and straw hat?

The tanuki, a shape-shifting raccoon dog, is shown with a straw hat, a sake bottle and a promissory note; ceramic tanuki stand outside shops for luck.

Which Chinese goddess floated to the Moon after drinking an elixir of immortality?

Chang'e swallowed the elixir of immortality meant for her husband, the archer Hou Yi, and floated up to the Moon, where the Mid-Autumn Festival honours her with mooncakes.

How many tails does the Korean gumiho have?

The gumiho has nine tails, like its cousins the Chinese jiuweihu and the Japanese nine-tailed kitsune; in Korean tales it often eats human livers.

Korean dokkaebi are formed by the spiritual possession of what?

Dokkaebi arise when old discarded household objects, such as a worn broom or a bloodstained tool, become possessed, unlike ghosts, which come from the human dead.

Which Visayan province of the Philippines is especially associated with the aswang?

Capiz, on Panay, is the province most tied to aswang lore, with towns like Roxas City trading on it; 16th-century Spanish colonists called the aswang the islands' most feared creature.

How is a manananggal traditionally destroyed while it hunts?

Its severed lower torso must rejoin the flying upper half before sunrise.

The Philippine tree giant kapre is commonly depicted doing what in the branches?

The kapre sits in a large tree smoking a huge cigar; the name comes from the Arabic kafir via Spanish cafre.

The Philippine tikbalang has the head and hooves of which animal?

The tikbalang has a horse's head and hooves on a gangly human body, limbs so long its knees rise above its head when it squats.

The Thai krasue manifests as a floating woman's head trailing what?

The krasue is a woman's head floating at night with her glowing internal organs trailing beneath; Cambodia's Ahp and Malaysia's penanggalan are close relatives.

Signs that a kuntilanak or pontianak is near include an infant's cry and the smell of which flower?

A pontianak's approach is said to be announced by an infant's cry and the sweet scent of plumeria, the frangipani flower, before the long-haired woman in white appears.

A toyol, the undead infant of Malay folklore, is typically used by its master for what?

Its Thai male form is the kuman-thong.

In Indian folklore, which beings are part human, part serpent, and guard treasure underground?

Nagas, the serpent beings of Indian lore, dwell in the watery underworld Patala guarding jewels; the naga Vasuki served as the churning rope in the Samudra Manthan myth.

In the Vetala tales, which legendary king tries to capture the corpse-inhabiting spirit?

King Vikramaditya carries the vetala from a tree in the Baital Pachisi, twenty-five tales each ending in a riddle the king must answer or lose his head.

The Romanian strigoi is linked etymologically to the Latin strix, associated with which bird?

Strix was the Romans' screech owl, a night bird believed to drink blood, from which strigoi descends; Stoker's Dracula may be a literary take on the strigoi.

The English word 'bogeyman' derives from Middle English bugge, meaning what?

Middle English bugge meant a frightening spectre or scarecrow, the word behind bogey, bugbear and bogeyman; cognates include Scots bogle and Cornish bucca.

In the German-speaking lands where Groundhog Day lore began, which animal was the forecaster?

German Candlemas lore watched the badger, the Dachs, for its shadow; Pennsylvania Dutch settlers swapped in the groundhog, abundant in their new home.

From which hill does Punxsutawney Phil emerge each February 2?

Phil is pulled from his stump on Gobbler's Knob, a clearing outside Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania; the top-hatted Inner Circle has run the ceremony there since 1887.

A 2017 survey found four-leaf clovers occur roughly once in how many clovers?

A 2017 survey of about 5.7 million clovers put four-leaf ones at roughly one in 5,000, about twice the oft-quoted one in 10,000.

How many leaflets had the clover that set a Guinness record in Japan in 2023?

Yoshiharu Watanabe's 63-leaflet clover, grown in Nasushiobara, was certified by Guinness World Records in 2023 as the most leaves on a clover stem.

By North American tradition, which of a rabbit's feet is the lucky one?

The left hind foot is the lucky one in North American hoodoo tradition, ideally from a rabbit shot in a cemetery, in some versions under a full moon or by a cross-eyed man.

Amulets against the evil eye have been found dating back roughly how far?

Eye-shaped amulets some 5,000 years old have been found at Tell Brak in Syria; glass nazar beads spread across the Mediterranean after about 1500 BC.

Which hand-shaped amulet is a famous talisman against the evil eye?

The hamsa, an open palm often with an eye in the centre, is the Middle East's classic charm against the evil eye; the blue nazar bead is the other famous one.

Folklorist Steve Roud traces a modern good-luck superstition to which children's game?

In Tiggy Touchwood, a 19th-century tag game, players were safe from capture while touching wood; Roud argues the adult superstition grew from that rule.

Which British Columbia body of water is home to the monster Ogopogo?

Ogopogo is said to live in Okanagan Lake near Kelowna, a serpentine creature up to 15 metres long, known to the Syilx people as n'ha-a-itk.

The Bell Witch haunting of 1817 to 1821 took place in which US state?

The Bell Witch tormented farmer John Bell's family at Adams, Tennessee, from 1817 until his death in 1820, one of the best-known American hauntings.

In parts of Queensland the Yowie is known by what name?

Quinkin is the name used in parts of north Queensland for the yowie, the ape-like creature of Aboriginal oral tradition and modern sightings.

The hoax 'drop bear' is a predatory version of which animal?

The drop bear is a fictional carnivorous koala that falls from trees onto tourists; the Australian Museum's deadpan entry even compares it to the extinct Thylacoleo.

Linguists reconstruct the Māori word taniwha to a Proto-Oceanic term meaning what?

Linguists reconstruct taniwha to Proto-Oceanic *tanifa, a word for a shark species; in Māori lore taniwha may be protective guardians or predators lurking in rivers and caves.

How does the Nguni tokoloshe become invisible?

The tokoloshe turns invisible by drinking water or swallowing a stone; people raise their beds on bricks so the small creature cannot reach them at night.

Scholars trace the origin of Africa's water spirit Mami Wata to encounters with what in the 15th century?

A 19th-century snake-charmer print later reshaped her iconography.

Mokele-mbembe is a legendary water-dwelling creature of which river basin?

Mokele-mbembe is said to haunt the Congo Basin, especially Lake Tele in the Republic of the Congo; several expeditions were funded by young-Earth creationists hoping for a living sauropod.

The Zanzibar spirit Popobawa's Swahili name translates as what?

Popobawa is Swahili for 'bat-wing', from popo, bat, and bawa, wing; the shadowy attacker sparked mass panic on Pemba and Zanzibar in 1995.

Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, is depicted as the granddaughter of which gift-bringer?

Snegurochka accompanies her grandfather Ded Moroz on New Year rounds; she appeared in Russian folklore in the 19th century and in Ostrovsky's 1873 play The Snow Maiden.

Which Russian town is considered the official residence of Ded Moroz?

Veliky Ustyug in Vologda Oblast was declared the gift-bringer's official home in 1998 and runs a year-round estate for him; the Soviets had briefly banned the figure in the late 1920s.

Which artist created the first alebrijes after fever dreams in 1930s Mexico City?

Pedro Linares, a Mexico City papier-mâché artist, made the first alebrijes after a feverish dream in 1936; Oaxacan carvers later took up the form in copal wood.

On what date do the Netherlands give Sinterklaas gifts?

Dutch families exchange Sinterklaas gifts on pakjesavond, the evening of 5 December; Belgium and Luxembourg celebrate on the morning of the 6th.

Which 1850 book by an Amsterdam schoolteacher gave the earliest known illustration of Zwarte Piet?

Jan Schenkman's Sint Nikolaas en zijn Knecht (1850) introduced the servant figure in print, giving the earliest known picture of what became Zwarte Piet.

Among which group did the Easter Hare originate as a judge of children's behaviour?

The Easter Hare began among German Lutherans as a judge of children's behaviour, bringing eggs to the good; Georg Franck von Franckenau described the custom in 1682.

Which department store published the 1939 booklet that introduced Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?

Montgomery Ward gave away 2.4 million copies of Robert L. May's Rudolph booklet in 1939; May's brother-in-law Johnny Marks wrote the 1949 song.

Werewolf trials first emerged in the early 15th century in what is now which country?

The earliest werewolf trials were held in the early 15th century in what is now Switzerland, in the Valais and Vaud; they peaked in the 17th century alongside witch trials.

In Haitian folklore, a zombie is reanimated by which kind of sorcerer?

A bokor, a Vodou sorcerer who works with both hands, is said to raise the zombie; William Seabrook's 1929 The Magic Island introduced the idea to Western readers.

The German word poltergeist literally means what?

Poltergeist joins poltern, 'to make a racket', with Geist, 'ghost', so 'noisy ghost'; sceptics explain most cases as adolescents playing tricks on adults.

The earliest known Cinderella-type story, about the Greek slave girl Rhodopis, was recorded by whom?

Strabo's Geographica, written around 7 BC, tells how an eagle carried Rhodopis's sandal to the pharaoh, who searched Egypt for its owner and married her.

What is Little Red Riding Hood's Aarne–Thompson tale-type code?

Little Red Riding Hood is tale type 333 in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther index; Perrault's 1697 version was the first literary telling, ending with the girl eaten.

Which composer's opera Hänsel und Gretel premiered in 1893?

Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel premiered in Weimar on 23 December 1893, conducted by Strauss; the libretto was by the composer's sister Adelheid Wette.

In Rumpelstiltskin, what does the miller's daughter first give the imp for spinning straw into gold?

She gives her necklace on the first night, her ring on the second, and on the third, with nothing left, promises her firstborn child.

Charles Perrault led which faction in the great literary Quarrel of the 1680s?

Perrault championed the Moderns against Boileau's Ancients, opening the quarrel with his 1687 poem Le Siècle de Louis le Grand; his 1697 tales include Puss in Boots.

How many fairy tales did Hans Christian Andersen write, across nine volumes?

Andersen published 156 fairy tales across nine volumes between 1835 and 1872, including The Ugly Duckling and The Snow Queen, since translated into more than 125 languages.

What is the name of the mythical wealth-making machine in Finland's Kalevala?

The Sampo, forged by the smith Ilmarinen, grinds out flour, salt and gold; Elias Lönnrot's 1849 Kalevala runs to 22,795 verses.

How many traditional ballads did Francis James Child anthologise in the 19th century?

Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–98) numbers 305 ballads; Bertrand Bronson later published their traditional tunes in four volumes.

Which Library of Congress collection did Alan Lomax direct?

Alan Lomax ran the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song from 1937 to 1942, recording singers on aluminium and acetate discs alongside John Lomax.

In which year was Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale published in Russian?

Morfologiya skazki appeared in Leningrad in 1928 and went largely unnoticed in the West until Laurence Scott's English translation of 1958.

Andrew Lang's tale anthologies, edited with his wife, are known by what collective name?

Lang's Coloured Fairy Books, twelve volumes from the Blue Fairy Book of 1889 to the Lilac of 1910, were largely translated and retold by his wife Leonora Blanche Lang.

In Washington Irving's tale, for how many years does Rip Van Winkle sleep in the Catskills?

Rip sleeps 20 years, straight through the American Revolution, after drinking with the ghostly Dutch crew of Henry Hudson at their game of ninepins.

The spiny, bull-horned hodag was 'discovered' in 1893 near which Wisconsin town?

Eugene Shepard staged the hodag's 'discovery' outside Rhinelander in 1893, claiming dynamite was needed to kill it; the town adopted the beast as its mascot.

Which English city did Lady Godiva ride through naked, according to legend?

Godiva rode through Coventry to win relief from her husband Leofric's taxes; later versions added a tailor, Tom, who peeped and was struck blind, giving us 'Peeping Tom'.

In the legend, what calls Dick Whittington back to London as he flees his job as a scullion?

The real Richard Whittington was a high-born merchant who became Lord Mayor and probably never owned a cat.

Juan Ponce de León was supposedly told by Native Americans that the Fountain of Youth lay in which land?

The legend places the fountain in Bimini, a land the Taíno supposedly described; tales of youth-restoring waters go back to Herodotus and the Alexander Romance, long before the 1513 voyage.

The El Dorado legend is tied to gold offerings in which sacred body of water in Colombia?

At Lake Guatavita the new Muisca ruler was said to be coated in gold dust and to rinse it off while offerings sank; the golden Muisca raft sits in Bogotá's Museo del Oro.

The Slender Man creepypasta was created in June 2009 on which internet forum?

Eric Knudsen, posting as Victor Surge, created Slender Man in a June 2009 Something Awful forum thread of doctored paranormal photographs.