Category: Thursday’s Tales

Today's story is a Bohemian fairy tale collected by Louis Léger in Contes Populaires Slaves. I read the version retold by A. H. Wratislaw in his Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources, 1889, which you can find on-line here. An aging king tells his only son that he wishes to see him married before he dies. The son replies that he does not know a suitable bride, so the king sends him to a tower room that has not been opened in years. There he finds windows showing beautiful women, and a curtain over one window. He pulls away the curtain and falls in love with the woman he sees there, pledging to marry her. He tells his father, who tells him he should have left that window curtained, because the woman is the prisoner of an evil sorcerer, in an iron castle, but the prince has given his word and must try to rescue her. The son take leave of his father,...

Today, I've got another ghost story from Ireland. It was also retold by St. John D. Seymour and Harry L. Neligan in True Irish Ghost Stories, 1914. You can purchase the book on Amazon. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Charles Tottenham, a member of the Irish Parliament, lived in Loftus Hall, in County Wexford. He had two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne. Elizabeth, the older, was married, but Anne lived with him and his second wife, her step-mother, in the hall.  The father was a cold austere man, and the stepmother was as horrible as they tend to be in fairytales. Anne was lonely and depressed, with no friends and unloved by her family. One wet and stormy night, as the three sat in the drawing room, they were startled by a loud knocking at the outer gate. Soon the servant announced that a young gentleman on horseback was requesting lodging and shelter. He had lost his way and had been guided by the only light he had seen....

Today's ghost story is from Ireland. It was retold by St. John D. Seymour and Harry L. Neligan in True Irish Ghost Stories, 1914. You can purchase the book on Amazon. Gerald Fitzgerald the Younger, 11th Earl of Kildare, died on the November 16, 1585. (Hey - November 16 is my birthday!) His body was buried in St. Brigid's Cathedral in Kildare. He was known as "the Wizard Earl" because he was believed to practice black magic and could transform himself into a bird or animal when he choice. His supernatural powers were so notorious he had become the terror of the countryside. His wife, the Countess, had long wanted to see some proof of his skill, and had frequently begged him to transform himself before her, but he had refused to do so, stating that if he did and she became afraid, he would be taken from her and she would never see him again. Still she persisted, and at last he said agreed...

Today I've got another Irish tale, this one about a vampire. A beautiful Irish maiden, Órga, was deeply in love with a common peasant boy, Grian. They had promised to love each other forever, but Órga's father promised her hand to a rich Clan Chieftain. Her father was promised wealth and lands for himself and his other children in exchange for his daughter's hand in marriage. Of course, Órga and the rich man were married and on the day of the wedding everyone partied till nightfall. Órga looked on, cursing her father and promising vengeance. Órga's husband was a horrible, mean and conceited man. He locked her away so only he could see her magnificent beauty; he wanted to keep her all to himself. Órga hated being locked away in the dark, hidden from everything she loved. Some say she poisoned herself no longer able to live the life her father had put upon her, while others say she died of a broken heart. Órga's burial was a...

I'm thinking Irish stories for the rest of this month, since Samhain is traditionally celebrated at the end of October, from sunset on the 31st to sunset on November 1. It's a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year and is part of the basis of our Halloween. Today, we'll talk about Boann, the goddess of the River Boyne, a river in Leinster, Ireland. Boann was a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the tribe of the gods. Her husband is Nechtan, the river god. She had two lovers, the Dagda, the good god, the father figure, and Elcmar, his chief steward. She and the Dagda had a son, Aengus, the god of love. In order to hide their affair, the Dagda made the sun stand still for nine months; therefore, Aengus was conceived and born in one day. But that doesn't really have anything to do with today's tale. Today's story describes how the Rover Boyne...