Csenge Virág Zalka's Blog, page 11

A is for Anus (Body Folktales)

This year, my A to Z Challenge theme is Body Folktales. Enjoy!Yeah, I went there.NSFW bodily functions ahead, ahoy! Although nothing sexual.Here is the thing: Way more folktales feature anuses than you'd think. And many of them are very amusing.(Let's not think about what this post will do to my search statistics.)How the birds got their colors (Mocoví)This story... keeps on giving. It begins

The 2023 A to Z Blogging Challenge Theme Reveal

Can you believe it has been a year? The A to Z Blogging Challenge is approaching again! This is my 11th year participating. It is always great fun, and it has led me to many new stories, fabulous new blogs, and lots of discoveries.In the past 9 years I've always had a theme:Weird Princesses (2013)Tales with Colors (2014)Epics A to Z (2015)Diversity A to Z (2016)WTF - Weird Things in

Folktales about women who slay monsters (International Women's Day)

It has become tradition on the blog to post a collection of folktales for International Women's Day. I've had a different theme every year: Women in war, Woman healers, Women helping women, and Badass Grandmas.This year, I decided to collect stories about women slaying monsters. Many people cling to the belief in traditional stories monster-killing is a man's job, while women wait around helpless

Deities in the mountains (Folktales of South American Indigenous peoples 2. - Kogi)

As a sequel to the Following folktales around the world reading challenge, I decided to start reading minority and indigenous folktales. I am currently working my way through the folklore of South American indigenous peoples. You can find previous posts here, and you can follow the challenge on Facebook here.Mitos KogiManuela Fischer & Konrad Theodor PreussAbya-yala, 1989.The Kogi live in the

Clever armadillos and shapeshifting jaguars (Folktales of South American Indigenous peoples 1. - Mocoví)

As a sequel to the Following folktales around the world reading challenge, I decided to start reading minority and indigenous folktales. I am currently working my way through the folklore of South American indigenous peoples. You can find previous posts here, and you can follow the challenge on Facebook here.Folk Literature of the Mocoví IndiansJohannes Wilbert, Karin Simoneau, Maria Susana

Folktale Selection: Sometimes you just have to let toxic people go

Folktales and other traditional stories carry a community's values. They teach us about important things such as empathy, forgiveness, acceptance, teamwork, and more. They are not always as black and white as one may think: heroes can make mistakes and learn from them; villains can be forgiven.But every once in a while, forgiveness is not the answer. Just like in real life, abusive relationships

Favorite Folktales for the Year of the Rabbit

Today marks the lunar new year, beginning the Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac. As usual, I have collected a list of folktales and legends that feature rabbits and hares. It was a fairly easy task, since these animals often take on the role of the trickster in cultures around the world. There is an abundance of stories - I decided to cherry-pick my all-time favorites.(Links in

Hedgehog hero (Following folktales around the world 201. - Western Sahara)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!Western Sahara (the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR) is a non-autonomous country that has been fighting for independence from Morocco for decades.

2022: The best books of the year

It's the end of 2022, so it's time to make a list of my favorite books this year!I finished a total of 92 books this year, which approximately amounts to 18,200 pages. I actually read more than this, but I am only counting the books I finished because I tend to jump around a lot. Surprisingly, only 15 of this number were folktale collections; I read more stories than that for research, obviously,

313 earworms

This was the fourth year that I wrote down every morning what song was stuck in my head when I woke up. The phenomenon still persists, like an internal musical alarm clock, so once again I am sharing the statistics. Because I can.2018: I woke up with an earworm 306 mornings, featuring 150 different songs (post here)2019: 316 mornings, 137 songs (post here)2020: 346 mornings, 149 songs (post here)