Let down your hair!

Damsels getting shut up in towers is one of those threads of folktale that somehow stands out, sticks in the mind, pops up as a sub-motif in longer sagas and inspires artists. It’s not especially common though, taking up fewer pages in my collection than, for instance, being given lifts by fish or falling down wells, the latter of which, now I come to think of it, is such a significant occupational hazard for folktale characters that I strongly recommend carrying a ladder with you at all times, just in case.

I digress. Back to circular brick structures that go up rather than down. If you hadn’t worked it out already, it’s all about sex of course, the main purpose of incarcerating young women being to prevent them having any. Well, at least to prevent them having any with anybody else, since around fifteen percent of the tales in which a woman is confined to a columnar building it’s to satisfy the unrequited lust of some megalomaniacal monarch.

Leaving aside the singular instance from Ragnar’s saga in which Thora is accidentally trapped in her own turret by her peculiarly possessive pet dragon, the remaining tales divide fairly evenly between daughters fettered by their overbearing fathers, and the very curious circumstances in which young ladies are locked in a doorless, high-rise, fortified, flat by an unrelated older lady.

Which brings us neatly to the most well known variant of the tower trope: Rapunzel and her extensive tresses. Before the eponymous heroine is born, her poor mother gets a debilitating craving for some particular lettuce or herb, only available from the neighbouring enchantresses garden. Instead of just asking for some, the husband steals the veg, gets caught, and trades his unborn child for the greenery. The “witch” raises the child, who is named after the salad leaves she was exchanged for, until she is an adolescent. The lady, who is independently wealthy and, despite her description, at no point in the story deploys any spells or sorcery, has up to this point been really rather benign as fairy tale antagonists go, verging on kind and generous. She now installs the nubile youngster in the inaccessible garret to protect her from rapacious men, and we are all set for action to unfold.

Rapunzel, or in some versions Parsley, does not appear to be unhappy in her isolation. She is provided with food, company, education and activity. Indeed, it is through the expression of her carefree cheerfulness in delightful song that she unwittingly attracts the attention of a passing prince. It is worth noting that this prince at no point attempts to liberate, set free or rescue the object of his interest. Instead he tricks her in to giving him access to her loft, then persuades her to conspire with him in granting continued visits, both apparently content with her on going captivity. It is only when Rapunzel becomes obviously pregnant that things change.

The previously benevolent lady banishes Rapunzel and throws the prince out of the tower’s single window. Though his fall is broken by a thorn bush, it blinds him and he  disconsolately wanders around for a few years until, by pure chance he bumps in to Rapunzel, now with twin children, who bizarrely, and again entirely by accident, cures his blindness, whereupon he is pretty much obliged to take the whole family back to his parents kingdom to live off his inheritance. All’s well that ends well I suppose.

Nevertheless, two things stand out to me from this tale type. One, as is so often the case with these famously romantic stories, is that it is completely devoid of anything that could remotely be described as romance. The second thing is the utter futility of the gaoler’s attempts to keep young men away from young women. The more apparently impregnable the defences the greater the likelihood that the woman being “protected” will be impregnated by the first random male who happens along. Is there anything we can learn from all this? Well, maybe if you are a young maiden wistfully gazing out of a window waiting for your prince to come, you should make sure he has condom on him when he does.

…here’s to living happily ever after, until the next adventure.

The Travelling Talesman   

The First Christmas Tree, A German folk tale

Once upon a time there was a Count, by the name of Otto, who lived near Strasburg. Although handsome and single he was so indifferent to the flirtations of the ladies that they called him “Stone Heart”.

One year Count Otto hosted a Christmas Eve hunt in the forests around his castle. He and his guests rode for hours through woods and wastes until, as is pretty much compulsory for a noble who goes hunting in a story, Otto found himself alone and lost. Finding a spring he stopped to wash the dust of the chase from his hands. He was surprised to find the water warm despite the time of year and plunged his arms deeper into the bubbling well head. As he did so he felt as if a smaller softer pair of hands met his own and drew from his finger his favourite gold ring. When he withdrew his hands the ring was indeed missing so he made a mental note to send some servants to fetch it out the following day.

As he lay in his bed that night he heard sounds as of the drawbridge going down and a host of people arriving. Rather shortly afterwards he also heard coming from his own Great Hall the sounds of music and merriment, rather like some throng feasting. When he threw open the doors he found that was indeed the case as colourfully clad dancers whisked past him. In the centre of the room a fir tree stood, bedecked with gold rings, diamond encrusted bracelets, bejewelled belts and ruby pommeled daggers in silver sheaths. As Otto stood staring in disbelief, the dancers parted and as the music faded away the most beautiful woman he had ever seen swayed towards him with raven hair and fine dress in plush satins and velvets. “We have come to return your Christmas visit to our fairy well” she said, “and return to you something you have lost.” She held out a small gold casket which, when opened, revealed his ring. “I am Ernestine, Queen of the fairies” she said holding out her hand. As the music began again Otto found himself taking her hand and joining the dance. As they danced the other fairies shimmered away leaving only Ernestine in his arms. Entranced he sank to one knee and asked her to marry him. Ernestine smiled and said: “As long as you never speak the word “Death” in my presence.”

The two were wed the very next day and spent many happy years together. Otto still enjoyed hosting the occasional hunt and Ernestine joined in too. One day, when everyone was in the courtyard ready to set off on for the pursuit, Ernestine was still in her chambers. Otto held up the departure. Time trickled away and Otto grew impatient. Eventually Ernestine came out through the doors. Otto was quite angry by this time, “You have kept us waiting so long,” he cried, “that you would make a good messenger to send for Death!”

There was barely time for her to utter one anguished scream and then she was gone, vanished in to thin air. Otto was frantic. He searched the castle and the forest, dived in to the fairy well and ranged up and down the banks of the stream that flowed from it, all to no avail.

Every year he brought a fir tree in to his hall and dressed it in bright shiny jewels and candles in remembrance of their first night together and the hope that its sparkling lights might bring her home.

After a while Otto’s neighbours began to put up decorated trees of their own. Slowly the custom spread until now, if the queen of the fairies should return to seek her lost love, she would find his signal shining from houses all over the globe.

…here’s to living happily ever after, until the next adventure.

The Travelling Talesman www.thetravellingtalesman.co.uk

Of Woodland Glades and Hollow Hills

Whoever we are and however we seek peace, solace or a connection with something beyond the mundane, for the majority of us there is a place where we find something that refreshes our soul, or at least feels closer to doing so than the highways and byways of our everyday life. The spiritually developed person who sees the divine in everything will still regularly be drawn to a certain garden or hilltop. Even the Buddha, refined through many lifetimes to have no attachment to things in the physical world, chose a specific sacred fig tree under which to sit and meditate his way to enlightenment.

Some places just have something about them that resonates with us in a way that other places do not. In an animist culture the assumption would be that a being of some sort lived there, a spirit or spirits specific to that place. If the spirit was friendly and the place popular the spirit might be credited with influence beyond their personal rock, dell or circle of trees, often involving the well-being of plants and animals in the general vicinity.

It seems to me that a good number of the fairy folk started life as spirits of place, particularly the diminutive winged types found in sylvan glades who are clearly connected to the fertility of the forest. Thus they do not posses the power of invisibility, it is their natural state. The power they posses is that of visibility, allowing themselves to be seen by those who are open to their existence.

The link between the small woodland fairies and their human sized namesakes comes about because the Tuatha De Danann and others of their ilk can also be considered as spirits of place. Connected with the hill forts, stone circles or hills they occupied while present in this world or the burial mounds they retreated in to, the large and powerful fairies are a mix of gods and ancestral spirits who attained a wide enough sphere of influence to become autonomous from their place of origin. It is easy to see how a smith of great skill in the early days of metalwork might be buried with great honour in a barrow., then, in a culture where ancestors were revered and their soul contacted and consulted, they would maintain their importance long after their physical presence had moved on.

Though connected at a theoretical level it is still strange that these two kinds of being, with very different appearances and behaviours should share a name and even be found together according to many eye witness reports. My personal opinion is that the small fairies tag along with their larger brethren in much the same way that jackdaws hang around with rooks.

If you want these denizens of the Otherworld to show themselves to you then there are obvious places to start. The good folk are fond of trees and especially thorns. Anywhere with the combination of oak, ash and thorn is likely. Of course, fairy rings indicate a favoured dancing spot and any barrow, burial mound or particularly well rounded hill should be worth a look. The best place however, may be just that place you go to yourself that has something indefinable about it that makes you happy, for the fairies who live there already know you.

If all else fails then you could look in The Tavelling Talesman’s tour dates for “Away With The Fairies” at http://www.thetravellingtalesman.co.uk/giglist.shtml

Fairy time

Fairies as such, are fairly limited in Geographic scope, being primarily a European phenomenon. Their name and characteristics can vary significantly across this area too, but there is a type of fairy encounter which is common throughout the lands, widely different in the specifics yet exactly the same in it’s outcome, and so prolific one has to wonder if there is some truth behind this tale type.

As is often the case with close encounters of the fairy kind the person, whether young lad, maiden or wandering drunk, who features in the story is captivated by faint musical, magical sounds. Following the entrancing harmony they come upon the Good Folk dancing, singing and making merry. Often they will watch unobserved from behind a tree or rock at first but soon the music will pull them into the whirling dance. It may be that they stay for a couple of hours, nights, weeks, or even three months. At the absolute maximum it might be seven years. It would seem that this period is full of intoxicating joy and pleasantness. Nevertheless, at some point they decide to head for home. On arriving back in their village, or castle they find many things changed and unfamiliar, all the people they knew are gone and their home is occupied by strangers. On further enquiry they find that their family are long dead and there is only a faint memory of a story about someone by their name having vanished without trace more than a lifetime or two ago. As they struggle to come to grips with this news they age rapidly and crumble to dust.

Sometimes the plot may have a longer set up. King Herla goes to a far land to witness the wedding of a fairy king; Oisin is wooed by a beautiful princess from the land of youth. In each case they return to discover hundreds of years have passed. Interestingly, in both of these cases a change of epic proportions has fallen upon the land. In Herla’s case he leaves a British King and returns to a land long under Saxon rule. The Irish Oisin leaves a pagan Eire and comes back to tell the tales of Finn mac Cumhal to a fascinated Saint Patrick.

Curiously it is by no means guaranteed that a sojourn in the Otherworld will lead to a powdery demise. Pwyll Prince of Dyfed manages to count off a year and a day in Annwyvn
with exactitude before coming home the same year and a day later in his own land. Many others come and go between the lands with less loss of time than I encounter whilst eating breakfast. Certainly the fairies themselves have no problem reconciling time between our two plains, happily making and keeping appointments accurately to the hour.

So are these tales based in fact? Possibly it was common for people to leave home without warning, maybe falling in with Romanies or other nomads in a rush of excitement after accidentally joining them for a few nights revels, then losing track of time before coming home to find their family had died in their absence. It is easy to see how the tale might be elaborated and exaggerated by re-telling until it spans hundreds of years.

…and yet, the rapid onset of the time spent in the land of youth and the ensuing sudden de-hydration are less easy to see being the creation of so many different storytellers in so many assorted places. So if you are out in the forest or on the moors of a night and your ears are assailed by the most delectable melodies you have ever heard, take thought before you let your feet follow the captivating rhythm: your life may never be the same again.

Away With The Fairies

NOT A FAIRY.
“Changeling” by Robin Stevenson
More by him at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/142496775681932380/

I don’t use the term “fairytale” very often. It is odd that somehow the title “fairytale” has become a blanket term for any story involving magic. For me it is only a fairytale if it actually has a fairy in it. So how do we identify a fairy? Oh, Now we have entered a realm of confusion! I have several books purporting to be specifically about fairies (or faeries, we can’t even reach consensus on the spelling). These contain descriptions and tales of the wee folk by the various names of Spriggans, Pixies, Piskies, Sidhe (pronounced “shee”), Good Folk (I could go on but we’ve barely scratched the surface and haven’t even left the British Isles), but also feature Trow, Trolls, Koboldoi, Gnomes, Brownies, Nixen, Knockers and a host of other supernatural beings. It’s a bit like buying a textbook on humans and finding chapters on marmosets and grizzlies.

Let’s start at the beginning. The Irish Book Of Invasions tells us that at one time the land of Éire was in possession of the tall, fair skinned Tuatha De Danann. Long lived and wielding powerful magic the Tuatha De held truth and fairness in high esteem and many stories are told of their time. Then the Milesians, whose descendants are the current Irish, turned up, fought the Tuatha De for the land, won, and banished the Tuatha De Danann in to the ancient burial mounds that litter the country where they still live as the Sidhe or faery host.

Since their banishment the Fair Folk have interacted with humans in a variety of ways. Women and men from each race have fallen in love with, seduced or abducted and married someone from the other; items have been stolen by each from each and favours, trades and deals have been done leading to both lasting happiness and deep sorrow.

One of the oddest things about The Ever Living Ones is that they appear to be shrinking. The Tuatha De were considered tall against humans. A few hundred years ago elves were generally perceived as around three or four feet tall. The modern apprehension of the size of a fairy is probably between ten and twenty centimetres. What they have lost in stature they have made up in utility, having apparently grown wings along the way. However, just incase you thought you were getting a handle on them, some can switch from small to large if they wish.

Probably the most consistent thing about fairies is that they are attractive to human senses: they are beautiful to gaze upon, their music and voices are sweet to the ear and the smell of their food ravishing to the nostrils. Whether short or tall, a glimpse of the Good Folk fills the mortal observer with wonder, delight and curiosity, but beware, they are very choosy about the humans they will share their wonders with and many who have blundered excitedly in to the revels of the Fae have suffered for it afterwards.

Now it seems your humble Talesman has fallen under their spell, for my spring tour will be “Away With The Fairies” and I shall be reading everything I can about them over the next three months, so no doubt you will hear a little more about them too.

Fairy Tale Romance

Fairy Tales are as full of good advice and examples of how to live a worthy life as any other type of story, but there is one subject on which they are almost completely useless: Love. Oh they’re are full of people falling in love but more often than not they are both good looking, it rarely takes anything longer than an instant and it is almost always mutual.

La Belle Dame sans Merci by Sir Frank Dicksee

It’s hardly surprising people desire this fantastical meeting, it’s so simple! Meet, fall in love and live happily ever after certainly beats meet; date sporadically; introduce each other to each others disapproving parents/friends; move in together against parents/friends advice; fall out over work commitments; agree to separate and argue about the CD collection.

So what should you do if you are looking for that fairytale romance?
Although there may be other options the basic checklist for young men who are seeking the perfect girl in the old fashioned way is as follows:
1/ Be a 7th son or at least youngest of three
2/ Be poor
3/ Have a magical weapon
4/ Have a wicked step parent
5/ Be friends with a talking animal (see FTC June 2011)

If you satisfy 3 or more of the above requirements then finding a well connected damsel in distress and hacking up the cause of her oppression will usually get you past the awkward introductory stage of the relationship and frequently overcomes any reservations her parents may have had. Though if they aren’t around to see it it’s probably wise to keep some proof of your heroism as it is common for cowardly but power hungry political types to make a false claim that they did the deed.

For young women there is a similar but slightly different checklist:
1/ Be a princess
2/ Be pretty
3/ Be kind and smile through all hardship
4/ Have a wicked step parent
5/ Be friends with a talking animal

Don’t be put off if you are not a princess (though it often helps with the parental approval side of things); for ladies it is generally acceptable if you can only tick off one item on the list and number 3, the one item that is in your control, is by far the most important. Unfortunately you will need the wicked step parent or the cowardly politician to place you in the way of mortal peril in order to be saved by the lad who you will instantly fall in love with. You will also have to accept that, statistically, his name will be Jack.

Having achieved the goal of boy meeting girl, do the fairytales have any further advice for your romance? Well, there may be useful information on how to rescue your intended from fairies, trolls or witches and the like but once the excitement is over and the wedding guests have all gone back to their own kingdoms the business of living happily ever after is usually assumed to be a simple process and one on which the fairytales are generally silent. To find out about loving happily ever after we will have to look in a different class of tale and another FTC…

Smith of Smiths

Just before writing this months FTC I was out putting up posters for the Underworld Journeys show in my local village of Morchard Bishop and would like to thank our blacksmiths for such a well kept notice board. There are all sorts of smiths scattered through mythology. They are oft credited with magic powers (even beyond that of keeping a notice board orderly) and they have been respected for this over many years and in many lands. Not only magically skilled with materials and artisans of the elements, but often shape changers themselves, wise men and creators. Many are said to have wit beyond the lot of normal man.

Some cultures have deities named to them: Vulcan the Roman Forge keeper; the Greek Hephaestus, God of blacksmiths, craftsmen, sculptors, metallurgists and of course, volcanos, and as well as being the God of smiths he is also smith to the gods. All very hot powerful and awesome.

For all of their importance and power they live on the fringes, on the edge of the village. Culann, the smith of Irish mythology lives so far on the edge that it takes a day to travel to him and those who do visit have to stay overnight.

In Norse mythology we meet supernatural smiths, the dwarves,whose knowledge is so great that on more than one occasion the Norse Gods go to the dwarves to get themselves out of trouble (which Loki has inevitably got them into). These dwarven smiths are so skilled that they are able to use the breath of a fish, the sound of a cats footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear and the spittle of a bird to fashion the magical chain Gliepnir, which is as thin as a silk ribbon yet far stronger than any iron chain.

It must also be mentioned that iron, which blacksmiths work so powerfully, is one of the strongest protections against magics. Iron held, thrown over a bespelled creature or used in other ways, breaks spells and charms and shows the truth, it protects against curses, it is a magic of itself, as earthy and practical as our smiths are. This is partly where the protection granted by horseshoes comes from – it’s iron giving protection to buildings against the wiles of witches, fiends and fairies.

So the magic of smiths is earthy, the dwarves all live underground and mine the earth for it’s minerals to craft, iron comes from the earth, and one of my favorite smiths, who some consider a demi-god himself, and who, like Hephaestus is a smith to the Gods now, is said to be found (and in theory still available for work), in a neolithic burial chamber at the side of the ridgeway: Wayland’s Smithy.

Talesman at Wayland's Smithy

Wayland is sufficiently well known the he gets a name check in both the Nibelungenlied and Beowulf as the supplier of a sword and a mail shirt respectively.  In his own story, Wayland also makes wonderful jewelery, getting especially fixated on arm rings (making one a day for 700 days) after his beautiful wife (and Valkyrie), Hervor leaves him. Then, to add insult to injury he is cruelly enslaved by the wicked King Nidud on whom he eventually wreaks a savage revenge before flying off on a set of home made wings to set up home in Oxfordshire.

Within such stories the smiths are seldom really very good guys, they are also rarely the bad guy and often the true lesson in a smith’s story is that they should be treated with respect. Especially wise if you consider them to be magically skilled as well as talented metallurgists.

Here in Morchard we do parallel the mythological world nicely as we have our own smiths who are on the fringe of Morchard (in Frost) and though the forge may not actually be underground it can be said to be beneath Polson Hill, and clearly there’s good magic goes into Harold’s prize winning vegetables.

…here’s to living happily ever after, until the next adventure.

You have to kiss a lot of frogs…

Well, actually, no. You don’t. There really is no point at all in going round randomly kissing amphibians in the hope that they will become lovestruck royalty, and even less in killing them. All else aside, they have to be able to talk or the chances of them being a magical creature are slim, and even then just because our cat appeared to call me a “wingnut” the other day doesn’t make her magical. We want whole clear sentences from them, ideally ones offering assistance with a tricky situation or high speed transportation.

It’s not just frogs either, all sorts of animals can come along and start chatting away; the White Cat from the story of the same name is a sophisticated conversationalist with her own castle; the fox of The Golden Apple (well it is midsummer, they were bound to come up) from Norway is witty and erudite. One thing most of them will never do is tell you that they may be royalty, gorgeous or highly eligible and the answer to your prayers in some other way. Often it is a condition of the curse which gave them animal form that the actions they ask of you be unbiased by their previous political clout or social and financial status.

Don’t worry, statistically they are fairly unlikely to ask for a snog or even a peck on the cheek in a traditional folk tale. It is far more common for these loquacious animals to help you along with your quest and save your skin on numerous occasions, often when you are only at risk because you ignored their initial good advice. They will repeatedly prove a loyal bosom buddy to you, before politely and kindly requesting that you cut off their head. Not what one normally expects from a good friend.

So if you’ve been given a list of impossible tasks to do and the local wildlife has come over all verbose:

1) DON’T assume it’s all down to the ale or that you’re going mad and ignore them hoping they’ll go away

2) DO exactly what they say, and I mean exactly, follow those instructions carefully, you will only make more work for yourself in the long run if you don’t.

3) DON’T get smart and think you know better than they do or tweak the details because it was only a pond dweller who advised you. They’re animals that can talk so they probably do know what they’re talking about, have they not proved that on your quest?

4) DO for just a moment put aside any emotional attachment you might have to keeping them with you, if they have asked you to ritualistically decapitate them it is probably the only way to release them from their cursed state into their human form so they can make all your dreams come true (not just the weird ones involving talking animals)

5) DON’T however, get ahead of yourself and start slaughtering garrulous critters unless they specifically request you to do so (over-enthusiastic slaying has already rendered them endangered, we see very few of them around these days)

6) DO be aware that not all chatty beasts are marriageable material: some turn out to be your dead parents come back to look after you or they might just be honest to goodness, straight up, every day, perfectly normal talking animals. But that’s a story for another Folk Tales Corner.

…here’s to living happily ever after, until the next adventure.

Good Elf and Prosperity

Folk Tales Corner started life as a column in the Morchard Messenger in May last year. I normally re-edit the content slightly for the online version, which is not bound by the constraints of print or locality, but this one is so specific it would have needed a complete re-write (I wouldn’t mind doing a re-write for you, good people, but I need the time to work on my forthcoming CD’s cover design) so I hope my net readers can enjoy it just as well now I’ve pointed that out.

Well, fair Morchardians, it’s been a year (and a day, obviously) since I first set finger to keyboard for Folk Tales Corner. I must confess, I wasn’t at all sure how it was going to turn out, or if anyone would even read it, but several of you have been very complimentary and encouraging, So I thank you all for your indulgence.

Previously my thoughts on folk tales were used to ranging widely across the plains of possibility or galloping unchecked into a conversation, over the last year I have had to corral them in to a coherent commentary and a limited word count. It is a very different experience to telling stories. I know where the story starts and ends and I can use as many or as few words as I like; an adventure in Folk Tales Corner has neither of these advantages and I sometimes go to bed the day before the deadline hoping that, like the shoemaker, I will come down in the morning and elves will have done the job for me.

I’m sure you all know this story: the German cobbler struggles to get by until one morning he wakes to find the last of his leather, which he had cut out the day before, has magically become completed shoes and very fine ones at that. Their high quality and early completion facilitates the purchase of enough leather for two pairs which he duly cuts out and leaves overnight, only to find four completed shoes in the morning. This continues, rejuvenating his business, so he and his kindly wife sneak down in the night to find out how they are being helped and observe a couple of naked elves happily sewing away. Mrs. Shoemaker makes some miniature fancy clothes, leaves them out instead of the leather one night and creeps down to see the elves delighting in their new splendour before they promptly leave, never to return.

Although it all turns out well for the Grimm Brother’s footwear specialist, his curiosity having been stayed until the business was back on it’s feet, this tale type often features the magical helpers leaving their well meaning benefactors in the lurch and stands oddly against the corpus of fairy material that calls for respect and fair dealings. It would appear to be a warning not to overpay your servants lest they get ideas above their station and toddle off. I wonder, as ever, how far back this story goes, if it recalls a specific movement of people, migrant workers or refugees who arrived poorly dressed and consequently unable to get proper employment, being marked out as outsiders. Prepared to work hard just for food and a roof, with skills that belied their primitive appearance, they slaved on until a gift or purchase of local style clothes allowed them to present themselves as ‘normal’ and compete on an even basis.
I was very pleased to see the essence of the unseen workers given a thorough re-examination by J.K. Rowling through the character of Dobbie the house elf, and I defy anyone not to be uplifted when Harry Potter, in a clever subversion of the clothes giving motif, tricks Dobbie’s evil master in to setting him free.

Well, the word count is nearing it’s permissible maximum so I will take the risk of thanking my own magical helper and partner, Jo Coffey (who many of you know as the belly dance teacher) without whose help and encouragement Folk Tales Corner would never have started. Hopefully she will let me buy her clothes occasionally without feeling the need to leave and will still be here to help me write FTC for another year.

Thrice Upon A Time

So as we reach the third month, March, what better time to talk about one of the golden rules of folk tale and storytelling: if it happens more than once then it happens three times. Oh yes, the third time’s the charm!
Three siblings set out to seek their fortune. The first two are really only there to show how difficult, dangerous or disgusting the task at hand may be, through trying and failing they elevate the third adventurer by contrast. It may be that they meet a giant each and you can be sure that, if the second outsized thug is more fearsome than the first by dint of having an extra head, then an even bigger giant with the full compliment of three heads will be along shortly.

Once you start to look there is no turning back the tide of trios, triplications and trinities: our protagonist befriends three magic helpers; is given three gifts; meets three consecutively older and uglier peasants; goes to three dances; answers three riddles; turns around three times; gets three chances; meets three crones on the heath… and here we find ourselves looping in to the sphere of mythology where the triple aspects of an ancient mother goddess, creator, sustainer, destroyer are reflected in the three Greek fates, the Norse Norns and Shakespeare’s witches. It’s not just goddesses that hang around in threes: The Norse God Odin is first encountered creating the nine worlds (3×3!) with his brothers Vili and Ve alongside him before, for the sake of brevity we assume, Vili and Ve vanish without trace and their deeds are referred to Odin alone. A similar thing happens with the Celtic God Lugh who is born one of triplets before they too are collapsed in to the singular name. Even in a nominally monotheistic religion we find a triple aspect of masculine deity in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Is it because three is the number of the divine then, that it is so popular? Well, it is also the basis of our physical world since we live in three dimensions, we all know the stability of a tripod, everything is either solid, liquid or gas. Even the business world will “tell you three times” while politicians talk about “Education, education, education.” and estate agents recite “Location, location, location”. It seems that, even in the most mundane of environments, if it happens more than once then it happens three times.

Maybe it’s because three gives us a beginning, a middle and an end, though it may be hard to know where the beginning is. In the case of the year it obviously begins on January 1st… Unless you’re Chinese when it gets going in February… or, if you have had a slow opening to 2011 and would like to start all over again then your third chance comes from following the Roman, Persian or astrological example, all three of which celebrate the new year in March.

It would appear that three is the natural number, the number of completeness, it just is the right number. So there you have a golden rule of folk tale, and like so much in these old traditions it is a microcosm of the world around us: if it happens more than once then it happens three times!

…here’s to living happily ever after, until the next adventure.