by Lari Don
He laid his sword on the ground.
The dragon’s head darted forward and kissed Wynne on the cheek.
Wynne laughed. “What a friendly dragon. I suppose one kiss deserves another.” He leant forward and kissed the dragon on her scaly green snout.
The dragon changed into his little sister, Margaret.
She landed in a heap at the bottom of the rock. Wynne helped her up and wrapped her in his cloak.
“Margaret! Who did this to you? Who turned you into a wyrm?”
“The new Queen, who replaced our mother.”
“Then I will go and finish her, the way I nearly finished you.” He picked up his sword.
Margaret said, “No, there are better ways to deal with her.”
She led him along the shore towards the castle. As they passed his ship, still seaworthy, but a bit battered by the whirling water and the dancing dragon, Margaret prised off a splinter of rowan wood.
When they reached the castle, the new Queen was trying to leave with as much silk and treasure as she could carry. Margaret tapped the new Queen over the heart with the rowan wood, and the new Queen returned to her true form. A toad. A squat, warty, damp-looking toad.
The toad hopped off, with no treasure at all, leaving Margaret and Wynne to enter the castle to meet their father, then live happily and wisely for many years.
And that is why Spindleston Heugh still bears the marks of a serpent’s scales coiling around it, and why you can sometimes hear a toad croak in the grounds of Bamburgh Castle. But don’t worry, you’ll be quite safe if you carry a bit of rowan wood with you...
The Accidental Wolf Cub
German folktale
There are many ways to become a werewolf. Being bitten by a wolf. Drinking water from a wolf’s footprint. Or wearing a wolfskin belt...
Once upon a time there was a little boy who wanted to play with a wolfskin belt.
He could see the wolfskin belt hanging up on the back of the door in his house.
The belt was hairy, grey, old, worn. Not like everything else in the house, which his mum kept clean and polished and mended. But his mum never touched the wolfskin belt. Neither did his big sister, nor his granny.
No one but his dad touched the wolfskin belt. Even his dad only touched it as the sun went down and the moon rose, a couple of nights a month. He would unhook it from the nail on the door and, as he wrapped it round his waist, he would smile goodbye to his family, then leave the house before he’d finished buckling the belt.
There was always fresh meat on the table the next day.
The little boy wanted to play with the belt.
He had plenty of other things to play with. Wooden sheep and cows and ducks carved by his father. Tin soldiers from a box his granny gave him. A patchwork cloak made from scraps by his mum, so he could be a brave knight or a travelling minstrel.
But these toys never seemed as much fun as the toys just out of reach. So he wanted to play with that wolfskin belt.
One day, when his mum and big sister were in the garden digging carrots, his dad was in the fields and his granny was dozing by the fire, her knitting on her knee, the little boy built a tower.
He built a tower from a chair, a stool and his mum’s sewing box, then he climbed to the top and reached up for the belt.
CRASH! The tower collapsed.
His granny said, “What? Humph.” And started to snore again.
He built the tower again. The chair. The stool. The sewing box. He pushed the tower against the door to keep it steady. He climbed to the top, he reached up for the belt and he touched it.
CRASH! The tower collapsed.
His granny said, “Who? Humph.” And started to snore again.
The little boy lay on the floor surrounded by spools of thread and scraps of material, but he had the wolfskin belt in his hands.
He wrapped it round his tummy. He was going to be his dad. He was going to be a big tall man, and do big tall man things.
He stood up tall and buckled the belt round his tummy.
Suddenly the little boy felt tingly all over. He sneezed and scratched.
Then his feet scrabbled on the newly slippy floor and he fell down.
He tried to stand. But his feet and hands were strange and awkward, so he fell over again.
He shook his head, waggling his ears, and tried to stand again. He got onto his hands and knees. Then he stood up on his legs and tried to walk towards his granny.
But his hind legs couldn’t hold his weight. He lost his balance. He tumbled down onto the rag rug on the floor. His toenails got caught in the rug and he got all tangled up, wrapping the rug around himself. He wriggled and scrambled and crawled out on the smooth wooden floor.
Crawling was easier than walking, so he tried that, slipping and sliding, with those nails clicking. At first he tumbled and rolled around the floor. But finally he learnt how to move on all fours.
He bounced and jumped and leapt around the floor.
He grinned. This was fun.
Then he noticed the tail. There was a tail! Just out of reach. A long, waggly, furry silver tail. A tail! What a great toy.
He grabbed for the tail with his hands, but his fingers didn’t seem to be doing anything useful.
So he grabbed the tail with his teeth.
OUCH! That hurt, and the tail flicked away. Temptingly.
He grabbed for the tail again and it flicked away again. He chased the tail round and round in a circle, until he was dizzy and fell down on the rug again.
But chasing the tail had been fun. And fast. Now he wanted to see how fast he could move on all fours. He started slow at first, then got faster and faster, running and springing under the table and round the chairs, and jumping his full length over the rug.
Now he was controlling all four legs but he kept forgetting that tail.
The tail knocked over the jug of milk cooling on the shelf by the door, and his granny’s cup of tea. The house was filled with the splash of milk and the crash of china, and his granny woke up.
“What? Who’s there? What’s going on?”
His granny sounded worried, so he bounced over to give her a cuddle.
She screamed. “Wolf!”
He looked round. Wolf? Where was the wolf? He would protect his granny from the wolf! He snuggled up to his granny’s legs. She screamed again and whacked him with her knitting.
His mum and sister ran into the house, and his sister yelled, “Where’s my little brother? That wolf has eaten him!”
His granny shouted, “Cut it open! Cut open its belly in case it swallowed him whole. That works in fairy tales!”
“No!” said the mum, “No! I wonder...? Don’t hurt the cub. We’ll try to catch it.” She said to his sister, “Fetch your father, but shut the door on your way out.”
The little boy watched as his mum grabbed a blanket and threw it towards him. A game!
The little boy bounced off, tail waving, paws skidding, racing round the kitchen in a glorious game of chase, howling with laughter as his mum and his granny tried to stop him. They threw shawls and tablecloths over him to try to wrap him and catch him. Between them, they knocked over every chair and jug and bowl and stool and even his box of tin soldiers, all clattering onto the floor.
Finally his mum threw the little boy’s own patchwork cloak at his feet. His claws caught in it, and he tripped and tumbled to the floor.
His mum wrapped him in his dressing-up costume and said, “Hush, hush, hush.”
His dad walked in the door and said calmly, “Oh dear.”
His dad took the wolf cub from his mum’s arms. He unwrapped the cloak, scratched the cub’s furry chin and smiled. Then he ran his hand along the wolf’s tummy and pulled off the wolfskin belt.
And there in his arms was the little boy, all soft skin and fingers again. The little boy grinned and giggled. “That was fun, Daddy. Can I do it again?”
“No!” said his mum. “Never again!”
“Not
yet,” said his dad, “not yet.” Then he whispered in his son’s ear, “But you’ll make a fine wolf when you grow up...”
How To Track Down Shape-Shifters
Shape-shifting seems like a wonderful magical power. Have you ever imagined being a bird, or a wolf, or a dragon? Have you ever imagined flying or running on four legs? Shape-shifting does seem fantastic, if you can control it.
But if a change of shape is forced on you, if you’ve been cursed or enchanted to become a swan or a frog or a snake, it could be terrifying! (As well as very inconvenient.)
Shape-shifting was one of the first kinds of magic I heard about as a child, because there are lots of shape-shifters in Scottish legends and folktales. So I use images and magic from shape-shifting legends in my adventure novels. And I’m always on the lookout for shape-shifters I’ve never met before.
There are shape-shifting stories in almost every culture, and most shape-shifter stories are wonderful: vivid and exciting, with lots of sharp teeth and dark magic. So it’s been difficult choosing which stories to include in this book. I’ve tried to include lots of different kinds of animals, in stories from lots of different parts of the world.
In myth, legend and folklore, it’s not just the characters who change shape. The stories themselves can change shape too. I believe that all oral stories, stories told and heard and remembered and told again, change as they pass from teller to audience to teller.
I’ve altered all these stories as I tell them, to make them work for me and for the audience I’m telling to. And if you tell them, I hope you’ll change them a little bit too!
I’m very grateful to the storytellers, collectors and writers (many of whom are listed in the sources below) who inspired me and this collection. I hope you’re inspired to track down more shape-shifter stories, or even make up your own. What animal would you like to become, just for a little while?
The Snake Prince
Punjabi folktale
It’s quite common for people in folklore and fairy tales to marry snakes accidentally, and this is my favourite version of that widespread story, because I really like the snake becoming a necklace, then becoming a baby. This tale was told to a Major Campbell in the Punjab, then published in Andrew Lang’s The Olive Fairy Book (Longmans, Green and Co., 1907). The Princess in Lang’s version is a bit inclined to weeping and fainting, so she has more backbone in my retelling.
The First Werewolves
Greek myth
This is one of many stories from Greek mythology about shape-shifters. I first came across it in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics, 2004; originally published around 8AD), which is a great source for stories of unfortunate people turned into plants and animals when they fall foul of the gods. (Though Lycaon deserved it more than most!) Ovid tells the story about Jove, because it’s a Roman version of the older Greek myth. The nasty detail that Lycaon cooked his own son comes from Robert Graves’s Greek Myths (Penguin, 1955). In many versions, it’s this bowl of boy stew which leads to the gods’ anger and the great flood, but that’s a different story!
Catching Loki
Norse myth
I often tell the story of how Loki tricked Hodur, the god of winter, into killing his brother Baldur, the god of summer (you can find my retelling in Winter’s Tales, A&C Black, 2013). And sometimes, if the audience want to know what happened next, I tell the story of how Loki was caught by his own cleverness. I found Loki’s house with four doors in Teutonic Myth and Legend by Donald A Mackenzie (The Gresham Publishing Company, 1912).
The Ashkelon Witches
Jewish folktale
I loved this story the moment I found it in Howard Schwartz’s book Elijah’s Violin (Oxford University Press, 1983). I love the clever way the rabbi defeats the witches with the rain, and the way the witches are all transformed into something appropriate at the end. In this retelling, the idea of a baby being turned into a caterpillar rather than a butterfly isn’t mine – my younger daughter suggested it, when I was telling her the story on a bus.
Turnskin
Breton folktale
I first caught sight of this tale when I was researching a novel about werewolves, and finally tracked it down to The Lais of Marie de France (Penguin Classics, 1986). I’ve told this story many times, and like most of the stories I work with, it has changed as I tell it, often in response to queries and questions from the audience. The particular ending I’ve used in this collection is one suggested by P5 pupils at Trinity Primary School in Edinburgh. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
The Swallow’s Search
Egyptian myth
The story of Isis and her lost husband Osiris has been told in many ways for many thousands of years. I first read it in Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green (published by The Bodley Head, 1967) when I was a child (not quite thousands of years ago!) I’ve come across many versions since but images from the first one I read are still burning bright in my head.
The Frog, the Flies and the Frying Pan
Scottish folktale
I love having fun with this version of the Frog Prince, where the curse is lifted not by a kiss, but by a whack on the head! There are various versions of it, but I first found it in Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales (Penguin Popular Classics, 1992), retold by Elizabeth Grierson. I’ll admit that I’ve changed the end a little, because marrying a handsome prince isn’t everyone’s idea of a happy ending!
Fooled by Foxes
Japanese folktale
This story was inspired by a kitsune tale in Tales of Old Japan by Baron Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford (Macmillan, 1871). I realised when I reread the source (having told the story many times since I first read it) that I’ve retained the central idea of a young man claiming he won’t be fooled by foxes, but I’ve changed a few of the details, particularly how badly the first fox is injured.
Ceridwen’s Potion
Welsh legend
I love Ceridwen’s power but also her cruelty. The heroines in stories aren’t always nice people! My main source for this retelling is the wonderful Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines by Patricia Monaghan (Greenwood Press, 2010). The shape-shifting chase scene is very similar to a chase in one of my favourite Scottish stories (The King of the Black Art) but Gwion’s story ends very differently.
The Gold Sea
Canadian tribal tale
This is my retelling of a story from Legends of Vancouver by E. Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake (Quarry Press, 1991; originally published by Saturday Sunset Presses, 1911), which is one of my most treasured collections of ancient tales. I hope I’ve managed to stay true to the spirit and flavour of the tribal tale, but as I’ve told it, I’ve made a few changes to tell it in my voice. It’s definitely the most humane monster-killing story I’ve ever found.
The Swan Brothers
Norwegian folktale
The brothers turned into birds is a story that appears in lots of cultures, with lots of variations, many of which have inspired elements of this retelling. It’s hard to name a country and credit a source (there are similar Danish stories and German ones and Irish ones) but my retelling here is probably inspired most by the wild ducks story in Tales From the Norse by George Webbe Dasent (Blackie and Son, 1906).
The Wolf Arrow
Dutch folktale
I found this old tale in the amazing (though very dark and seriously weird) Book of Werewolves by the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (Dover Publications Inc., 2006; originally published by Smith, Elder & Co. in 1865). The story of a neighbour being identified as a werewolf because of a wound inflicted on a wolf is very common, but I chose to include this one because I liked the archer recognising his own arrow. As always I changed a few details as I told the story, and when I reread the source I was surprised to discover that he wasn’t a soldier in the original, because he is so clearly a soldier in my head!
Buzzard Boy
Mexican folktale
This is my retelling of a Tzotzil Mayan tale from Latin
American Folktales by John Bierhorst (Pantheon Books, 2002), and it may be the story that I’ve changed most as I’ve worked with it, mainly because I first told it to an audience of young children and it seemed natural to change the main character from a lazy man into a lazy boy. Now that the reckless boy who swaps places with the buzzard is a living character in my head, I can’t swap him back to an unknown workshy husband!
The Laidly Wyrm
Northumbrian legend
My granny was from Northumberland, and one of my favourite places in the north of England is the beach below Bamburgh Castle. So I love this story of magic and monsters, set in that beautiful and dramatic place. I first read about the Laidly Wyrm when I was very young, in Roger Lancelyn Green’s A Book Of Dragons, retold by Joseph Jacobs (Puffin Books, 1970.)
The Accidental Wolf Cub
German folktale
Another story inspired by the Book Of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gould. I read his very short version of this old tale, then started describing the story to my own children, and the characters just came to life as I talked about them. So this is my own imagining of what might happen if a little boy accidentally became a werewolf cub.
A stunning collection of folktales and legends from all over Europe. Magical to farcical, tender to terrifying, this selection of often unusual and little known stories from each state of the European Union is a joy to read.
Lari Don’s magical collection of folktales about winter from all around the world. Find out how spiders invented tinsel, what happened when the spring girl beat the hag of winter, why eagle feathers made snow, and how a hero with hairy trousers used ice to kill a dragon.