The Blue Belt Part I

 I’ve been meaning to talk about The Blue Belt since July of 2012, when I mentioned it briefly in a post about White Bear stories. (East of the Sun and West of the Moon, White Bear King Valemon, and, sort of, this one).

The Blue Belt is Norwegian, from Asbjørnsen and Moe. It’s basically 24 pages of absolute chaos, and I love every second of it.

We open with an old beggar woman and her son. They’re out begging, and the son spots a cool blue belt lying on the ground. He wants to pick it up, but the mother warns him not to, because there might be witchcraft in it.

A little later, when the woman is stopping to rest, the boy runs back and gets the belt. As soon as he puts it on, he feels strong enough to lift a mountain. He runs back to his mom, who’s mad at him for wandering off, but doesn’t seem to notice the belt. He must have put it under his shirt.

They keep walking, until it’s dark out, and the boy spots a house in the distance, where he says maybe they can stay tonight.

The mom explains that this must be a troll house, because no Christians live in this area. The boy is not bothered by this. He lets himself in the front door, where they immediately encounter a troll at least 20 feet tall, and the mom faints.

Boy and troll make friends. It comes up in conversation that the troll is over 300 years old, which isn't super relevant, but I think it’s interesting, especially considering how things are about to go down re: relationship developments.

Mom wakes up. Mom is desperately frightened. She kicks and scratches and flings herself about, trying to get away. The boy asks for supper. The troll says sure. The mom becomes convinced that the troll is going to eat them.

Troll serves a meal consisting of a whole ox and a cask of wine taller than them, with two six-foot knives as their only utensils. Mom is terrified of the knives. Mom is terrified of everything. I cannot, at this time, overstate just how terrified mom is.

They go to bed. The boy lays awake eavesdropping. The troll suggests that he and the mom get rid of the kid, and then the two of them can hook up and everything will be cool.

THE MOM AGREES WITH THIS PLAN. THE MOM, WHO NOT HALF AN HOUR AGO WAS DESPERATELY AFRAID OF THE TROLL, NOW WANTS TO STAY WITH HIM AND MURDER HER OWN SON.

You may be thinking, “She’s just too scared to argue with him. She doesn’t actually want to hook up with a terrifying troll. She doesn’t actually want her son dead.”

If so, you are wrong.

Because if she was just agreeing because she was scared, she would be trying to hurry her son out of there in the morning, before any murdering could occur.

Instead, she just hangs out in the troll house, while the troll invites the boy to work in the quarry with him.

The troll tries to crush the boy with a massive rock, which doesn’t work, because the blue belt gave him super strength. The troll ends up getting injured himself. And instead of fleeing the scene like a sensible person, the boy carries the troll home and puts him to bed to recover, then just stays there in the house with two people he knows want to murder him.

Mom and troll discuss options for a second murder attempt. There is no longer any room for doubt about mom’s true intentions, because she helps the troll come up with plans.

Mom pretends to be sick, and says nothing but lion’s milk will heal her. Troll tells boy his brother has a garden with twelve lions in it. Boy goes to milk some lions.

Of course, the lions do not want to be milked. Boy fights the biggest lion, until there’s nothing left of him but two paws. The remaining eleven lions are then feeling very cooperative. (The lion gender breakdown is not clear here. We have at least one boy lion, or did before the boy killed him, and at least one girl lion, for milk acquisition. The other ten are mysteries.)

Boy returns home with eleven lions and one drop of lion milk.

Troll refuses to believe boy did the milking. Boy sets lions on troll, but calls them off before he gets hurt too bad.

Time for murder plot number 3!

We send the boy to the castle where two more of the troll’s brothers live. The castle is surrounded by apple trees, and anyone who eats one of the apples will sleep for three days and three nights. Which will give the brothers time to tear him apart without worrying about his super strength. We’re gonna get him there by, again, having mom fake sick, with apples as the only cure this time.

And just, like. Sweetheart. You know they want you dead. You literally just eavesdropped on their conversation about it. Why do you keep going where they send you?

He goes to the orchard. He takes his eleven lions. He climbs a tree and eats as many apples as he can, because our dude has no chill and no fear.

He falls asleep. The lions guard him. The trolls come.

These are shapeshifting trolls, and they come in the shape of “man eating steeds.” But they don’t get to eat any men today, because the lions eat them first.

Our guy wakes up and goes to the castle, where he finds the princess of Arabia, who the trolls kidnapped. They decide to get married. He also claims the trolls’ really cool, massive sword. The two of them live together in the castle for a while. It’s unclear whether anyone else is there. Did a priest perform the wedding? Do they have a cook, or are they living on apples? (That sounds wildly impractical, considering the nap factor.)

Eventually, the princess decides she better go home and visit her parents.

In her absence, our guy remembers that he was supposed to bring apples home for his mom. A lot of time has passed, and he’s over the murder. (Not that he seemed particularly bothered in the first place.) So he invites his mom and the troll to come live in the castle with him.

Mom asks him about his super strength, and he shows her the belt. Which she then rips off of his waist.

She wants to dash his brains out, now that his strength is gone, but the troll thinks that’s too good a death for him. So instead, they burn his eyes out and put him out to sea in a little boat. The lions swim after him, pull him to shore, and take care of him, because they are good lions, and I love them.

One of the lions watches a blind rabbit fall into a spring, then come out able to see. Smart lion drags the boy to the spring and dunks him, and his sight is restored.

And then comes my favorite part, a beautiful moment for which, alas, I have never seen an illustration.

The little boat the troll sent our guy out on wasn’t seaworthy, apparently. Because the way we get home is that the lions all line up together to make a raft, and he sails home on a raft made of lions.

Back home, he steals back his belt. The mom tries to convince him to give it back to her, because apparently she thinks he’s an idiot, which I guess is fair, because he did keep letting her try to kill him, and showed her the belt when he knew she was trying to kill him.

He dashes her brains out, which I guess is also fair because that’s what she wanted to do with him, but it still feels intense.

He blinds the troll and puts him out to sea, which I am a lot more on board with.

And this story still has eight pages left!

Which we’re going to pick up next week, because this post is already three pages long. Stay tuned for the reunion between our protagonist and his wife, as well as giant chickens, improbably convincing bear suits, brutal murder, etc!

Th Turnip Princess

 So this story is from Schonwerth—it’s actually the title story for the first-ever Schonwerth collection published in English—and like most of Schonwerth, it’s wild.

(BTW, this story was published in the Guardian when the book was announced, so it’s online for free, but, like, don’t bother reading it. It’s not the same translation, and it’s basically nonsensical. I thought I could use that version for reference, to work on this post when I didn’t have my physical book on hand, but that didn’t work.)

We start with a prince. He’s wandering around in the woods, as princes tend to do. (Seriously, don’t they have any sort of royal responsibilities? Why are they always in the woods?) He sleeps in a cave, and when he wakes up he meets an old lady and her pet bear.

The old lady likes him. Wants to marry him. He’s not interested, which is fair. You meet a lot of old women, wandering in the woods, and asking for some food, or help carrying something, is reasonable. You say no, you get cursed for being rude. But asking for a wedding is a little much, and I support the prince’s right to refuse.

However.

He just, like, stays? He continues hanging out in this woman’s cave, with her pet bear, taking advantage of her hospitality. It says he’s unable to leave. There is no indication as to why. In fact, one paragraph later, he will leave, with no difficulty. So I kinda think he’s just sick of the princely wood-wandering, and taking advantage of this poor old lady.

One day the prince and the bear are chilling out in the cave without the old lady, and the bear just…starts talking? Did the prince know already that the bear could talk? I sure didn’t, but he seems to be taking it in stride.

The bear tells him that if he pulls a nail out of the wall, and then sets it under a turnip, the bear will be set free and the prince will get a beautiful wife.

He doesn’t even think about. Just immediately yanks out the nail and runs for the nearest turnip field. The bear turns into a man with a crown as soon as the nail is out, and the prince doesn’t even talk to him, doesn’t ask any follow-up questions or anything. Straight for the turnip field.

Where, out of nowhere, a monster appears!

No further details are provided. The monster has no relevance to the larger story. He runs into the prince, the prince drops the nail, he grabs the nearest object to steady himself, and that object happens to be a thorny bush.

He pricks himself on the thorns, and bleeds so much he passes out.

No wonder he was hiding out in the cave. This dude can’t handle a bush. What would have happened if he’d run into a bear that wasn’t domesticated? What would have happened if he’d run into a squirrel in a bad mood? Why did the king let him go out into the woods alone?

Anyway. He passes out. When he wakes up again, he’s not in the turnip field, and also he’s grown a beard. So, a reasonably long nap. (The next story in this Schonwerth collection also features a man who wakes up to find he's been out long enough to grow a beard. We might talk about that one later.)

This dude is not concerned that an extended period of time has passed and he's somehow been moved while unconscious. He doesn’t spend any time trying to figure out where he is or what’s happened. He just immediately starts searching for a turnip field.

Apparently, he really wants a beautiful wife.

Doesn’t have the nail anymore, though.

Eventually, he finds a single turnip. Since he doesn’t have the nail, he puts a branch under it instead. Which, somehow, sort of works. He goes to sleep on the ground next to the turnip, and when he wakes up it’s turned into a bowl/large nutshell, with a nail sitting inside of it. Further examination of the inside of the bowl/shell reveals the imprint of “the entire body of a wondrously beautiful maiden.”

How can he tell how beautiful she is from a dent she left in a nutshell? How large is this nutshell? Is it still roughly the size of a turnip? Is he not concerned about accidently stepping on and murdering his Thumbelina-esque future wife?

None of these questions will be answered.

The prince returns to the cave, and I would love to know when and how he figured out where he was and how to get back.

The cave is abandoned, and the nail is sitting on the ground.

Which makes no sense, because didn’t he already find the nail in the turnip bowl?

Anyway. He picks up the nail and puts it back in the wall. The old woman and the bear materialize out of thin air, and the prince starts yelling at the old lady, demanding to know what she did with the alleged beautiful maiden.

Dude. You have no reason to believe this lady has anything to do with any of this. You got the tip from a talking bear when she wasn’t even there. You didn’t follow the instructions, you lost the nail, and the only evidence you have that this beautiful maiden even exists is a weird indent in a turnip. You need to chill.

The woman says, “I’m right here. Why do you keep rejecting me?”

The prince ignores this. The bear tells him to pull the nail out of the wall. He pulls it out halfway.

The bear turns halfway into a man. The old lady turns halfway into a beautiful maiden.

He pulls it out the rest of the way. They transform the rest of the way. Apparently, the turnip step is no longer needed. They destroy the nail, the prince marries the girl, and they go back to his kingdom, where they live happily ever after.

I have. So many questions.

What is the connection between the bear and the woman? What happens to the former bear when the other two go home and get married? Why were they cursed in the first place? Who cursed them? Was the monster in the turnip field in any way connected to the others? Did whoever set the curse send the monster to prevent it breaking? Was the monster the one who set the curse? Why does this girl even want to marry the prince? He wasn’t very nice to her when she was cursed. Why are there two nails? Why is the turnip not involved in the spell breaking for round two? Why did the bear turn back into a bear, when he was human last time we saw him? If all it took to break the spell was taking a nail out of the wall, why didn’t the girl or the bear just do it themselves? How did the girl go from being an old lady, to being Thumbelina in the turnip, back to being an old lady?

None of these questions will ever be answered. But speculating is fun.

Patreon

 I do not have the time or energy to be posting things to multiple platforms every week. So, like, when I get a chance I'll copy things back over to here, but you can get my posts consistently and on time over on Patreon - I'm trying to get back into the habit of weekly fairy tale blogs, and the next couple we'll be discussing are The Turnip Princess and The Blue Belt. Hope to see you there!