Midwinter Folk Tales

By Taffy Thomas

Traditional seasonal folk tales for the dark of winterIn this enchanting new book, one of England's most celebrated storytellers has gathered together traditional tales which have their roots in the deep cold and long, dark nights of midwinter. The collection includes tales acquired from more than 30 years studying and taking part in ancient seasonal customs, and discovering the folk tales intrinsically linked to those customs, such as the Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels (Devon), the Viking "Up Helly Aa" (Shetland), and the Haxey Hood Game (Lincolnshire). This is a book to curl up with in front of an open fire on long winter nights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Oct 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9780750957717

Taffy Thomas

TAFFY THOMAS is a professional storyteller who gives around 300 storytelling performances across the country each year. One of the UK’s most loved storytellers, he was made an MBE in the 2000 New Year’s Honours List for services to storytelling and charity. In 2000-2011 he became the first laureate for storytelling, a role created to promote the power of stories. Taffy is the artistic director of the Northern Centre for Storytelling in Grasmere and the author of three collections of folk tales for The History Press. He lives in Grasmere, Ambleside.

Book preview

publications.

PART 1

THE IRON WINTER

‘The North Wind Doth Blow…’

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the robin do then, poor thing?

He’ll sit in the barn to keep himself warm,

And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

Traditional

ST NICHOLAS

St Nicholas was a bishop of the early Church. There are many legends of this picturesque character with his long white beard and bright eyes. Several of these legends include the hanging up of stockings to be filled with presents. St Nicholas Day falls on 6 December, a day when many European children receive their gifts.

The story that follows, however, was gifted to me on a visit to my Shropshire storytelling friends. If it was a present to me, then it is a present from me. Please take this story as a gift and tell it.

Many years ago there was a hotel in Russia famous for its food and hospitality. The hotel owner was rich and popular.

It was the iron winter and the snow was so deep you could lean on it. Every room in the hotel was prepared for a guest and there was a big pot of soup bubbling on the hob, but no travellers could get there. The hotel owner was rattling around the big building alone. As the clock ticked towards midnight, there was a knocking on the heavy oak door. As the hotelier opened the door, he discovered a tramp – an old man with bright blue eyes, a long white beard and a ragged red coat. The tramp begged for a bite to eat and a bed for the night. The hotel owner told him he could ‘just about squeeze him in’, but it would cost him three roubles. The tramp turned out his pockets, finding them empty. He told the hotel owner he had no money but promised he would pay the debt as soon as he could. If he wasn’t helped, he would surely perish in the snow.

The hotel owner took pity on the tramp, leading him into the warm hotel and sitting him on a big wooden chair by the fire. He brought the hungry old man a big steaming bowl of borscht – beetroot soup with a twist of sour cream – and half a loaf of rye bread. The tramp devoured the soup greedily. It was the first food he’d had for more than a week. In fact, he ate it so voraciously that the beetroot left a red stain on his white moustache. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, thanking the hotelier for his kindness and again repeating his promise to pay him as soon as he could. He would be leaving with the first light of day.

After a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed, the tramp was up and away with the first light of day. Seeing the footprints in the snow disappearing up the road, the hotelier thought he would never see the three roubles he was owed.

Strangely, that very day the snow melted and folk could again travel to the hotel. Trade picked up and the hotel owner wanted to go to the cathedral to say a prayer of thanks for his new-found luck. He walked the twenty miles to Moscow City, to the great cathedral. As he walked through the gate in the city walls, the cathedral bells rang. Up the stone steps the hotelier went and opened the great wooden doors of the church. The walls of the cathedral were covered with icons, beautiful paintings of the saints, decorated with real gold leaf. One picture diagonally across the nave drew the hotelier towards it. It was a picture of an old man with a long white beard, bright blue eyes and a ragged red coat, a man strangely familiar to him. It was indeed the image of the old tramp the hotelier had helped the previous night. The hotel owner decided to say his prayer of thanks in front of that picture. He bought a candle and stooped to press the candle in the shallow sand tray in front of the picture. The candle bumped against something. Flicking the sand away with his fingers, he discovered three rouble coins. The old tramp had kept his promise. Pocketing the coins, the hotelier completed his prayer and looked at the painting for one last time. At the base of the picture there were two words written, the name of the old man. Those two words read ‘St Nicholas’.

In Russia he is called St Nicholas, in France he is called Papa Noel, in Germany he is called Sinter Claus, in America that becomes Santa Claus but we just call him Father Christmas.

JACK TURNIP

The following story concerns Jack Turnip, an anti-hero whose vain pride leads to a ‘fall’ on the ice. I first heard it from one of the Company of Storytellers, a trio of ‘Performance Storytellers’ who have specialised in taking oral storytelling to a primarily adult audience. That said, I have discovered that children love this tale. Why wouldn’t they when the protagonist falls on his