Apples are not that weird, right? Okay, let's kick off this challenge with a list of the different types of apples you can find in Hungarian folktales.
In a tale titled Szelemen in the apple orchard, a young man is captured in war, and taken to Turkey as a slave to a rich man. He has to take care of a vast apple orchard, and can't eat a single apple. When he does (in secret), the apple tastes like raw flesh - and turns out to be an enchanted girl. Oops.
Another story from the same collection, Jancsi goes to the Glass Mountain, also features an enchanted orchard. The traveling hero is hired by a witch to care for it, but every time he tries to pick an apple, he hears a terrible scream, or the apple slaps him away. At night, Jancsi can hear the apple trees scratching at the door, begging the witch to be set free. Very Dante.
Yet another tale from the same storyteller's repertoire features a supernatural courtroom drama. Humans break into the Garden of Eden, beat up the guardian angel, and steal the golden apples. Both sides - angels and humans - then hire lawyers and line up witnesses to win a case of Who owns the golden apples? In the end, conflict turns the apples tiny and sour, and the Devil gets away with the whole lot.
The three tales mentioned above are all featured - in English - in my brand new folktale collection! You can read more about the contents of the book here.
Smiling Apples
Part of a three-fruit set - talking grapes, smiling apples, ringing peaches. The tale itself is a variant of Beauty and the Beast, in which a princess wishes for the above mentioned fruits, and while searching for them, her father accidentally promises her to a pig. Luckily, pig turns out to be an enchanted prince, with a knack for magical gardening.
In several tales of the ATU 301 type - Three Kidnapped Princesses - the girls, when being rescued from the Underworld, turn their (copper, silver, gold, diamond) castles into apples, so that they can be transported easier. When they need a new dress, they turn the apple into a castle, bring out the dress, and shrink the castle again. How is that for a Bag of Holding?
Matrimonial Apples
In the tale type of the Golden-haired Gardener, princesses choose their husbands by throwing a golden apple (sometimes a bouquet or a ball) down from the balcony at the man of their choice. The youngest princess launches hers with such passion that she almost clocks the hero on the forehead with it. That's true love, people.
Land Apples
In the tale of the Blind King, the helpful fox gives three apples to the traveling Prince, to help him cross the Red Sea. Throwing an apple into water turns it into a patch of land where the swimming prince can rest. The fox returns with batches of these apples twice in the story, helping the Prince make the trip there and back.
Is anyone hungry for apples yet? Wait until you see the theme for tomorrow!
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