FRAU PERCHTA, THE ALPINE BELLY-SLITTER

Previously we mentioned the Snow Queen, Scrooge's ghosts, the Yule Lads... this December there will be a small saga about the forgotten horrors of Christmas. 

Here is Frau Perchta the Belly-Slitter, the Baba-Yaga-like goddess of the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, who rewards the busy and punishes the lazy (though she also punishes other transgressions).

The 5th of January required a pescatarian fast. If she found meat or sweets or fatty foods in your insides, she would eviscerate you.

If you forgot to keep your home clean (a clean home is a clean conscience and a pure heart), she would eviscerate you.

If you hadn't done your winter chores (spinning, knitting, your school homework), she would eviscerate you.

And always when she eviscerated a person, she tied their intestines into knots and filled the victim's empty belly cavity with straw or rubbish, then stitched them back up: the victim becomes a scarecrow or a ragdoll, but of flesh and blood. You are what you eat, and if you had eaten junk food, well, you become junk.

On the other hand, if you respect Frau Perchta (your Twelfth Night meal is pescatarian, you have done all your chores, all your home is squeaky clean, etc.) you may find gifts under the Christmas tree, and money in your shoes.

You just have to earn these rewards.

To those who obey her, Frau Perchta appears as a beautiful silver-haired young lady in white. To those who wrong her, she is a hideous old crone with messy gray hair and a sharp iron nose and iron teeth. Like the Baba Yaga, she can be a donor or a punisher depending on how you treat her.

Her entourage consists of the Masked Ones, both handsome gods and hideous devils, the former or the latter depending on whether you wronged her. And also of the chorus of wailing Heimchen (literally, crickets), the ghosts of the babies who have died unbaptized (like the mylingar in Scandinavian folklore).

Long story short, Frau Perchta personifies your karma.

ONCE UPON 24 TIMES: STORY XVIII

Story the Eighteenth:
IX - The Hermit
Frau Holle (Dyed Moroz)
(Éponine and Cosette as the sisters, Valjean as Dyed Moroz/Grandfather Winter -maybe some other characters as seasonal personifications? Maybe some Friends?- DONE: Prouvaire, Enj, and R respectively!)

Ever since that fated blizzard, no one in the northern French village of Montfermeil has wanted to take over, or tear down, the Sergeant's inn. The landlord and the landlady died in prison, in the bleak midwinter, already weakened by the cold when the National Guard came over to seize them. And the people of the village hold the site to be cursed, no matter how generous the offers made by strangers to replace the tavern with anything else of convenience that may better their lives. Just for the same reasons that the locals curse, as passionately as they once had praised, the surname Thénardier.
No one should say that a non-commissioned officer and a camp follower cannot get quite far in this world, especially during peacetime; for 'tis unnecessary as long as they follow the right wake and, what is the most relevant, find a lucky strike. To cut a long story short, that was the case of Sergeant and Madame Thénardier in 1818.

(violets - berries - mushrooms)
...
(it was the winter solstice - Cosette out on the streets - little matchgirl reference)

Not knowing whether to turn left or right,
She wandered over marsh and field,
Into the forest and the night,
Where she found soft snow to lay her head,
yet knew she'd die if she lay and went to bed.

...

fire glowing near, in the circle of stones (warmth of firelight - little matchgirl reference)

Around the fire there was the circle of twelve stones; and, leaning against each of four stones that were equidistant, forming a cross, there was a person standing still, wrapped in a long cloak that formed a riding-hood over their eyes. One of them, the most slender, wore a cape green as a meadow, and dotted with wildflowers that seemed to be alive, just like the wreath that graced his reddish-golden ringlets; the second's was a scarlet hussar's pelisse soutached with braids of gold as bright as the sun; the third, crowned with ivy, wore mostly tabby catskins patchworked with coarse cloth as purple as ripe Merlot grapes. And the fourth, the one who appeared to be the broadest of chest and strongest of limbs, who towered above the others even as he took his place and sat down on the stone throne (for one of those four stones was like a chair sculpted by the winds and winters), was a polar bear of a man dressed in a thick snow-white shapka and a matching coat, so thick that Cosette doubted whether it was snow, bearskin, or his own body hair.
Upon coming closer, the waif recognised Grandfather Winter in the gentleman with the long, bristly white walrus moustache, whiskers, and eyebrows who sat on the snowy stone throne; he was the only one who wore a bâton in hand, in the shape of an icicle crowned with a six-pointed ice star. Poor Cosette approached the fireside, rather frightened, as she shyly muttered:
"Good messieurs, please let me warm myself by your fireside... the cold is freezing me to death..."
Old Man Winter studied her from crown to toe, bony and mottled with frostbite as she was; then he courteously nodded:
"Why are you here, my little girl? What do you seek?" Surprisingly, his eyes were bright, his voice warm and velvety. His whole self was soothing to Cosette.
"I'm... looking for... violets..." She looked up and met his reassuring gaze. His upright bearing and physical strength were surprisingly those of a young man, decades younger.
"They are out of season," quoth Grandfather Winter in his warm, deep voice. "There are no flowers during my reign."
"I know..." the waif shyly sighed. "But Aunt Thénardier will beat me black and blue if I do not bring any home... Good messieurs, please tell me where I can find any!"
A closer look from those icy blue eyes at Cosette's face and limbs told something that was indistinguishable to the common person; that not only Nature had been a cruel stepmother to the little one. Something stirred within that heart of ice and frosted granite.
Old Man Winter stood up, and, addressing the young person in green, whose cloak and the doublet he wore underneath were dotted with all kinds of wildflowers to match the surprisingly living wreath on his curls, he gave the younger person the bâton in hand and showed them to the throne:
"Brother Springtime, this is your affair."
Clasped in that hand as soft and white and delicate as a lily, the sceptre gradually changed from an icicle, bursting forth from ice into greenery, until it became a bouquet of bluebells and buttercups and daisies and cornflowers... Voilà that the flame lifted up to the skies, and the flowered cloak fell from over Springtime's head, revealing a cascade of long ringlets the colour of rosemary honey, crowned with a loosely-fitting wreath of the self-same springtime flowers.

(after violets - berries - mushrooms)



COMMENTARIES:
The original draft with Sansa and Arya became an Éponine / Cosette story... also, excuse me for killing off 'Ponine and breaking the Thénardiers like that, but the story I took for a model, the Dyed Moroz tale, has the wicked stepsister dying of hypothermia and the stepmother mourning her...
A white-haired, bearded (well, walrus-moustached in JVJ's case), gnarled yet youthfully strong old polar bear of a gentleman like Valjean just sounded too similar to the concept of Grandfather Winter that I had to put this element in this retelling... There are also elements of the Little Match Girl (by Andersen), whom Cosette has always reminded me of, and Vasilisa the Loveliest (a Baba Yaga tale with a Cinderella setup and the wicked witch as the most unlikely of fairy godmothers).
The Dyed Moroz version I mainly borrowed from is the most well-known one, from Bohemia (the present-day Czech Republic), as told by Bozena Nemcova and Édouard de Laboulaye (his version is  "Les douze mois" from Contes bleus), as well as The Four Seasons here.
It took me a while to find who would be the other three seasons - it was then that Prouvaire, Enj, and R stepped in to take their place. And along with them came the idea of the sceptre changing shape, being a bouquet, a flag, a thyrsus, and an icicle respectively.
The beginning, with the haunting of the inn being the first thing told, is inspired by the opening lines of the Magyar Bluebeard in Women who Run with the Wolves (which begins with the titular villain's unusually coloured facial hair being on display as a relic in a convent, and his tale told by a nun to visiting strangers).

When a star falls, 
a soul rises up to take its place.
The falling star-soul reincarnates once more.

AFTER HAPPY EVER AFTER

You’d think the younger daughter was lucky--

speaking in diamonds, jewels, and gold when she talked--

but she had to be watched by the royal guard

everywhere she sat or walked

because thieves wanted the treasures

that fell from her mouth when she conversed

so tried to kidnap her, and hold her hostage

for ransom or worse.

Her husband, the prince, worried constantly about her

and developed heart palpitations and an anxiety disorder.

Meanwhile, the older daughter

(driven into the forest alone, because she talked so ugly)

met a nice herpetologist who found

the many species slithering from her mouth fascinating to study.

He also appreciated her honesty

and how her speech was never glitzy.

So, unlike her little sister, the older daughter never had to worry

about someone not liking her for herself

and led a simpler, safer life

free from overscrutiny.

MUKASHIBANASHI 1: BENIZARA AND KAKEZARA

Mukashibanashi are traditional Japanese fairytales. The name comes from "mukashi mukashi," "once upon a time," and "hanashi," "tale/relation."

Here I will offer a few mukashibanashi about ogres, tengu, raccoons, stepparents, envious villagers, dragon merfolk... the whole megillah of yokai lore (corresponding to our Western fairy lore):

Benizara and Kakezara
Kaguyahime (Princess Kaguya)
Taro Urashima
Momotaro (Peach Taro)
Grampies with Wens (Kobutori Jiisan)
Grampy Blossom (Hanasaka Jiisan)
The Hatted Jizos (Kasa Jizo)
The Tengu's Cloak
Mount Crackle (Kachikachiyama)
The Macaque Vs. the Crab (Sarukani Gassen)


MUKASHIBANASHI 1: BENIZARA AND KAKEZARA

The is a version of Diamonds and Toads with an onibaba, or ogre granny (oni: ogre, baba: granny, like in Russian) and her two oni grandsons, as well as some poetry, thrown into the mix.

Mukashi mukashi, once upon a time, two stepsisters went out chestnutting in the woods outside their village. The orphan stepchild, who was the scapegoat of the household, was called Benizara (Scarlet Dish), while the stepmother's spoiled daughter was called Kakezara (Shattered Dish).
The one who came home with her bag full of chestnuts would have supper, while the one who came home empty-handed would have to go to bed on an empty belly. Needless to say the stepmother had rigged the bags for her own daughter to succeed and Benizara to be the punished one. Before dusk, Kakezara had her bag full, while Benizara, due to the chestnut-sized hole in her own bag, was left alone and not daring to return home to get punished by her stepmother. So she wandered deeper into the woods.
At nightfall, she realised it was the hour of the beasts of prey and she was even in worse danger than at home, shuddering when she heard a rustle, gasa-gasa, like a pack of wolves in the underbrush. But still she kept on walking forwards, mustering all of her courage, until she followed a light into a little cottage, and in there was an old lady spinning thread. The old lady took the maiden in, but explained that she could not stay. "You see, I'm an onibaba, and both my grandsons are oni, and I'm afraid they shall eat you alive. She gave Benizara directions back home, a casket, and a bowl of rice, aside from stitching her bag and filling it with chestnuts. "Take the nuts to your stepmother. The box is a magic box... make a wish out loud, tap the casket lid thrice, and then open it, and you will find what you have wished for. And the rice is in case you meet my grandsons on the way home: should they approach, chew some rice but don't swallow it; keep some inside your mouth and spread the rest around your lips, then play dead. My stupid boys will take the rice for maggots and leave you be."
So on the way home, Benizara heard loud footsteps and the sound of a flute, and, knowing the ogres were coming, she chewed some of the rice and spread it around her lips. Then she flung herself on the ground across the path, shutting her eyes, holding her breath, and not even stirring.
Soon, the ogres came along indeed: Akaoni, the red ogre, and Ao-oni, the blue ogre. One of them sniffed the air left and right and told his brother: "I smell human around here..." Still, Benizara kept on playing dead, even though her lungs were about to burst. "Ewww..." said the other ogre, wincing. "She's decaying already; her mouth is full of maggots!" And on they went down the pathway, playing their flutes.
When she could no longer hear the ogres' strides, Benizara continued down the path and after some time, the sky began to lighten. Just as the sun was sending its first glorious rays across the sky, Benizara reached home.  Her stepmother greeted the dawn with the hope that perhaps her hated stepchild had been eaten by wolves overnight, explaining why she had not returned home. Just then, Benizara came in and bowed before her. The girl had a sack filled to the brim with chestnuts! There was nothing the stepmother could do but take the nuts.  
It happened one day that the local summer festival or matsuri was announced, at which there was to be a play. Kakezara and her mother put on their finest kimonos, and went into town. But before they left, Benizara was given a very long list of chores. If they were not done by the time the stepmother returned, the girl would get sent to bed without her supper.  Benizara sighed, and began to clean the house.  Just then, she heard a gaggle of voices and laughing at the door. It was her friends, who had come to see if she could go along to the festival. "Friends, I cannot go." said Benizara sadly. "I have to change the bedding, and weed the garden, and sift the rice, and fill the water jars, and empty the ashes from the stove.  If I do not do all of these things before my stepmother comes back, she will be furious." But Benizara's friends were kindly and good-natured: those girls all pitched in to to the work. Many hands made it light, and before Benizara knew it, all was done. 
How pretty her friends looked in their colorful silk kimonos! Benizara had nothing but rags to wear. She wondered what she should do; then she thought about the little box she had recieved from the onibaba. So she went to her room and drew it from under her bed.  She closed her eyes and said aloud, "I would like to have a kimono." And before she had finished speaking, she was wearing one.  
It was of lavender silk, with flowers worked in embroidery all over it.  How beautiful she felt with it on! She put her hand in the pocket and found that it was full of konpeito, or hard sugar comfits. Though she and her friends ate the sweets all the way to town, her pocket was still full when the girls arrived at the festival. The play was about to begin. 
A girl in the audience was calling to her mother for sweets, and the woman tried to hush her with a slap. Benizara saw that the girl was Kakezara! She threw her stepsister a handful of konpeito.
A daimyo or nobleman in the audience observed the beautiful girl, sharing comfits with all of the maidens around her. And the next day, the gentleman sought her out.  His procession wound through the streets until the lord's palanquin stopped in front of Benizara's house. Kakezara's mother was overjoyed, believing that the nobleman must be interested in her own child. But the gentleman frowned when the girl was brought out and said, "There should be two girls here, bring out the other one too."  Now Benizara's stepmother had pushed the girl into the washtub to hide her, but now she did not dare to disobey the lord.  The shabby girl was brought out and pushed before the nobleman. Confronted with one lovely girl in rags, and a well dressed one with a scowling face, the lord decided he must test the girls to see who was the generous one he desired.  "Which one of these two came to see my performance yesterday?" he demanded.  And the mother pointed to the scowling girl in silks. 
The lord knew that she was lying so he said that they would have a contest. So he took a plate and put it on a tray; then he piled some salt in the plate and stuck a pine needle in it. He commanded that they each compose a poem, using that as a subject. In a loud voice, Kakezara sang: 

Put a plate on a tray.

Put some salt on the plate! 

Stick a pine needle in the salt; 
it'll soon fall over!' 

Then she hit the lord on the head and ran off. 

Benizara now took a deep breath, and spoke her composition: 

"A tray and a plate, oh! 

A mountain rises from the plate,

on it, snow has fallen.

Rooted deep into the snow,

a lovely pine tree grows."

And so the nobleman knew which girl had a heart full of poetry, and which a head full of nothing. So he called for preparations to be made, and Benizara was richly dressed.  The lord took her home to his palace to celebrate their marriage. Kakezara's mother watched in silence; then she put Kakezara in a huge, empty basket, saying,' Now, Kakezara, you too may go to the lord's palace.' She dragged her along, but she did it so violently that Kakezara tumbled over the edge of a deep ditch and fell to her death. And she was very sorry for having lost her precious daughter, for it was her fault at the end of the day.

REMARKS ON THIS TALE
This tale is type 480 (kind and unkind stepsisters); ie the Slavic Dyed Moroz (Grandfather Frost), the Germanic Frau Holle, and the Mediterranean Diamonds and Toads; but in a constellation followed by Cinderella motifs: with a lordling, or daimyo, in the role of the prince as it's typical for Japanese lore. The helper is here an onibaba or ogre grandmother, who recalls the fountain fairy and Frau Holle as crones in the Western European versions of the tale. However, in the Russian and other Slavic versions, it's Dyed Moroz and not Baba Yaga who comes to punish the wicked and reward the good maiden. Baba Yaga, however, plays the part of fairy godmother in Vasilisa the Loveliest (Vasilisa Prekrasnaya), the Russian Cinderella... which may suggest contaminatio of both tales due to contact of Japanese culture with Russians.
The name of the heroine recalls both Benio "Benibara" Amakusa in Ouran Host Club and Benio Hanamura in Haikara-san ga tooru, both of which are resourceful, dynamic, self-reliant shero characters. Englished, this name would literally be Scarlet(t), recalling the associations between a maiden in bright red and her coming of age, as seen across cultures in several fairytales (Red Riding Hood, The Snow Queen, The Red Shoes...).

MY OWN FAIRYTALE ILLUSTRATIONS

I made these myself with Paint:

"Mrs Holle", the Grimm version of "Diamonds and Toads". The heroine, Gold-Marie, looks intendedly like Alice Liddell. She lost her spindle in the well and leaps in to retrieve it, descending to the underworld and meeting the kindly Mrs. Holle, who rewards her for her sense of duty and punishes her lazy, envious stepsister Pech-Marie (Misfortune-Marie).

"Hansel and Gretel". Love how this one turned out, with innocent children, a candy-themed wicked witch, and beautiful birch woods.

"Red Riding Hood", with the transgender wolf in bed and a round yellow sun. Want to know a secret? The heroine is carrying a loaded gun in that basket...

"Snow White". I gave the dwarves different hats, including a Che Guevara one and a Santa one, just for fun.

Rapunzel, with Flynn Rider climbing up her long tress. It clearly gives the appearance of a stone tower where the heroine is imprisoned.

Three little courtiers dancing the minuet, supporting characters from an Oscar Wilde tale. They are so cute that I can't resist drawing them!

A Pietà based upon a Swedish folktale about an undine and a military officer. The two young people fall in love, but they are separated by the call of duty. He is, quite obviously, killed in battle...