The bride price is a traditional practice in many African cultures where the groom’s family pays their future in-laws at the start of their marriage. It can be made up of money, presents, or a mixture of both. In Nigeria, there is an official maximum rate for a bride price of 50,000 CFA francs ($83, £54) but many pay much more than this.
Bride price is equivalent to dowry paid to the groom in some cultures, or used by the bride to help establish the new household and dower, which is property. In most African cultures, the standard price for a bride is two healthy, well-fed cows, as not many men could afford two cows at a time. When a man sees a maiden he intends to marry, he makes his intentions known to her family.
Traditionally, it was the woman’s family paying for the wedding. However, traditionally fathers would basically sell their daughters for some of the bride’s wealth. On average, eight to nine head of cattle are demanded as bride wealth. The expenditures of the actual wedding are paid by the groom’s family.
The bride price can vary from 15 to over a hundred heads of cattle per girl. One head of cattle can cost up to $250 US dollars. In many African cultures, the bride price is an important cultural practice that honors the bride’s family and serves as a source of respect and appreciation.
📹 Miscellaneous Myths: Animal Brides
Yes, it really is as weird as it sounds. Sorry! This video (specifically the Inuit myth) was requested by patron Richard Frederick …
What does a maid of honor pay for?
The maid of honor often helps pay for the bridal shower and the bachelorette party. She also pays for her own travel to and from the wedding. A wedding gift, hair and makeup (if not required by the bride), attire and accessories for the wedding and celebrations, and sometimes food and drink on the wedding morning.
What does the bride’s family traditionally pay for?
One of the biggest questions about planning a wedding is how to balance tradition and budget. Money is a sensitive topic, and no one wants to offend. In the past, the groom’s family paid for the wedding and reception. The groom’s family paid for the rehearsal dinner, the officiant, the marriage license, and the groom paid for the bride’s engagement and wedding rings and honeymoon. The bride just showed up. Below is a list of traditional expenses and responsibilities for the brides, grooms, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and wedding guests. These days, all of the following guidelines for family expenses are variable. The couple and their families often share expenses, so assign responsibilities based on your circumstances.
Traditional Expenses of the Bride & Her Family. Services of a wedding consultant; Invitations, enclosures, and announcements; The bride’s wedding gown and accessories; Floral decorations for the ceremony and reception; The bride’s bouquet; Tent, awning, aisle runner; Music for church and reception; Transportation of bridal party to ceremony and to reception; All reception expenses. If necessary, hire a traffic officer or security. Have a photographer, videographer, and DVD made. Pay for the officiant’s transportation and lodging if they come from another town and are invited by the bride’s family. Pay for the bridesmaids’ luncheon. Give gifts to the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Give the groom a wedding ring.
What is the bride supposed to pay for?
The bride. If you follow tradition, the bride pays for the groom’s wedding band and wedding gifts for her bridesmaids. However, many wedding costs are shared between the bride and her family. In today’s world, who pays for what at a wedding is unclear. There is no official rule about how the wedding budget is split, but this wasn’t always the case. In the past, the bride’s family paid most of the costs, but this is no longer common. Couples are getting married later in life, so they often have established careers and can pay for some—if not all—of the celebration. Also, the traditional division doesn’t represent all couples today and doesn’t include LGBTQIA couples. The most common scenario is one of three: Couples can ask their families to split the bill, contribute money to the event, or pay for it themselves. When you’re ready to plan, first decide how much your wedding will cost and how much your family will contribute. Building a wedding budget is hard, but it’s also important. Alicia Fritz, the owner of A Day in May Events, says that taking the time to do it early on can help. Budget talks should start at the same time as guest lists and venue talks. Set a budget, she advises. Don’t try to save money on things you know you’ll spend more on later. Alicia Fritz is the owner of A Day in May Events, a wedding and event planning firm based in Traverse City, Michigan.
What items were typically given as dowry?
3. 8 Examples of Dowry for Brides Gold. Gold is the first example of a wedding dowry. … 3.2. Money. Next is money. … 3.3 Silver. 3.4 Worship equipment. … 3.5. Hobby Supplies. … 3.6 Land certificate. … 3.7. Livestock. … 3.8. Company Shares. In Islam, one of the conditions of marriage is that the groom provides a dowry for the bride. The dowry can be in the form of money, gold, etc. If you and your partner are confused about wedding dowries, this information will help!
1. What is a marriage dowry? First, we need to understand what a dowry is. A dowry is a gift given by the man to the bride at the time of marriage.
What is the average dowry for cattle?
In a country where raising livestock is the main way to make money, girls can be married or forced to marry from the age of twelve in exchange for cattle. In pastoralist communities, the dowry is often higher. Even if a man doesn’t have any cattle, he has to pay a dowry to the girl’s father. The dowry can be from 15 to over 100 cattle per girl. One cow can cost up to $250. Men also have to pay this several times during their lifetime when they remarry.
The dowry can be from 15 to over 100 cows. I learned that a girl’s bride wealth increases with education. The soon-to-be husband must pay for her school fees if she is still in school when she is married. I spoke to one of our drivers in Juba. He’s paying the tuition fees of his five sisters. He said he’ll get the school fees he’s paid back from his future brother-in-law. The school fees are part of the bride wealth because the girls are in school. This means fathers are rewarded for sending their girls to school. I didn’t look into whether this law is being followed or if girls can choose a job related to their education. But it’s surprising that education is promoted this way, while girls drop out for marriage and housework. It’s good that girls and boys in South Sudan can go to school for free. This shows that people there know how important education is. Girls’ education is a good investment. It helps countries grow and develop. (UNICEF, 2015)
What animals are used for dowry?
In South Africa, it’s still common to give a cow or goat on your wedding day. This goes back to the Zulu practice of lobola, where the groom’s family usually gives cattle. In modern South Africa, goats and cows are mostly replaced by cash. But in rural areas, a wedding goat is not unusual.
Chinese 88. At New Year, Chinese people often give each other money. In the West, money is seen as a boring gift. In China, it’s often the default option. Cash is put into a red envelope and given away. The amount of money given is important. It’s not just about the amount, but also the digits. Six is lucky because it sounds like “to flow.” Eight is even luckier. In both Mandarin and Cantonese, the word for eight sounds like “prosper.” The double eight looks like the character 囍, which means double happiness.
How much do you get from a cow?
A 1,200-pound beef animal will weigh about 750 pounds. Once cooled, the carcass weight will be about 730 pounds. After trimming and deboning, there will be about 500 pounds of meat for wrapping and freezing.
What is the amount given by the groom to the bride?
Bride price is money paid by a groom or his family to the woman or her family before or after marriage. Bride price, bride-dowry, bride-wealth, bride service, or bride token is money or property paid by a groom or his family to the woman or her family. In some cultures, the bride dowry is the same as the groom’s dowry. It helps the couple start their new life together. Dower is property given to the bride by the groom at the wedding. Some cultures do both. Many cultures practiced bride dowry before records existed. Bride dowry is common in many Asian countries, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, parts of Africa, and some Pacific Island societies. The amount can range from a few dollars to thousands of dollars in Thailand and up to $100,000 in Papua New Guinea.
Function Bridewealth is often paid in a different currency. French anthropologist Philippe Rospabé says it’s not about buying a woman. It’s a symbol of the husband’s debt to the wife’s parents.
Is $150 a good wedding gift?
What kind of gift should you expect? Catey Hill, a Davids Bridal financial expert, says it’s fine for guests to write a check. She says many brides and grooms prefer it. The average cash gift is around $150. Hill says there are some exceptions. “Some people think that’s giving money a bad idea,” Hill said. Hill has also seen the rules change. “Brides and grooms know some guests are struggling financially,” she said. Some guests may still be in school or struggling financially. Gift etiquette can also vary by region. Cash gifts are common in the Washington, D.C. area, while physical gifts or registry items are more common in the Midwest and southern U.S. If you’re having a destination or out-of-town wedding, you can spend less on the gift, said Hill. But you should still give something. Guests can’t just say that their “attendance” is a gift.
Is $500 a good wedding gift?
There’s no rule about cash gifts, but wedding experts say to start at $100. You may want to adjust the amount up to $500 based on your relationship with the couple, your budget, and the cost of attending the wedding.
📹 Farm offers alpaca WEDDINGS where the animals don bow ties while they mingle with guests | SWNS
A farm is offering alpaca WEDDINGS – where the animals don bow ties and floral wreaths while they mingle with guests.
There’s a surprisingly wholesome Maine/Nova Scotia version I heard where the fisherman finds a Selkie’s skin, and takes it home without knowing what it is. That night, she knocks on his door, explains what it is, and that she can’t return to the water without it. The fisherman makes to return it, but before he can, the selkie admits she’s sort of taken with him, and admits that if he gives it back, she’ll be compelled to return to the sea. They spend a few weeks together, and are getting along great, but the fisherman notices she’s spending more and more time pining and staring out at the sea, and is growing increasingly unhappy. He decides it’s better for her to return to the sea, he returns the skin, and she thanks him before going into the ocean. Cut to a few years later. The guy’s married to a totally unrelated woman who doesn’t know about his fling, and has a daughter. The wife and daughter are taking his boat out into the bay for a quick tour around, but a sudden, nasty squall pops up. The boat capsizes, but the wife and daughter are dragged ashore by a small group of seals. As they’re dumped onto the beach, and left behind, the last seal turns around, and quietly says “Some kinds of love can never be taken back.” before going back into the sea.
Okay, turns out this article was made almost a year ago, but here I go anyway: I recently heard that the (potential) reason why there’s so many myths in so many cultures of fishermen finding and taking a magical female sea creature’s magical sea creature clothes that they use to turn into a sea creature, and the wife eventually leaving, is a way to explain to children where their mother is gone after the mother has died. It’s a way to help children cope with death. ‘Your mother isn’t dead, she just returned to the sea. If you go down to the sea and look closely, you might see her in her animal form.’ A lot of these stories are problematic, but that origin makes sense and is super sweet. It also explains why SO many cultures have essentially the same story.
You forgot the Kitsune myths of Japan. My favourite is the fox and the brothel. There was a wood-cutter who lived in a hit just outside a rather mean village. He did not believe in eating meat so he did no hunting. One day while out in the woods he finds a young vixen ensured in a trap. Being an honest man he can not rob someone of their gains. So he returns to his hut and gets out a silver piece, the result of much saving. He returns to the fox, releasing her from the snare and tying the silver piece in her place as payment. The vixen follows him home, limping along behind him before dashing off into the bushes. A few days later a beautiful lady wrapped in fine clothes appears at his hut. Thinking that she has merely gotten lost he comes out and prostrates himself before her. “Rise”, she says, “for I am the fox that your humanity set free from the snare the other night. Who’s life you purchased with a silver piece.” “I have taken this form so I may repay you as I may. And shall serve you with fealty for as long as you live.” The Kitsune says. “Oh mistress of magic. I am eight times rewarded by this your visit. I am but a poor forester and you a repository of all beauty. I pray you, not make sport of my low condition.” The wood-cutter replies. “Then let me see you recieve riches that you deserve. Tomorrow, dress in your finest clothes and meet me in my true form by the ravine where you saved me and I shall lead you to your reward.” The Kitsune replied. So the man did as she asked and met her at the ravine in the finest clothes the poor man could afford.
There’s one story from Scotland about a man and his brothers discovering Selkie maidens dancing along the night shore. The eldest told him and his second oldest to grab a skin so that they could have a bride of their own. Pressured, he took one and each of them had their own Selkie wife. But the man saw how sad his wife was and how much she missed the sea and since he loved her so much, he couldn’t bear the thought of keeping her away from what she loved. So he gave her back her skin and she returned to the ocean. Meanwhile his brothers also lost their wives, the eldest’s wife found her skin and sneaked into the night and was never seen again, the second eldest tried to burn the skin and his wife chased after it into the flames burning to death. But as the man sat on the beach he heard his wife’s voice calling his name and to his surprise she was next to him and said, “I watched you from the ocean, and I missed you. I’m able to walk on land for only a while until I have to return. Walk with me?” And so the two continued to meet each other whenever she was available to walk on land. I’ve always thought that story had a sweet ending
There’s one animal bride story from Okinawa I know that has both a happy ending and actual CONSENT. I don’t remember all of it, but basically a girl is exiled to a deserted island for some reason, and the only one willing to go into exile with her is a dog. Once on the island, the dog regularly brings her food and defends her from the local wildlife. When the girl expresses her desire for human companionship, the dog talks. He takes her to a cave and tells her that if she’ll agree to wait outside the cave for one week, he’ll go into the cave and turn into a human and marry her. The girl agrees, the dog goes into the cave, and a week passes. On the final day, the girl is so excited that she rushes into the cave right at sunrise. Inside, she finds the dog has turned into a handsome man. He shows her his tail (she rushed in before he could finish the transformation) and asks her if she’ll still accept him even though he has a dog’s tail. She says yes, they get married and lead a long and happy life together with lots of kids that all have dog tails.
There’s a wholesome story I saw on Tumblr where a selkie asks her girlfriend after several visits “I don’t understand, you haven’t stolen my skin yet. Don’t you want me?” To which the answer is, “that’s the kind of love you want? My love is allowing you the space to leave whenever you want, and always have a place here when you want it.”
There’s similar but slightly different take on this myths in mongolia. The story goes like this: There was a mother of four whose children were extremely naughty. She does everything for them but gets nothing but rude and naught. When she falls ill and asks her children to bring water to her ofc the children act like jerk and do nothing for her. Mother then brings out her deel(traditional clothing), wears it and transforms into a cuckoo to fly away. When the children cries out for her to come back, she only says that it’s too late to ask for forgiveness now. And that’s why cuckoos always leave their eggs in different bird’s nest.
I remember coming up with a story in which the animals skin is damaged after accidentally getting run over by a humans cart, and the human offers to house them while their injuries heal and figure out a way to repair the skin as compensation. The two bond as time goes on, and depending on if the skin can be repaired at all, the animal either decides to stay and live as a human, or visit the human often as a friend
You know the fox story reminds me of cats that basically adopt themselves into a home. While strays are generally wary of humans sometimes they decide to just invite themselves into your home. And I’ve even heard a couple stories where someone’s pet cat decides to rehome themselves because they can’t stand the new baby.
Here in Brazil we have a story that kind of looks like the Fox one and it’s used to explain the Sun and Moon. There were two native men who were friends and lived together. They were called Sun and Moon. One day, when they were hunting, Sun heard a laugh. The laugh belonged to a boy, who had two macaws with him. The boy offered the macaws to Sun, in exchange for his feather necklace. Sun got the macaws and ran to tell his friend moon what had happened. Moon decided tô adopt one of the birds. As the time passed, the birds, who were really active and happy, became sadder and sadder, not wanting to talk or to learn anything new. One day, as they came back from hunting, they had two surprises. First, the macaws came to greet them, talking and singing, and second, when they got inside their house, they found two bowls of hot soup for them. They ate and got in their beds, but couldn’t sleep. It was a mystery they had to figuere out. In the next day, It happened again, so, they decided that they would come back earlier in the next night, to figure out the mystery. So they did, sneaking in by the back door. When they came inside the house, they found out that the macaws had turn into two gorgeous ladies, who married the friends. With their new wifes, their house got too small, so they agreed to “share” it. Sun and his wife stayed in the house during the day and Moon and his wife stayed in the house during the night. And that’s why we don’t see the Sun and the Moon together. (forgive my spelling mistakes, as English is not my First lenguage)
When I was a kid, I read a Finnish story about a mouse bride. The protagonist & his brothers were sent off in random directions to find brides; his direction lead him to a mouse’s house. He rolled with it, kept visiting her to get to know her, and avoided telling his family members that his fated fiancé was a mouse. It turned out she was a mouse because of a curse, and when he brought her back to his family so they could get married, her curse broke, and she turned back into a human. It was kind of cute. (The book it came from also had multiple “dude supernaturally kidnaps a pretty lady to be his bride” stories, which were way less cute.)
I’ve been listening to Celtic music alot lately and their is a few songs with these stories and a few with dryads as well. Same plot but tree vs animal skin. (Btw if you meet a woman in the Forest who says she can’t leave with you and is very attached to a tree or plant, Do Not chop it down! She will be dead in under a day)
There is a Japanese one which is completely different from these called the Crane maiden. It’s actually really sad. A farmer finds a crane in a trap and frees it. The crane then goes to him in her human form and marries him. Things go pretty well until the farmer gets sick. They’re too poor to get the medicine until the crane wife starts to make beautiful robes and is able to buy him medicine. He starts to get better, but his wife gets sick. He grows ill again and finds her plucking her feathers in crane form to make the clothes to sell. She was using her own fethers to make the clothes to buy her husband’s medicine. In the end, they both die. The man from illness and the crane from working herself to death.
It’d be interesting to see a companion episode on Animal Husbands! There’s definitely a number of stories out there, including Native American & Scandinavian tales of women marrying bears, Latin American snake-groom stories etc. Interestingly, this group of tales usually seem to be presented as ‘beauty & the beast’ analogues, whereas the ‘married a female animal-person’ ones don’t really seem to be interpreted that way. In both cases though, there seems to be a heck of a lot of marriage by force, coercion or trickery. I’d love to see Red analyse why that is, and also why these stories (basically disguised bestiality when you think about it!) even exist so commonly…?
There is another inuit animal bride story that goes like this: A hunter named Itajung found a bunch of geese swimming in a lake. There were boots on the side of the lake. Itajung takes a pair of boots and says to the goose that they belong to that he will only give them back if she agrees to marry him. She agrees but says it isn’t her nature to marry humans. She puts on her boots and turns into a human. They have a son together and Itajung doesn’t notice that his wife keeps collecting feathers on the beach. Finally, she gathers enough and puts them on herself and her son and flys away. Itajung searches for her and finds an old man chopping wood. Each piece of wood becomes a salmon. He asks if he has seen his wife and son. The old man says yes but also says that she has remarried. Itajung says that he is determined so the old man gives him a backbone of a salmon which turns into a canoe. He finally finds his ex-wife, her new husband and his son. He begs the goose wife to come back but she reminds him that she told that it wasn’t her nature to marry humans. Then the goose family flys away leaving Itajung stranded on the iceberg that he found them on.
My favorite story in this category is a Japanese one. There was a fisherman who spotted an injured crane (may have been a different bird, it’s been a while) and tended to its wounds. About a week later, a woman showed up at his house, asking to marry him. He obliged, and they were a happy couple. Money got tight, she said “I got this” and locked herself alone in a room for several days, to emerge with a magnificent tapestry, the selling of which kept them afloat for several years. She takes about a week to recover, and some gossip started. When money got tight again, she pulled the same stunt. More gossip. Money gets tight a third time, and the gossipers convince the man to find out what his wife’s secret is. This time he asks her to do it instead of her volunteering, and while she agrees, she says it has to be the last time. He enters the room she was working in when she was nearly finished, and saw her partway between crane and human, weaving the tapestry from her feathers. She tells the man she is the crane he saved years ago, but she can’t be with him now that he knows her secret, and flies away, never to be seen again. However, the fisherman often sees a crane near the spot he found the injured crane so long ago, but maintains a respectful distance.
I have had an idea of an Urban fantasy setting where one of the families in the town is made up of a Sailor, his Selkie Wife, and their selkie children. the “Twist” in their story is that the MOMENT she told him that the sealskin he found the night before was traping her, he gave it back. This gesture that maybe he was different than the men in the myths allowed them to genuinely fall in love. Every year, she asks for the skins back (her and the kids) to visit her family in the ocean, which he does. While they are away, he worries they will never return, given the stories of them never coming back.
There’s a Chinese story that I love about a guy sailing at night on a river. He meets a hot chick in a tiny boat and offers her “shelter”. In the morning he wakes up to find he didn’t spend the night with a beautiful woman but with an old turtle that laughs at him as it slides into the water. Oh and her boat was just a log.
I’ve had an idea for a Selkie fantasy character. She’s a badass warrior selkie, either part of a venturing party or on her own. However, she wears her seal skin halfway, like a cloak or coat, so she’s not naked. The face is like a hood, so when she needs to go into the water during a chase or fight, she pulls it up, transforms mid-air, and lands as a seal. It’s honestly a pretty cool concept.
There’s a song I love which is basically the happy version of these types of stories. A selkie strips off his skin and becomes a hot dude to talk to this girl that lives by the sea. He asks her to marry him and come back to his kingdom in the ocean to be his queen. But the girl responds with “I’m totally into you and I’d love to do that but us humans can’t breathe under water so that’s not going to work for me.” The selkie thinks it over then says “okay well if selkies stay on land past midnight in human form we die, but I really want to make this work. If you can’t come down into the ocean I’ll just marry you on shore and we’ll have a fabulous one night together.” To this the woman says “No. I don’t want to get married to be a widow the next day. Okay here’s what we’re going to do. My grandma has lived beside the sea her entire life. We’re going to go talk to her and see if she knows a way we can be together.” So they do and the grandma says “well selkies can’t live on shore. Can’t be done. If you stay past midnight you die. But… there’s a magic cloak buried underneath a tree further in land. If a girl were to put that on they’d become a maiden selkie. That sounds like it’d fix your problem.” So they go further inland, the girl does most of the work digging up the cloak cause it’s getting pretty near midnight and the selkie lord isn’t looking that great. They get back to shore just before midnight. The girl puts on the cloak, becomes a selkie and they descend into the ocean, one would hope for many happy year together at the selkie lord’s palace.
The story about Kopákonan gets weirder guys: The story is native to Mikladalúr and the area is known for wind that makes it hard to navigate on the cliffsides without falling in. Also: the reason this story survived 1000 years of Christianity is because the date of the party was changed to Trettandi (Thirteenth night(?)) and then the church was a-okay. (Can you blame them? The Faroese, as the only Nordic country, still doesn’t do Same-Sex-marriages. Stubborn old people)
We have a few stories like this too, with the nuance that it’s usually the animal tricking the man into thinking she’s a woman and marrying her. In one of the stories the bride is actually an emissary sent by the forest animals to trick a skilled hunter into getting killed. He survives thanks to his suspecting mother’s advice. Another story is about a bird who falls in love with a guy and decides to become a woman and live with him. She makes him so proud with her grain sorting abilities that he becomes suspicious and follows her to her meeting place with the other birds that help her sort the grain. After he sees her change, he’s so surprised that he makes a brisk movement, thus startling the birds and they all flee, including his bride. The third story is about an unmarried guy who urgently needs a wife to take on the King’s challenge. He goes to a well, gets a frog and goes back home. The next morning, the King’s task has been completed. After two other completed tasks, the king becomes so curious about the guy’s wife that he summons all the village’s brides to his palace. In the morning, a beautiful and richly dressed woman comes out from the guy’s house. The villagers are so amazed by her that they kill the king and install the frog’s husband as a king and his beautiful bride as the queen.
In Brazil one of our folklore stories is kinda like this. It’s called “lenda do boto-cor-de-rosa” and it’s about how the boto-cor-de-rosa (basically a pink dolphin) becomes a man in every full moon night and wears all white clothes and a hat to cover up the animalistic characteristcs that stay (like the nostrils – the big hole in the boto’s head). So he finds the most neautiful single woman in the parties, takes her to the lake, gets her pregnant and in the next day he vanishes and becomes a boto again. (Btw, i know this is kinda of an old article and probably no one is gonna read this, but i would really like if you explored at least a little bit of brazilian folklore! We have so many great stories and i think all of them would make great articles, specially because of the visuals – like the curupira, who has he’s feet facing the wrong way, or Saci, who has only one leg and kinda travels around in a little hurricane or mula sem cabeça, a mule with no head)
There’s also a lot of stories where the woman (usually a fairy) really love the man but is forced to go after he or another human spy on her and discover she can transform. I know a few but the most notable one in my mind is Mélusine, a really powerful fairy (fairy as in the french definition, a beautiful woman with magic powers). There’s a lot to her story but basically she turns into a dragon/water serpent when she’s in the water. She tells her husband he should never try to see her when she’s taking a bath, or else she will have to go away forever. Unfortunately him (or his mother sometimes) become doubtful and spy on her, so she sadly transforms for good and go away.
The fox wife one was pretty cute, really. It’s the only one where everyone is consenting. And then the dude ruins it by telling his wife she stinky. The Uwabami (white snake) story mentioned at the end is my absolute favorite animal spouse story in part because it’s one of the few with the animal being a male, so I’m really sad it didn’t get covered and just got a mention at the end.
Ahh I’m so excited you included the story about the Kópakona! I feel like Faroese mythology is not talked about very much. The story to me is especially creepy because falling off a cliff and drowning is actually a very real danger in the Faroes- when the mist rolls in, you could walk straight off the edge and never know until it’s too late. My grandfather’s brother died that way. I can definitely see how people could attribute that treacherous nature of the landscape to something almost supernatural back in the day.
I imagine the last story with the fox is a metaphor for how you shouldn’t ruin your happy marriage and undermine your wife’s efforts by picking at the minor details. The fun thing about animal bride (and groom) stories is getting a glimpse at your average peasant’s marital issues and the discourse that might have been going on on how to deal with them. Apparently there’s also fields of study dedicated to figuring who was telling which version of the story, by looking at the themes and messages pushed through them.
Now I want to write a story that low-key follows this structure but is completely different. So MC is a girl who hangs out and sees animal ladies bathing. She steals a pelt, not because she wants to kidnap animal bride, but because she’s like ‘human + magic fur = cool shapeshifter powers.’ Meanwhile, the original owner of the pelt goes looking for it, meets the thief but doesn’t realize who she is. The thief is like, ‘you look familiar’ but doesn’t really recognize her. The animal lady is like, ‘will you help me look for this thing I lost?’ but is super cryptic about what they’re looking for. The two have some wacky adventures, eventually falling in love. Animal lady tells thief the truth, and the thief is like, ‘yeah, funny story…’ and drama ensues. Not sure how it ends.
This reminds me of a story I heard when I was little. It’s called The pig’s tale. An old couple of peasants desires a child but they are unable to conceive one. One day the husband finds a sow with her piglets bathing in mud. The pigs run away scared, but the smallest one remains stuck in the mud. The man takes the piglet home to his wife and they make him their son . The piglet grows into a pig and one day he starts speaking to his parents who are terrified. They are even more shocked when he says to them that he wants to marry the princess of the kingdom. After the pig insists for several days, the father goes to the king to ask for the hand of the princess in the name of his son. The man is thrown out of the castle . The pig sends his father again to tell the king that the next day his son will personally come on a silver bridge. This time he is almost executed and thrown away. The next day he and his son walk on a silver bridge that connects their small cottage with the castle’s gates . The pig says he has built the bridge last night. The king is scared when he sees them coming and hears the pig asking for his daughter’s hand. He gives his daughter to the pig and tells them to go away. The next day they marry and the pig builds a palace for his family . He also builds a golden bridge that connects his palace to the king’s castle so that his wife can visit her family anytime. The girl objected to the marriage but she had no choice ( I understand her, who wants to marry a pig?
FYI there’s a similar formula in Ireland with merrows (Irish mermaids) where the merrow can only breathe underwater by wearing a magic cap, a guy holds said cap hostage marries said merrow she later finds said cap turns back into a merrow and leaves. Also selkies in Scotland are called roane in Ireland and can be classified as merpeople.
The fox story maps pretty closely onto a Chinese tale my mother used to tell me, except it just ends with the reveal. Gave me a bit of a weird complex about helping invisibly even as a child, so I appreciate that the Inuit version includes the part where “you’re allowed to just walk out. You did it of your own free will,” too.
There’s the Korean/Japanese myth regarding a lonely farmer who saves a deer from hunters, and the deer in return tells him to steal the heavenly veil of a celestial and gets married and has two kids. But the deer also warned him to not stop at 2 kids if he wants to give her the veil back, and when the farmer does the wife ascends back to heaven with 2 of the kids in tow. Later the deer tells him that there’s a watering bucket that comes down from the heavens that he can hide in if he wants to see his wife again. He does and is reunited with his family. BUT THEN there’s a third part where the farmer wants to go back to earth to see his mother at least once before she dies, so his wife gets him a winged horse that he can ride down to earth, but he’s specifically told NOT to get off the horse or else he won’t be able to return. Guess what? The man ends up getting off to eat one last meal with his mom, causing the horse to get spooked and fly back up to heaven. Poor guy ends up living the rest of his life mourning until he turns into a crow. It’s not an animal bride but an animal ending…??
Two of my favorite folk songs are about selkies (the seal people). “The Maiden and the Selkie” by Heather Dale: Male selkies only have enough magic to come onshore for one night, and if they aren’t back in the sea with their sealskin on by midnight, they’ll dissolve into sea foam. So if, as in this song, a male selkie and a fisherman’s daughter fall in love, they have to get a bit creative if they want to stay together. “Selkie’s Song” by S. J. Tucker: In this song, a selkie sings about how she lets human men capture her on purpose so she can have her fun with them until she’s had enough and returns to the sea to start the process all over again. Because hey, if you were an immortal magical seal woman, why not spend eternity toying with the very sailors who think they have the upper hand on you?
Does anyone remember “The Secret of Rian Inish”. Their family story included a selkie who returns to the sea after finding her skin hidden in the roof. Jamie, the main girl’s little brother, is taken by the seals and raised by them for a time, but returned once the family return to Roan Inish and the girl asks for him back.
i dont remember where i heard it from but when i was in grade school, i read somewhere in that in old mythology, some kings wished to marry giant women as a sign of,, glory? i dont remember much but the idea of some arrogant king dude going after a giant woman always amused me and your website has the kind of vibe that makes me think you could make a great article out of it, if you wanted to! i cant really commission you, so this is really just a thought idea ;u; either way i loved your article!! i remember reading an old Irish folktale about 4 women who were turned into swans rather than turning shemselves into humans too. thats what caught my eye about this article lol
My favorite version of this is from Ranma 1/2, the Musk tribe live near the cursed springs, one of those is the “spring of drowned girl” that turns anyone that falls into it into a young girl… so they take animals that they want their descendants to have the strength of, throw them in the spring and “marry” them… the leaders family apparently having managed to do this to a dragon at some point.
How to get a girlfriend EASY : 1. Find an animal bride 2. Steal her skin 3. Force her to be your girlfriend 4.(OPTIONAL) Get married, have kids 5. Have her run away from you…..I mean, LIVE HAPPY EVER AFTER. You should 100% trust this easy, totally legit tutorial that totally doesn’t have any consequences
similar story in my country: Toba Lake Folklore (disclaimer: the version i know at very least). Fisherman that caught a magic talking fish that beg him not to eat her. The Fisherman agree and release her, which immediately transform into beautiful girl. Both of them fall in love with each other for some reason and agree to wed but the fish lady make the fisherman promise not to mention her as a fish directly or not. Later they have a son named Samosir that well known being really naughty despite his parents discipline. One day the fish lady ask Samosir to deliver ration to his father, but then Samosir is involved with many hijinks that differ from version to version but always end up losing the ration by the time he finally arrive to his father. His father, furious; Insulting Samosir’s Stupidity by calling him “Fish Boy” or “Fish Brained” thus breaking the promise he made with his wife. Soon, a big rainstorm unlike anything seen before occure and quicky flooded the landscape. The Fish Lady sad beyond compare can’t do much and just transform back into fish, The Fisherman along with huge amount of villager sank, Samosir with small amount of remaining villager survive by hastly climbing the tallest mountain they know. The flooded landscape soon become a giant lake with the mountain that Samosir and other survivor climb on become an island in the middle of it which later named Samosir Island
This actually reminds me of this hilarious story i once read. There is a crane who gets trapped in a hunters trap, and a passing by man frees it. The crane later returns to him as a hot chick and becomes his wife, on the condition that he can never see her bathe. Naturally, the obvious happens and the lady turns back into a crane a flies away. But the story continues, with the man then finding a deer next who is also trapped, and the same happens, the deer turning into a wife, with the same conditions. After realizing he can’t keep up with a stamina of a deer, he peeks at her bathing and she turns back into a deer a books it. And then, one final time, he sets a trap himself and captures a rabbit, who he then frees, who gets turned into a hot chick and marries her, and the obvious happens a third time. But this is where the hilarity comes in. The crane, Deer and Rabbit meet each other, and decide to take revenge together, so they trap a Snake, a spider and a scorpion into his net. And naturally, once the hunter frees his prey, they get released and he angrily yels the animals to bugger off. But, that night, the snake spider and scorpion have also turned into monster girl waifu’s, and are really bossy and mean. Naturally he ends up married to all of them, and…well, scorpions spider and snakes dont take baths~ (yes, it was H)
Red might be able to do some articles about the myths and legends of interspecies love in China… I especially recommend a story called “Legend of the White Snake”, which tells the love story of a thousand-year-old snake demon and a young human doctor, Known as one of the “Four Great Folk Legends in China”, it has been repeatedly adapted into various film and television works.
Japan has a ton of these. Besides the famous tale of the Crane Wife, I’ve seen variations with snakes, foxes, other birds, cats, and even wolves. Almost every one of these has the word ‘ongaeshi’ (returning a favor) in the title, with the animal wife seeing the marriage as a repayment for a kindness done. The odd one out being the fox, of course. “Kitsune no Ongaeshi” (Fox’s Favor Returned) is actually a variation on the more famous “Bunbuku Chagama” (the one where the tanuki masquerades as a teapot). There’s a different story, “Kitsune Nyoubo” (lit. “The Fox Wife), wherein for no apparent reason the fox decides to impersonate the man’s wife –while the wife is in the house–.
It’s funny. South Africa too has a similar folk story about the seal leaving their skin and becoming a women but I believe that it has a happier ending. Whilst the fisher man did steal the skin, he didn’t tell the seal that he had it, he also hid it in a cellar where he kept the key as he wanting the seal to stay with him forever. The seal fell in love with him and they had two children where she would sing a song that her sisters (she has 6 other sisters) and herself would sing when they came out of the water on the full moon. She loved her children dearly. As time went on and her two girls got older, her once green eyes and good hair began to dull as well as she no longer sung the lullaby. The fisher believed that she was forgetting her passed. One day whilst the fisherman was in a hurry as a storm grew, he accidentally left the key at home. The seal picked up the mysterious key and wondered what it was for. She found out it was the cellar key. In the cellar she found her skin, and after saying her goodbyes to her girls and kissing them, she fled into the night where she rejoined her seal sisters. When the fisherman got back, he saw that she was gone and realised what happened. Every full moon the fisherman would go to the beach where he meet the seal and watch her sisters and her dance and sing to the full moon. This is one of my favourite folk stories from South Africa due to my parents telling me this one so often when we went to seal island in Cape Town
You missed the Japanese legend of Kuzunoha, a white fox living in Japan. She was saved by a wandering soldier who faught off the hunters after her and got seriously injured. She turned into a human and nursed him back to health when they fell in love and got legit married. They had a son, half fox spirit and half human, who caught a glimpse of his mother’s true form, causing her to flee after she wrote a “if you love me, come here” letter. The husband realized she was the fox he saved abd rushed to her only for her to say sorry and leave. But the story doesn’t end there… Her son learns his father’s profession of Omnyoji, or astrology, and, with his mother’s powers, takes on the name Abe no Seime and becomes the strongest Omnyoji priest in history.
Since I have nothing better to do, I will add other stories or myths from my country that are related to the theme of this article. If you ever decide to make a second part or a article about “animal grooms”, you are free to use what I am about to write. The condor and the shepherd There was a shepherdess who always dedicated to grazing her cattle, alone in the pampas, taking care of her sheep and llamas. In those circumstances a condor flew by, who always wandered near her to observe her, contemplating her beauty. As the days went by, the condor fell in love with the girl.\r One of those days he decided to approach the girl, but knowing that she would be scared to see the true shape of the condor, he transforms into a well-dressed young man, in a black suit, with a white shirt and with a white scarf. She, seeing the handsome young man from afar, approached him and talked a long time. After introducing each one, then they began to play to load each other while the other closed his eyes, so on until suddenly it was the turn of the young man, who became a condor and took the shepherdess to the highest hills of the Mountain range. Along the way, the shepherd faints from fright. Upon arriving at the place the girl woke up and was surprised. Instantly, she began to cry and told the condor to return her to her home, but the young man did not want to do that because he had fallen in love with the girl and wanted her to become his girlfriend.\r \r The condor, so that the girl does not cry more, brought her raw meat so that she could feed herself, but the girl always rejected it, since this was not a suitable food for her.
I recall a strange and complex postmodern variation on the formula called The Princess and the Pig. Two feuding fairies each pronounce a curse over the infant Princess Hermione: the first, that she will turn into a pig if she ever sees one, and the second that she will be forced to work for a living and one day marry a man with only one leg who has spent all his life in the open. A bratty young boy of the nobility decides to gift three-year-old Hermione a piglet, named Henrietta, as a prank. Sure enough, Hermione turns into Henrietta’s identical twin on sight. The prankster is punished by the same vengeful fairies to spend the rest of his life as a tree, until a secretary comes to rescue him. Meanwhile, as the piglets can’t speak and no one can tell them apart, the court is forced to raise both as princesses. When they are shipped off to finishing school as young ladies years later, they become so miserable that they tunnel under the garden fence and run away. The king, desperate to find them before they become bacon, abandons his duties to search for them. They stumble into the property of a brilliant scientist, apparently brilliant enough to teach them both how to speak. Of course, by now, neither pig can remember which of them is the real princess. He takes them in, and trains them to be his secretaries/laboratory assistants, tasks they are surprisingly adept at. Eventually he develops a machine that should change the princess human again, and turns it on the pigs, only for both of them to turn into identical fair young maidens.
I love the idea of animals secretly being what essentially is “reskinned humans”, pun intended. But at the same time, it sort of annoys me that so many focus on the “oh the secret human is pretty” or “oh the secret human is dangerous” aspects. Instead of all the implications that come with the realization that ANIMALS ARE PEOPLE. Like, I want someone to have an existential crisis upon realizing that he has hunted and killed “animal people”. Or to seek them out to try and find out more about them. Not just “I wanna fuck” or “I wanna kill” no its “I WANT MORE!”
There’s a Japanese myth of the Crane wife which is pretty much the same as the swan story only the husband accidentally comes into her room to see her putting on her crane feathers. (The story goes that she would only fly away at night and come back in the morning) but upon their marriage (they did both love each other) he had to promise to not sneak up on her…
In Croatia we have folk tales about women ( and sometimes men)who have a wolf skin that helps them transform into she-wolfs. We call them Božje vučice or litteraly Gods she-wolfs. It follows the theme of other animal brides, and they are more common in Slavonia and Lika and the best thing is in the story my dad told me the relashionship is somewat consentual and has a happy ending. P.S. you shoud chek out the deer women of native Amerika, Buffalo brides of Africa and frog princess of Russia they are fun stories.
For the record, most mammals have scent glands; what all they are used for, though, differs from animal to animal. Many use them to communicate, such as marking territory or (in the case of females) signifying when in they are in heat; others use them in self-defense. The Skunk is the most famous of the latter, and overall, but possums also have musk that aids them when playing dead. After all, if you’re gonna convince another animal that you’re dead, you don’t just have to look and sound like it; you have to smell like it too.
There’s a version of this fairytale in Latvia (it’s not traditional, a Latvian fairytale author wrote it in the 20th century) in the fairytale a man stole a swan lady’s feather cloak and then they had a family etc. But then the guy reveals that he has her feather cloak but instead of the classical ending where she runs away, she throws the same feather cloak into the fire and pretends like nothing happened, only later, after dinner her daughter notices the swan woman weeping.
In Russia we have a fable of the Frog Tsarevna where the dude ACTUALLY marries a frog, and THEN it’s revealed that she’s a beautiful maiden. So, the story goes: A Tsar has three sons, two normal ones and the dumb one (Ivan the Fool). He tells them to go out, shoot an arrow and take a bride from whatever house the arrow reaches. As a result, the eldest marries a noblewoman, the middle one – a daughter of a wealthy merchant, and Ivan’s arrow flies into a swamp and is caught by a frog which he now has to marry. The king gives his sons’ wives three challenges to see which one is better (implying that the winning one’s husband will get the throne). Ivan is bummed, but the frog tells him to just go to sleep and her tasks are performed flawlessly overnight. The last task is to attend a ball and be pretty. When the turn comes for the frog to arrive, she does so in the form of a beautiful maiden. Ivan is overjoyed as she stuns everyone and performs magic tricks the other girls fail to repeat. But he only wants her as a princess, he rushes back home and throws her frog skin into a furnace. The frog is obviously unimpressed, as she’s under some kind of spell and she would’ve become a princess permanently if Ivan hadn’t done that. She’s then transported to the kingdom of Koshei the Immortal and Ivan goes on a quest to retrieve her and has to prove through various challenges and the elaborate assassination of Koshei that he really does love his wife, whether she’s a frog or a princess. Happy End.
The story of the Selkie spouse common among both us irish and the scottish might actually have a small kernel of truth to it. One theory suggests that my Irish ancestors actually may have encountered both Thule and Inuit cultures fishing off the coast of Ireland and the Orkneys where the Selkie legend is strongest. Many of the descriptions of the selkie line up to encounters and quite probable marriages with indigneous arctic cultures and I understand fully some of these unions were not entirely mutual. The selkie were said to take off their seal skins and become human when they made land fall. Both the Inuit and older Thule peoples, did commonly and still sometimes do wear seal skin clothing and make kayaks out of the skins of those animals, the selkie were also said to have dark hair and somewhat darker skin compared to the peoples of Ireland and Scotland and were said to have seal-like eyes, which is you were a medieval Irish fisherman and did not know what someone from the americas or asia looked like you could see how they could mistake those features for and other worldly being. There are stories of fishermen and sailors coming upon gatherings of selkie on land in the islands west or Ireland. They were said to have more communal living and often preformed dances that were considered alien to most peoples of the Bristish Isles at that point. I also discovered that some of my more archaic DNA from GEDmatch does have a fingerprint for Greenland Inuit ancestry, Many Irish and Scottish familes will take their knowledge of a supposed Selkie ancestor as a literal fact.
My personal favorite is a Japanese story called the Crane Wife. A man goes out hunting in the winter and saves a crane from freezing to death. In the spring, a beautiful woman appears and says she wants to marry him, which they do. Things get hard so to make money, the wife starts to weave cloth but tells her husband that he can’t look at her while she weaves. The result is this stunning beautiful cloth that the husband sells for a great price. Eventually, the wife makes another cloth to sell, but she is visibly paler and thinner when she’s done. Eventually, a neighbor convinces the husband to make more cloth to sell at a huge price to nobility or royalty, essentially to never worry about money again. The wife is reluctant but she agrees on the conditions that she never weave again afterwards and her husband can’t look at her while she is weaving. But by this point, the husband is curious as to how his wife is weaving such amazing cloths, and why her health keeps worsening afterwards. So, he opens the door to her room and peeks. But to his horror, he sees a crane pulling out its own feathers to use for the cloth. This stuns him so much that the husband faints. When he wakes up, the beautiful cloth is finished but his wife is gone. He hears her voice explain that she was the crane he rescued in the winter and was moved by his kindness. She used her own feathers to make the cloths to sell at the risk of her own health. However, because he broke his promise to not look at her, the wife has to return to the wild.
The moral of the last story is that if you are Eskimo don’t complain for your wive’s shortcomings specifically hair smell; remember that the story is for the Eskimos they don’t have the luxury of taking a bath with in all this cold and marital life is a mast; not really the environment in which you can go bachelor, too cold and too lonely.
there’s a song called the maiden and the selkie, where a seal comes out from the sea and proclaims his love for a fisherman’s daughter. she likes him back, however, seals can’t stay on land past midnight without dying, and she can’t go into the ocean for obvious reasons. eventually they find a way to turn her into a seal tho so it’s all good.
So many of the old clan stories involve animals presenting themselves in their human forms or humans taking on animal forms. One example is The Woman Who Married the Bear. In summary, the women disrespects brown bears and a brown bear changes forms into a very handsome man to teach her to respect bears, the women marries the brown bear and raises a family. My favorite Tlingit story is a Saanya Kwaan Neix.adi clan story which presents a hunter who marries a she-bear and has children. But when he disrespects his bear wife’s wishes and talks with his old human wife his bear-cub children rip him to shreds. Lesson, don’t cheat on your bear wives. The Peabody Museum has a totem pole carved by Nathan Jackson that tells this story.
I read a really neat story idea with the theme of the first 2 stories combined. Basically a man takes a selkie’s/ seals skin after she transforms and she sits by a lake sadly perusal the swans. Then a swan is like “hey you! Why don’t you join us we know what you are! Come in and let’s have fun.” Selkie: Can’t. Soneone stole my skin. Swan:…. Who. Seal: -points out “husband.” Swan:….*I see…* Then a group of swans show up next morning outside the seals and husband’s house. And like… A LOT of Swans. Long story short the bird ROYALLY Fucks that guy up/ kills him, then helps the seal get their skin back to swim. It’s a really neat take XD
Aahh the story of the Maighdean Mhara! The version I was told has the skin being hidden in the roofing and the youngest child finding it one day while the father and older children were out fishing and he was being far too inquisitive. He immediately took it to his mother, who was standing by the shore wistfully as she always did, and she of course recognised her skin, kissed and said goodbye to her baby, and turned into a seal and swam back out to sea. We have a song, “Òran na maighdinn mhara”/”the hu-bhà song”, which the story goes the fisherman (I’ve heard fisherman, but honestly fisherman/crofter/farmer in the Western Isles) heard this pretty seal singing as they past it on the way back in, and he immediately knew what had happened. The same story exists in Ireland, where (in Donegal at least), they also have a song called “Amhrán na maighdinn mhara”, which is NOT the same song, but features the oldest son being miserable about how his mother’s gone swimming back to sea never to be seen again. I’ve never heard the gruesome continuation of the story before, so thanks for that.
The Selkie story I know is this guy stumbles upon a selkie group on a beach, and after they leave one stays behind and intentionally waits for him to take her skin. He does, and they’re married. He puts her skin above the door so she knows she can leave whenever she wants. They’re married for many years and have 7 sons. One day she asks that her sons stay behind when he goes out fishing. When he returns, the seal skin is gone, and so are his sons. He runs to the beach and sees 8 seal heads bobbin in the water headed out to sea.
I know that last shot of the fox wife shows her looking back, but I can’t help but think how much funnier it would have been if she’d been drawn with her nose sticking up in the air. XD Also, the fact that Red’s guitar string broke in the middle of the recording is hilariously memorable. I don’t know anything about guitars, but I hope fixing it wasn’t too much trouble.
I think the better takeaway would probably be “Don’t base a relationship on any variety of mistrust.” Since, in all of these stories, the “animals” in question turn out to be people and have the ability to withhold/potentially-give consent depending on the circumstances. Given that the one example presented of this type of story where the husband WASN’T effectively holding his wife hostage (the fox wife story), both parties were pretty happy with the arrangement, as long as both parties are informed and on-board with the situation, there’s nothing here to suggest that there’s anything inherently wrong with marrying an “animal”.
“Eglė žalčių karalienė” is a good myth of the reverse: Woman marrying a snake dude. It starts with Egle bathing with her sisters when a snake comes up and takes her clothes. Egle wants her clothes back and the snake agrees with the condition that she marries him. She agrees just so she could get her clothes back (obviously not wanting to be married to a snake). Then the snake gets into the see and everything’s fine. Some time passes and the snake comes back to collect his dues. Egle reluctantly comes. She stays with him for a bunch of years and has a bunch of kids named after tress (keep that in mind). She wants to divorce since she wants come back home. The dude agrees under the condition that she completes some standard “impossible” tasks. She obviously does and returns with her kids. Then some stuff happens and she and her kids get turned into trees. TL;DR: Trees are named after some chick who married a snake and her kids.