If you’re thinking this is another variation of tofu, you have a happy image coming. Long ago, the Tartars thought there was a plant that produced sheep. Tethered by an all-important umbilical structure, the sheep grazed in the vicinity of the parent plant. As soon as the surrounding vegetation was gone, the sheep and plant perished.

There is actually a plant this myth is based on, which is discussed here. But most scholars of this sort of thing agree that it was the cotton plant that inspired such creative theorizing.

Could a woman’s long hair support the weight of a man? Could a carpet really fly? Did the witch who took away Ariel’s voice have access to current technology?

A story about how Bear, who once had a long, glossy tail, lost it because of Fox and his trickster ways.

A Native American story.

A man avenges the death of his sons with help from Kauhuhu.

Yesterday was AA Milne’s birthday, and here’s a test of your Pooh knowledge.

How her hair could support the weight of a man, and how a beanstalk could do the same, explained in the traveling show run by two Australian scientists.

Not being the smartest of animals, they must rely on the elves to make sure they are not eating something that is forbidden to reindeer.

He doesn’t look a day over - well, he doesn’t appeared to have aged at all!

If only we are so well preserved when we get to 80.

And other gnome information that certain small persons in a household should know.

Set on Christmas Eve in a terrible snowstorm.

A Santa story with a Royal Castle, a Wishing Spirit, a Magic Stone, and a Gnome family of helpers.

The camel refused to work along with the other animals, but the Djinn in charge of All Deserts had a plan.

In this Australian Aboriginal story, Balayang the bat is poking around in the mud of a river when he discovers something large and soft.

Myths of archangels landing and serpents with antlers were an ancient method of explaining land shifts and other geological upheavals. The article suggest. that scientists look into these stories for hints of where the next disaster might occur.

Gidja was frequently ridiculed because of his girth. He loved Yalma, the Evening Star, and had a daughter Lilga, who became the Morning Star after she died the first death.

Tonight, Gidja will be in his finest hour. The penumbral eclipse occurred this morning if you were paying attention a little after 8:00 a.m. (It’s okay, I wasn’t either.)

Not the jolly guy, but a somewhat scarier giant who holds Badger’s little brother until Badger can bring back some of Glooscap’s magic food (which never grows less, no matter how much is eaten).

In which there is a monster of a whirlpool and another monster with six heads.

Her story is a complex one, and her image adorns many boxes of mooncakes. This year, the Moon (or Mid-Autumn) Festival falls on September 18.

And what a lovely moon it is tonight.

Why the Ainu, an indigenous people who live on Hokkaido, swallow the heart of a freshly-killed water-ouzel while it is still warm.

About an elfin cow, and the farmer that caught her.

Stories from fliers skilled and unskilled.

Many beasts, both alive and dead, haunt the Malagasy, the inhabitants of Madagascar. Some are ghosts with red eyes and long fingernails that are particularly suited for removing the viscera of the local citizens. There are the wild men of the woods, who run on all fours. The mpakafo eats the heart of its victims.

However, visions of mythical creatures sometimes are not the product of an overly stoked imagination. The aye-aye proved to be real, although many will admit that it is more surreal than not.

Speaking of goats and milk. . .

The hunter could never bring down a deer, try as he might. One day, he came upon a dying alligator, and listened to what it had to say.

In which a hedgehog and a tortoise outsmart a Painted Jaguar, and then undergo a transformation.

An astrophysicist from the University of Western Sydney is studying the stories of constellations and other sky objects as told by the Aborigines. Orion, familiar to us as a hunter, is an emu, and the Southern Cross a shark chasing a stingray.

Readers have often wondered why Arthur Conan Doyle allowed him to die. A screenwriter offers his theory, which involves Doyle’s father’s mental illness, and his wife’s consumption, diagnosed too late.

By Rudyard Kipling. How the cleverness of the cat won it a place by the fire with warm white milk three times a day.

When the boys were little, we read The Tales of Uncle Remus by Julius Lester with Jerry Pinkney illustrations. Here is an excerpt, How the Animals Came to Earth, in which Brer Rabbit gets in a fight with Sister Moon.

Here is a story from Tibet about two golden squash.

In Japanese legend, Namazu is controlled by Kashima, whose attention is distracted from time to time. When that occurs, Namazu throws himself around, churning the world with his violent movements.

It comes from messing with a moose.

Just in case you didn’t know, or have forgotten, the story of the Ethiopian and the leopard, who had great luck with hunting until the other animals got wise.

Is the bear of little brain online? Oh yes, click on ‘Part I’ here .

First Tigger, now Piglet .

A day after Paul Winchell, voice of Tigger, dies, John Fiedler, voice of Piglet, succumbs to cancer.

ClemsonGurl comments:

awww poor piglet. my fav is eeyore. as long as his voice isnt dead im ok.

Hiya ClemsonGurl. I guess Eeyore is even sadder and gloomier lately.

I spent the afternoon pruning back rosebushes at my Mom’s, where there are many neglected shrubs. In the middle of one rosebush, tall blades of some kind of sharp-edged grass had woven themselves among the thorny branches. In the process of removing all of them, my hands and fingers endured a slashing and tearing that made them very sore. Much like Jeremy Fisher after his bout with the stickleback, except I didn’t have the shoal of little fishes laughing at me.

For a grownup, I reference Beatrix Potter quite a bit. But only where appropriate.

The bonus: I now have several cuttings of the mystery rosebush I like so much, and have been unable to find anywhere.

The story of Ch’ang-O (or Heng-E or Heng-O) involves a search for immortality, ingesting too much of an immortality potion/pill, and a jade rabbit.

How the Moon Came to Be tells of a Dreamtime hunter, Japara, his wife, his baby son, and Parukapoli, a visitor.

Did the finding of dinosaur bones in the Dakota badlands fuel the myths of the Lakota Indians? A new book by Adrienne Mayor, Fossil Legends of the First Americans, explores the possibility that Indians encountered the bones as they prepared the land for farming. To explain the size of these bones, they invented legends about monsters battling one another.

The story of a bagful of beauty, the bird who became jealous, and why butterflies are silent.

As the Aztec legend goes, the complex deity, Quetzalcoatl, emerged from a chrysalis .

In which a luckless hunter helps a bear, and a bear helps the hunter.

Roger comments:

how chipmunk got his stripes

the great spirit gave all the animals weapons to defend themselves against man. The bear got strength, the deer speed. The skunk, porcupine and turtle were all well protected. Finally it was chipmunk’s turn, but chipmunk said he had neither hatred nor fear of man and needed no weapons. This angered all the other animals and they clawed chipmunk’s back. This is how chipmunk got his stripes. In my garden chipmunk eats birdseed and runs between my feet. chipmunk is happy to live in my world.

Thanks, I didn’t know that story. No chipmunks in my yard, just squirrels, and they eat anything.

A story from the Dreamtime that tells of the animals’ search for a solution to a punishing drought.

In which a lizard, a gopher, various spiders, a bat, eagles, and the elk all play a part.

When the sun fell to earth, and how the mole saved the day.

From the Brothers Grimm, a story involving a wild boar, two brothers - one evil, one good - a princess, a special spear, and a singing bone.

Myths from various countries about the wild boar, including two that have to do with Christmas traditions.

Scroll to the bottom of the page for this fable from China.

The whale as seen through the eyes of the Mirning , also known as the People of the Whale. In their creation stories, the whale made its way across the landscape, carving out the terrain with its movements. Woven into this trail are songs and words that reveal to modern scientists the depth of whale knowledge of this Aborigine nation.