This year I participated as well in the Folktale week from 15 to 21 November. Folktale Week is an Instagram challenge where artists from all over the world participate by posting one piece of art each day for 7 days inspired by the 7 prompts created by the year’s hosts. This year the word were:…
Tag: folktale
Birds in folklore: the cuckoo…
A illustrated myth about the kingfisher…
I am passionate about legends and folklore. In every place I go, I always look for local legends but I have also begun to be interested in beliefs related to some animals. I have found many about the birds that inspired me. For this illustration I was inspired by the belief that the sighting of…
In Italy, the last days of January are called “Giorni della merla”, the “hen blackbird days”. A folk tale tells that in ancient times blackbirds were white. In a cold winter, there was a family of blackbirds hidden from the icy weather in their nest. At the end of the month, the hen blackbird jumped…
In the mountains of the Germanasca Valley, 2400 m a.s.l., lies the plateau of the so-called Tredici Laghi (“thirteen lakes”). One of these is called Lago dell’Uomo (“man’s lake”) and a legend explains why. It’s said that a prince, passing by, saw a beautiful nymph on a piece of ice in the middle of the…
It’s said that in the Germanasca Valley – in the Northwest of Italy – lived a family in which the two daughters-in-law and mother-in-law couldn’t agree on almost anything. The two girls were terrible slackers and it was said that the spirits had taken advantage of all that discord to get into their business.One day,…
One day, in the mountains of Val Troncea (in Piedmont, in the Northwest of Italy) Count Trucchetti was ascending, accompanied by his minstrel, when, in an opening between the rocks, he saw a beautiful fairy. He fell hopelessly in love and followed her into the darkness of the cave where she lived, and swore eternal…
It’s said that in Val Pellice, in the Italian Piedmont Alps, no one could succeed in bringing water to the houses of the Roussenc hamlet. One evening, the inhabitants were gathered in the stable, when a stranger entered and promised to bring the water to the village before the crowing of the cock in exchange…
In Val Germanasca in the north-west Italy, right in the middle of the old road that leads to Prali, there is a huge rock split in half. According to a funny legend, the fault is all of a greedy donkey. One day, as sometimes happens in the mountains, the fog in the valley was so…