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Folklore shared across cultures.


Vurtman

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Hi there, first time poster here so forgive me if this subject has been done to death.

Can you folks give me some of the best examples of legends and folklore that are shared by many different cultures the way serpent gods?

Are there shared "man in black/dark figure" type stories that are universal?

Thanks, what a cool forum!

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Welcome to the forum Vurtman. Klahowya! :)

Consider that the bow and arrow was a near simultaneous universal discovery.

The fear of dark figures, I'm sure, preceded it..

 

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There's the mimic that has been coming up in a lot of discussions, lately. It's called a lot of things cross-culturally. Doppelganger, qareen, fetch, vardogr, etc.

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Dragons are pretty universal in cultures 

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As for the shadow people, they seem to be experienced cross-culturally, as well. They're djinn to some, demons to others, aliens to the UFO lovers, the shadow self if you're all Jungian about it, etc. If you get clinical about it, you'll probably figure it's sleep paralysis or hypnagogia. And if you go Crowley on it, you'll figure you're pulling the things out of the Abyss (your psyche).  

Edited by ChaosRose
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46 minutes ago, ChaosRose said:

There's the mimic that has been coming up in a lot of discussions, lately. It's called a lot of things cross-culturally. Doppelganger, qareen, fetch, vardogr, etc.

Raven, is my favourite. Nothing malevolent. Has a native vocal range unparalleled, in this hemisphere.

Raven is the American mimic.

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58 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

Dragons are pretty universal in cultures 

Largely that was the written. propagated  fear of things with scales before we started to understand them..

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I does seem that most cultures did also have legends of "little people", also "giants", and "wild man"/bigfoot. I think these are just imaginings based of misperceptions of people seeing other people over time. Bigfoot is a good example here... People see a regular human up on a mountain, and assume that the person is tremendously big, because maybe there's a little tree that looks big, or some other way to through off the scale. Same with the little people. Someone sees the neighbor's 3 year old picking berries, and all of a sudden there's reports of elves stealing stuff.

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Vampires in various forms of blood drinkers and cannibals show up all over the place and time too.

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18 hours ago, Vurtman said:

Hi there, first time poster here so forgive me if this subject has been done to death.

Can you folks give me some of the best examples of legends and folklore that are shared by many different cultures the way serpent gods?

Are there shared "man in black/dark figure" type stories that are universal?

Thanks, what a cool forum!

Very good post Vurtman. There's the hairy forest man whose feet are on backwards, that's shared in a few places. The little ferocious people who raid villages until they're trapped in a cave by locals and the entrance piled up with brushwood and set light to, killing those trapped inside. This one is shared by the Flores islanders, the Vedda of Sri Lanka, and apparently one of the Native American tribes. Pretty diverse cultures. 

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Flood myths are worldwide, probably because people settled in flood plains often

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On 4/14/2017 at 0:24 AM, spartan max2 said:

Dragons are pretty universal in cultures 

I read somewhere that the dragon myth was because many cultures found dinosaur bones and that they came up with similar stories to explain them.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/13/2017 at 11:06 PM, Vurtman said:

Hi there, first time poster here so forgive me if this subject has been done to death.

Can you folks give me some of the best examples of legends and folklore that are shared by many different cultures the way serpent gods?

Are there shared "man in black/dark figure" type stories that are universal?

Thanks, what a cool forum!

It is an interesting fact that both middle eastern cultures and celtic culture have a 'wish granting' faerie, but are called by different names. In the middle east they are called Djinn, in the northern cultures it is called a Leprechaun. Both creatures share similar traits aside fro the wish granting ability. There is generally treasure involved somewhere as well. Also, you don't want to cross either one.

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Bigfoot / Yeti / Sasquatch / etc  is a common folklore.

Whether they are hiding in a forest, yomping up the Himalayas, or migrating across Siberia.

 

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On 14/04/2017 at 2:24 PM, spartan max2 said:

Dragons are pretty universal in cultures 

Not really, the European Dragon (or wyrm) was a ravager, a destroyer of things thst needed heroes to defeat, while the Asian dragon, more often than not, was a symbol of wisdom and/or natural cycles. 

The European Dragon had wings, while the Asian one serpentine.

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Just about everyone had legends about the people who lived in the dark - on the whole serving to tell people (particularly kids) to not go into caves or to wander around in the dark. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hairy humanoids (sasquatch, yeti, almas, dzunu'kwa, yowie) are pretty universal.

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8 hours ago, Podo said:

Hairy humanoids (sasquatch, yeti, almas, dzunu'kwa, yowie) are pretty universal.

Dang, you beat me to it.

Orang Pendek (SSP?) is another one, albert not as large as most examples.

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I've noticed a lot of taunting sort of creatures in folklore; ones who will lure in their victim. A good example is mermaids (Inuit to be specific.) but I do know of an old story (Mayan?) of a water demon who had the hand of a woman on it's tail. It would taunt men into the water in order to drag them back to their cave to be eaten. However I would guess a lot of these types of stories are just fables told to scare people away from a certain area.

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2 hours ago, Yuggoth-Bug-Off said:

A good example is mermaids (Inuit to be specific.)

I've never heard of mermaids in Inuit mythology. Are you referring to Sedna? Are these Aleut mythology, or Inuit-proper? I don't doubt you, I just want to learn more.

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On 4/13/2017 at 11:24 PM, spartan max2 said:

Dragons are pretty universal in cultures 

Sort of, but dragons are very different between European and Asian cultures. 

 

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28 minutes ago, ShadowSot said:

Sort of, but dragons are very different between European and Asian cultures. 

 

That kind of made me think. Because European and Asian usually come up.. And I'm not necessarily asking you this directly ShadowSot, but the quote and your reply made me wonder because I honestly don't know.

Are there dragons in the Americas, Africa, or Australia? Or are they more of an Euro/Asia thing?

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19 minutes ago, rashore said:

That kind of made me think. Because European and Asian usually come up.. And I'm not necessarily asking you this directly ShadowSot, but the quote and your reply made me wonder because I honestly don't know.

Are there dragons in the Americas, Africa, or Australia? Or are they more of an Euro/Asia thing?

Oof, I dont know much about Africa or American mythology. Barely anything about Australian mythology, back to Earth would be a good person to ask there. 

 I know that the god Quetzcoatl is often considered dragonish being a winged serpent. 

I think some people have tried to make thunder birds into dragons. 

 I see more mentions of malignant serpents than real dragons like we'd thing of, but I just don't know enough to answer the question. 

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8 hours ago, Podo said:

I've never heard of mermaids in Inuit mythology. Are you referring to Sedna? Are these Aleut mythology, or Inuit-proper? I don't doubt you, I just want to learn more.

The Qalupalik is what i'm referring to. I'm pretty confident it's Inuit, I may be wrong though.

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10 hours ago, rashore said:

 

Are there dragons in the Americas, Africa, or Australia? Or are they more of an Euro/Asia thing?

Definitely dragons in African Coptic tradition. I recall seeing a fresco of St George (who did his fictitious dragon killing in Africa) spearing one. As I remember the design of the beast drew a lot from local nasty fauna from the area of where the painting was.  

And there are definitely dragon like animals in Western reports of Sub- Saharan African folk belief. But, as they tend to feature in cryptozoology rather than folk study (for want of a better phrase after a long night shift) there's no way to know without digging if they're genuine African traditions, or colonial era claptrap for the European market. 

Western versions of the African tales when presented through these channels are really, really dubious. I once read, but again in the same sort of place, that the sort of folkloric role that the dragon plays is in parts of Sub Saharan East Africa at least, filled in by the mngwa or nunda, a giant brindled killer cat. Who knows though. 

I think it all depends on what qualifies as a dragon across different cultures, if you mean a large mythical/magical reptile then yes in all of them, if you mean a six limbed fire breathing reptilian creature then I'm not sure, but then do all European/Asian 'dragon' traditions fit into that category either. 

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