From Al-Andalus and Qing China - 2 tales of lovesick men pining for male beloveds

 Parallels in homoromantic stories recorded in 11th century Muslim Spain and 18th century China.

Animals that attack their own reflections: Tales from Africa, Asia and Europe

From the Avatime ethnic group of Ghana:

A dog got into its master's house when its master went out and left the door open. It took meat from the table. Then it saw its own reflection in the large mirror in the room. Seeing another dog with meat in the mirror, the dog attacked it to get the other dog's meat. The mirror fell on the dog and killed it.¹

From India:

In the Foolish Lion and the Clever Rabbit from the Panchantara tales, an old rabbit saved itself from becoming the lion's meal by setting the lion against its own reflection in a well.

From Greece:

The Dog and Its Reflection" is one of Aesop's fables.

Notes

1. "The Greedy Dog", West African Folktales, translated and collected by Jack Berry

The price of giving false alarms: cautionary tales from three continents

From the Kamba ethnic group of Kenya:

A man named Ndothya would go out drinking every night. On his way home, just before reaching his house, he would call out to his wife Mbuti, yelling that a hyena was attacking him. His wife would come running with fire to drive off the hyena. Instead, she would find her drunk husband and no hyena.

One night, the man really did run into a hyena on the way home. He called for his wife, but Mbuti, thinking that it was one of her husband's usual lies, ignored him. Ndothya was bitten by the hyena.¹

From China:

The 8th century BCE King You of the Zhou dynasty was a debauched man. He divorced Queen Shen in order to install a beautiful lower-ranking consort, Bao Si, as queen in her place.

Now Bao Si had never smiled since the day she arrived at the king's palace. King You a offered thousand taels of gold to anyone who could make her laugh. The evil courtier Guo Shifu suggested lighting the alarm beacons that summoned the king's vassals to defend the capital in event of an attack.

King You did as Guo suggested. When Bao Si saw that the dukes and marquises of the vassal states had rushed to the capital with their armies only to find no threat, she started laughing. In this manner, King You made fun of his vassals multiple times.²

One day, the father of Queen Shen, angry at the way his daughter had been treated, attacked the capital with the military support of Quanrong nomads. The king tried to summon aid using the alarm beacons, but the vassal lords ignored him, thinking it was another trick. King You was killed by the Quanrong, who looted and burned his capital.³

Note that this story is probably more legend than history. Historical records have a different narrative of the conflict between the Lord of Shen (the deposed Queen's father) and King You. False alarms were not part of the historical account.⁴

From Greece:

The Boy Who Cried "Wolf"

Notes

1. "Ndothya and Hyena", East African Folktales, Dr. Vincent Muli Wa Kituku
2. 烽火戏诸侯, Baidu Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017
3. Bao Si, Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017
4. Guo Shifu, Baidu Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017

Ever wished that your infant would grow up in less than a day?

During times of personal crisis, parents around the world may have wished that their most helpless dependents could turn into their saviors overnight. 3 folktales from 3 continents illustrate this:

• Seeking the Sun (China)
• Sasabonsam's Match (Ghana)
• The Tale of Tsar Saltan (Russia)

Who is calling you when you sneeze?

Interesting similarities in sneeze-related superstitions from Oceania, Africa and Europe:

Country: Solomon Islands

If you sneeze, someone is speaking badly of you, cursing you, or bidding his personal ghost to eat you.

What to do after sneezing: Summon your own personal ghost to counter-attack the person who cursed you.¹

Country: Nigeria

If you sneeze, someone is calling for you, possibly with evil intent.

What to do after sneezing: Tell the sneeze that you are not the only person with your name, in the hope that the sneeze will move on to look for its real target - another individual who has the same name.²

Country: Greece

If you sneeze, someone is talking about you, possibly someone who has cursed you by casting an evil eye on you.

What to do after sneezing: Spit thrice down your chest to ward off the effects of the evil eye. There are also ways to determine the identity of the person who was speaking of you.³

Part 2 of How NOT to Get a Wife: Stealing Skins

Myths of very different cultures contain the theme of the human male acquiring a wife of non-human origin by stealing her property and then withholding information from her. Three folktales from Chad, Sweden and Scotland all share these elements:

• An human man.
• A wild animal who becomes a woman after shedding her skin.
• The man steals the skin of the animal-woman.
• Unable to return to her animal form, she stays and becomes the man's wife.
• The animal-wife eventually finds the stolen skin and leaves the marriage.