A martinico has the approximate size and complexion of a ten-year-old child, the skin a greenish hue, the broken teeth, long and yellowish, and the large, wart-covered nose.

It covers its not very graceful body with a long tunic with hood, of earthy brown color, that remembers to the habit of the capuchins. Anyway, few are the ones who have seen him, because he prefers to stay invisible.

 

One day she handed a crate full of gold to a captain. He had to bring the most valuable, the most beautiful and the most expensive thing that no one in the world has.

 

The captain sailed all over the world. He arrived in India and found the most beautiful silk and ivory (tusks) there, but he didn't like it enough. Even in Russia he was offered the rarest fur, but the captain always dared not buy anything.

 

After a journey that lasted for years, he arrived in a large German trading city and there he found what he was looking for, the most precious thing in the world. It was grain, but not ordinary grain, it sparkled like gold. He knew for sure that nobody in the world had this. And after years the captain came back excitedly. The news spread quickly in Stavoren. People came running from all sides, of course they all wanted to know what the captain had brought. But Stavoren's wife thought it was just grain. The captain had to throw everything into the sea. But the old man said: "Don't do it, don't throw it away. It is very expensive for us, if you do that you would one day live in poverty. But Stavoren's wife did not believe him. She said: "No, dude, I'd rather have this ring back than that old prediction come true." And she threw the ring in the water with the grain after it. She was convinced that she would never see the ring again.

 

Life went on. Despite heavy storms, Stavoren's wife abandoned ships. Until one day, one of her servants was cutting a fish, and what was in it? The ring! She ran to Stavoren's wife and showed the ring.

 

Soon the prediction began. In no time, all her ships went down in storms, there were debt claims every day (she has to give money) at her door and she even had to sell her house. In 3 months she no longer owned a penny. She went begging on the street but she didn't get anything.

 

But that did not stop there, slowly Stavoren perished. Because on the place where the grain had been thrown into the sea, an island had emerged: the women's sand. That island blocked the entire island. No ships could pass through and that was the end of the port city. And slowly the mighty Stavoren became a small poor village.

The area of the Harz Mountains is very famous for old myths, legends and traditions. Therefore a lot of tourists come here... 
Especially the night from 30th April to 1st May is a great event our days which is connected to those old mayths and legends. It is known as 'Walpurgis' regions of northern and central Europe. 

 

Ellefolk lived in forests and marshes. Like humans, they lived

in families. Every Elle-king had a family consisting of Elle-girls, Elle-wives and Elle-children. 

 

The Elle-king was an old man, who could be recognised by his white hat. If you were to see an old man bathing in the bog during a full moon, you ought not get too close. If you got tooo close the Elle-king would blow a toxic wind towards you. ’

 

The Elle-wives were very beautiful when they were young. They had long fair hair, crystal blue eyes and always wore white, sparkling dresses. 

 

The Ellefolk looked like humans. They only way to know for sure if you were standing afce to face with an Ellefolk was to see them from behind. Unlike humans, Ellefolk had a hole in their back. 

 

The Ellefolk were neat-freaks. An everyday task for them was to wash their clothes in forest lakes or marshes. Humans and Ellefolk were often in close contact. The Ellefolk would often help humans. They would visit their farms and sing wonderful songs to humans. However, the Ellefolk could be very untrustworthy and dangerous. The Ellefolk had magic abilities and could easily put a spell on a human being or offer their magical brew to a by-passer. When there was a fog and the bogs were brewing and steaming it was said that Elle-girls would be close by dancing. They were known to lure young men and women into the forest to dance with the them. One could not decide on their own to stop dancing and many were forced to dance until they dropped dead. Or they might use magic to capture humans and bring them into the forest where they would turn them into Elleskudteor ellevilde(turning humans delusional) The Ellefolk were also prone to stealing. They especially enjoyed stealing small children.

 

 

In the folklore of the Low Countries, kabouters are tiny people who live underground, in a hill for instance. (In modern children's stories they live in mushrooms.) They are also spirits who help in the home. The males have long, full beards and wear tall, pointed red hats. They are generally shy of humans and in stories often punish people for spying on them. Throughout Flanders and the Netherlands they exist under a number of different local names like alvermannekes or auwelkes. 

The Dutch illustrator Rien Poortvliet played an important part in modern Kabouter lore with his publication of Leven en werken van de Kabouter (English title "Life and works of the Gnome"), later translated into English and published as "Gnomes".

Blue Gerrit is a figure from the old folk tales of the Veluwe. The story goes that this old Germanic forest spirit danced like a blue light among the trees and shrubs of the Veluwe forest. In deserted places he jumped on hikers' shoulders and made himself heavier so that they were exhausted when they finally reached civilization again. However, he also helped Veluwe people who were in trouble. For example, if a miller did not grind his grain on time, or a farmer did not harvest his crop on time, it would happen that Gerrit secretly finished the remaining work for them at night.

Eyewitness reports (old stories from the Veluwe)

The squire of Bussloo came to Voorst with an empty weitas on a winter evening. He sees Hanna, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a poor widow, and grabs her. He takes her on his horse, but the girl screams and says he sees Blue Gerrit. The squire does not believe in stories like this, but his horse is standing still and doesn't want to go forwards or backwards anymore. The being shows itself as a vision; the squire and the girl see the ghost with eyes like fiery balls, wrapped in a fluttering, luminous blue dress. The squire is stabbing with his weapon, but there is only air. The squire escapes on foot, but Blue Gerrit leaves the horse alone and jumps on the man's back. The squire sends Hanna on horseback to the pastor of Gietel, he has a magic book. But Hannah drives to her mother and both thank God. They forget to warn the pastor and the squire is only released from the heavy burden in daylight. He comes back to Bussloo with sweat and looks thirty years older in this night. Hanna brings the horse back and gets two hands full of gold from the squire. She is rid of poverty.

It was supposed to haunt the swamps near Tarascon, destroying everything in its path and terrorizing the population.

This monster is a kind of dragon with six short legs like those of a bear, a torso like that of an ox, covered with a turtle shell and with a scaly tail ending in a scorpion sting. His head has been described as that of a horse-eared lion with an old man's face. The Tarasque Tarasque was inscribed on the inventory of intangible cultural heritage in France in 2019, however since 25 November 2005, the Tarasque festivities in Tarascon have been proclaimed by UNESCO as part of the oral heritage and immaterial of humanity.Several versions exist to explain the end of the monster. One day, a young girl from Bethany, Saint Martha, who came to evangelize Basse-Provence, decided to brave the beast. With all the compassion that her Christian faith gave her, she obtained the submission of the creature who allowed herself to be led on a leash: Saint Martha had tied up forever this symbol of paganism. But the village had suffered so many losses that its inhabitants rushed on the monster and killed it. 

 

Or, sixteen young people would have defied and killed the Tarascan and only eight would have emerged victorious and founded the towns of Tarascon and Beaucaire.

 

 

An androphagous monster of pre-Roman tradition, covered with scales (known as "Tarasque de Noves") is the first known representation. It also appears in the North gallery of the cloister of the abbey of Montmajour.

 

This legend gave birth to festivities (created by King René d'Anjou in 1469). They were held over two days, the second Sunday after Pentecost, and then resumed on 9 July for the feast of Marthe, patroness of Tarascon. This king created the order of the Tarasquaires

 

These festivities were intended to exorcise the evil that, for the residents of the Rhone, resulted in the excessive overflowing of the river. Among other things, the Tarasquewas accused of upsetting the dams that had been painfully established, of breaking the dams that prevented the waters from flooding the Camargue.

 

The legend of the Bokkenrijders still appeals to the imagination, especially in Limburg. Buck riders were criminals - mainly thieves and robbers, but sometimes they also committed murders - who, according to legend, flew on bucks through the air. The folk tales only circulated in the Maasgouwen in the eighteenth century: the old duchy of Limburg, the Landen of Overmaas and the county of Loon, an area in present-day South Limburg.

Were these Bokkenrijders protocommunists, revolutionaries, expired soldierska or papeans? Victims of a decayed legal system with a disastrous torture practice? Are the Bokkenrijders trials a legal error that is unparalleled in the Netherlands?

Robbery

Between 1730 and 1742, the South of Limburg was flooded with robberies and robberies.

“An armed group of eight to ten men overpowered the residents of a remote farm or parsonage at night, and they committed horrific threats and sometimes torture (...) A robbery in a group yielded the most loot: money, valuables and clothing that in suits were tied and taken. Society, and especially the farming communities, were virtually powerless against this type of crime. The outrage and "social unrest", as it is called in the current criminal justice debates, was very great. The pressure on the judiciary to act vigorously and "rock-hard", correspondingly high (...) When the residents defended themselves, it could lead to murder. In 1737 a brutal robbery of the pastor had happened in Walhorn. The perpetrators were arrested. "(104-105)

The groups of criminals proceeded in various ways. For example, they regularly blackened their faces to make themselves unrecognizable and there was a club of robbers who, as a standard torture method, kept fire under the soles of the victims - or burned their faces or pubic areas - to get more loot. Another group distinguished themselves by binding the residents and throwing them in the basement.