Hungarian #FolktaleMoment of the day:
You know the folktales where fairy maidens are taking a bath, and the "hero" steals the dress of one of them to force her to be his wife?
(Also in Selkie stories)
Well I just read a Hungarian folktale where the guy steals the dress - at which point the fairy walks up to him, slaps him across the face, and takes the dress back.
Pop off, queen.
I know that in Norwegian folktales there is a variant of the "man marries a hulder" stories where, some time after the marriage, the man starts drinking and being mean to his wife. Eventually, the wife takes a horseshoe and straightens it with her hands or (the more metal version) takes a red-hot piece of iron in the forge and bends it into a horseshoe. Her point, sometimes left unstated, being "I've put up with you so far because I love you, _but_..."
Sounds a bit like the eldest fairy in the story of "Fairy Elizabeth" from The Folk Tales of the Magyars.
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