Folklore of the Low Countries
This includes the folklore of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium, Frisia, Luxembourg and Wallonia.
In 1891, schoolteacher Jules Lemoine and folklorist Auguste Gittée published Folk Tales from the Walloon Country.
They focused on strictly transcribing and translating tales from original Walloon manuscripts, mostly from Hainaut and Namur.
Among the stories are: "The Little Dutch Boy" is commonly thought to be a Dutch legend or fairy tale, but is in fact a fictional story, Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates, written by American author Mary Mapes Dodge, and not known in the Netherlands as traditional folklore.
In The Princess with Twenty Petticoats, a wise old oak counsels the king; in The Legend of the Wooden Shoe, another consoles a carpenter.
De Reis van Sint Brandaen (Dutch for The Voyage of Saint Brandan) is a sort of a Christianized Odyssey, written in the 12th century that describes the legend of Sint Brandaen, a monk from Galway, and his voyage around the world for nine years.
On his journeys Brandaen encounters the wonders and horrors of the world, people in distant lands with swine heads, dog legs and wolf teeth carrying bows and arrows, and an enormous fish that encircles the ship by holding its tail in its mouth.
The first written folklore of the Low Countries Carolingian romances about Charlemagne ("Karel" in Dutch).
[10] The animals in the Dutch version include: Reinaerde or Reynaerde the fox, Bruun the Bear, Tybeert the Cat, Grimbeert the badger, Nobel the lion and Cuwaert the Hare.
[14] "Dutch ethnologists view community festivals and holidays as the most active and conspicuous living tradition in the Low Countries.
[17] Other folk songs from the Netherlands with various origins include: The Snow-White Bird, Fivelgoer Christmas Carol, O Now this Glorious Eastertide, Who will go with me to Wieringen, What Time is It and A Peasant would his Neighbor See.
[18] The paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder from North Brabant, show many other circulating folk tales, such as the legend of Dulle Griet (Mad Meg), 1562.
