Google Translate doesn’t seem to be terribly helpful here, but here’s the text:

Для выполнения мотива необходимо 9 петель и 12 рядов, минимум 7 см жемчужной вязки требуется для того, чтобы расположить цветок с лепестками.

[1 лиц., накид, 1 лиц., накид, 1 лиц.] из 1-й п., получая 5 п. из одной, перевернуть, 5 изн., перевернуть, 5 лиц., протянуть 5-ю п. через 4, 3, 2-ю п. и свросить провязанные петил со слицы.

Вяжите лицевыми петли, отмеченные значком, с лицевой стороны, изнаночными с изнаночной стороны при выполнении жемчужной вязки, а когда вы закончите вязание фона, снимите указанную петлю и вяжите (1 лиц., накид, 1 лиц.) из нее в первом ряду дополнительной схемы лепестка, продолжайте вязать лепесток отдельно, затем закрепите его и пришейте на вязаное полотно.

Disclaimer: I am fairly fluent but do not know knitting terminology, so this is a direct translation with knitting terms I looked up. I do know that pearl and purl are different things, i didn’t mix them up, I just don’t know the English term for Жемчужная вязка. When I write “pearl stitch”, I mean this:

I found this for you as well: http://www.knitting-bee.com/knitting-tutorials/russian-english-knitting-chart-translation

TRANSLATION START

To create the pattern one needs 9 stitches (direct translation is loops) and 12 rows. At minimum, 7 cm of pearl stitch is required to arrange/place the flower with petals.

[1 knit stitch, yarn over, 1 knit stitch, yarn over, 1 knit stitch] from the first stitch, make five stitches from one, turn over, purl 5, turn over, knit 5. Pull the 5th stitch through the fourth, third, and second stitches ant take the connected stitches off the needle,

Make knit stitches on the right side and purl stitches on the opposite side where indicated by the symbols after finishing the pearl stitch. When you have finished knitting the background, take out the indicated stitch and knit (1 knit stitch, yarn over, 1 knit stitch) from that point in the first row using the pattern for a petal. Continue knitting the petal separately, then attach it and sew it to the knitting canvas.

TRANSLATION END

there you go @jacobjtcoley

@someone-else-entirely this may interest you too

@yeli-renrong the transcript was very helpful and saved me tons of time, thank you!

@elodieunderglass an article to speak to your very soul

@someone-else-entirely

AMAZING OBSCURE FAIRY TALE, MUCH? OKAY OKAY OKAY, HERE:

A King and Queen ruled in a time of peace and abundance; the only mar upon their happiness was that they had no children, through their youth and even into their middle age, despite many fervent hopes and prayers. One day the Queen went walking on a forest path without her attendants. There, in the dark quiet of her despair, an old woman found her. 

“My dear,” asked the woman, “why are you so sad?”

“It doesn’t matter,” answered the Queen, gently. “It wouldn’t make a difference if you knew.”

“You may be surprised.“ 

“The King and I have no children. He lacks an heir, and I have always wanted a child of my own to care for. But you see, that’s not something you can help.”

“Of course it is,” nodded the woman, for naturally she was a witch. “Listen and do as I say; take a drinking cup and place it upside-down in your garden tonight. In the morning, you will find two roses beneath it - one red, one white. If you eat the red rose you shall give birth to a son, and the white rose shall give you a girl. But remember that you must not eat both.”

“Not both?”

“No,” the woman said. 

Astonished, and not a little suspicious, the Queen agreed. That night she did as the old woman had instructed, and in the morning she discovered two small roses under the cup’s brim. 

“But which one should I choose?” thought the Queen. “If I have a son, he may grow into a man who marches off to war and dies. If I have a daughter, she may stay longer with me, but I will have to see her given away in marriage. In the end, I may have no child after all.”

At last she decided on the white rose, but it was so sweet to the taste - and the thought of losing a daughter to marriage was so bitter - that she ate the red rose as well, hardly remembering the old woman’s warning.

Shortly afterwards, as happens in such stories, the Queen was found to be with child. Her husband was traveling when the time came for her to give birth, and so he did not bear witness to what happened, which was this:

The Queen’s first child was no child at all, but instead there tumbled forth from her body the long, scaly one of a lindworm, a hideous dragon with a venomous bite. It scrabbled out the window on its two legs, even before the terrified midwives could move to do anything, and amidst the chaos the Queen delivered a second child as well. This one was a fine, handsome boy, healthy and perfectly formed, and the Queen made her midwives swear that they would tell no one what they had seen. And when the King arrived home, joyous at the news of his son’s birth, not a word was said. 

Years passed, so that the Queen wondered if it had not been a terrible dream. Soon enough it came time for the prince to find a wife, and he set out with his guard to a neighboring kingdom to ask for its princess’s hand in marriage. But suddenly a great lindworm appeared, and laid itself before the prince’s horse, and from its jagged-tooth mouth came a voice:

“A bride for me before a bride for you!”

The prince and his company turned about to flee. The Lindworm blocked their passage and spoke again.

“A bride for me before a bride for you!”

The prince journeyed home to tell his parents. Distraught, the Queen confessed that it was true. The Lindworm was indeed the elder brother of the prince, and so by rights should marry first. The King wrote to the ruler of a distant land, asking that they send their princess to marry his son: but he did not say which one.

A lovely princess journeyed to the kingdom, and did not see her bridegroom until he appeared beside her in the Great Hall, and by then (naturally) it was too late. The next morning they found the Lindworm asleep alone in the bridal bedchamber, and it was quite clear he had devoured his new wife. 

A second princess was sent, and a third. Both met the same fate, but each time the prince dared to embark on a journey, the Lindworm would appear again and speak: 

“A bride for me before a bride for you!”

“Father,” the prince said, “ we must find a wife for my elder brother.”

“And where am I to find her?” asked the King. “We have already made enemies of the men who sent their daughters to us. Stories are spreading fast, and I am sure no princess would dare to come now.”

So instead the King went to the royal gardener’s cottage, where he knew the old man lived with his only daughter. 

“Will you give me your daughter to marry my son, the Lindworm?” asked the King.

“No!” cried the gardener. “Please, she is everything I have in this world. Your monstrous son has eaten his way through three princesses, and he’ll gobble her up just the same. She’s too good for such a fate.”

“You must,” the King said, “You must.”

Distraught, the gardener told his daughter everything. She agreed to the King’s request and went into the forest so that her father would not see her weeping.

And there, in the dark quiet of her despair, an old woman found her. 

“My dear,” asked the woman, “why are you so sad?”

“I’m sorry,” answered the girl, kindly. “It wouldn’t make a difference if I told you.”

“You may be surprised.“ 

“How can that be? I’m to be married to the King’s son, the Lindworm. He’s eaten his first three brides, and I don’t know what will stop me from meeting the same end. That’s not something  you can help me with.”

“Of course it is,” nodded the woman again. “Listen and do as I say. Before the marriage ceremony, dress yourself in ten snow-white shifts beneath your gown. Ask that a tub of lye, a tub of milk, and as many birch rods as a man can carry be brought to your bridal chamber. After you are wed, and your husband orders you to disrobe, bid him to shed a skin first. He will ask you this nine times, and when you are left wearing one shift you must whip him with the rods, wash him in the lye, bath him in the milk, wrap him in the discarded shifts, and hold him in your arms.”

“Do I truly have to hold him?” the girl asked, in disgust.

“You must. It may mean your life.”

The girl was suspicious, but she agreed to the woman’s plan however absurd it seemed. When the day came for the marriage, she dressed herself in ten white shifts before donning the heavy gown they offered her. When she looked upon her husband for the first time, waiting for her in the Great Hall, her steps did not falter. And when she asked for the rods, the lye, and the milk, she said it with such ease that the servant could do nothing but obey.

Finally, the girl and the Lindworm were left alone in the darkened bedchamber. For a moment she listened to the rasp and click of his scales on stone, and heard his soughing breath. 

“Maiden,” said the Lindworm, “shed your shift for me.”

“Prince Lindworm,” answered the girl, “shed your skin first!”

“No one has ever asked me that before,” the answer came.

“I am asking it of you now.“ 

So the Lindworm shed a skin, and the girl shed a shift, but she revealed the second shift underneath. 

“Maiden,” said the Lindworm, a second time, “shed your shift for me.”

“Prince Lindworm,” answered the girl, again, “shed your skin first!”

They repeated this, nine times in all, and each time the Lindworm shed a skin the girl removed another white shift, until she was left wearing one.

The Lindworm, shivering and weak and bloodied, spoke his request a last time.

“Wife,” asked the Lindworm, “will you shed your shift for me?”

“Husband,“answered the girl, “will you shed your skin first?”

And the Lindworm did as she asked of him, tearing himself free of scales and armor even to the bare flesh beneath, and the girl whipped the writhing creature with her birch rods until they snapped; she carried the whole massive length of him to the tubs, lye and milk, washed him clean and bathed him and swathed him in the shifts like a great, terrible child, collapsed to the floor with her husband in her arms, and there she stayed until, exhausted, she fell asleep.

When she woke, it was to the timid knocking of a servant on the door. 

“Princess?” asked the servant. “Princess? Are you alive?”

The girl looked about the bedchamber: there in the morning light were the dried skins, and the tubs, and the broken rods, and the blood, and in her arms slept a pale, weary, but very handsome man. 

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, I am.”

The King and Queen were astounded and thrilled to hear how the girl had saved their son from his curse, and she ruled together with her husband for many long years, and thus closes our tale of the most intense game of strip poker that you shall ever hear.

This whole tale is amazing. I lost it at the last part oh man.

is it just me or is this fairytale describing an intense BDSM session complete with aftercare

I’ve been meaning to look up this story after seeing it referenced in the “St. Patrick’s Day” short in the Holidays film anthology. The only real connection between this tale and that short, though, is the idea of a woman giving birth to a creature (a snake, in the film’s case). The quiet student in her class does a report on the story, mostly to troll the woman (who she cursed somehow).

Oooooooh!

I had not heard this one before, but it’s very very close to the Norwegian fairy tale “Tatterhood,” which is hands down my favourite fairy tale ever.  The beginnings are virtually identical.  You can get it from D.L. Ashliman’s site, but that retelling is a little ouchie.  I much prefer the Lauren Mills version (gorgeous illustrations, too!), but, like, copyright and stuff, so I’ll give you my own retelling here.

Once upon a time, there was a king and queen who had everything they could want, except for a child.  The queen went walking in the forest one day, and encountered a beggar girl.  “Something to eat, mum?” the girl asked.  And when it looked like the queen was about to walk on, she added, “I can give you your heart’s desire.”

The queen didn’t see what a beggar girl could possibly give her that she might want, but she was a kind soul, so she gave the girl a bun and a few coins.  

The girl said, “If you want a child, bathe in a silver tub under the next full moon, but take care that you are not out past midnight. If you return before midnight, no harm will come to you. Take the water home with you, and dash some of it under your bed.  Two plants will grow.  One will be a wild weed, and the other a beautiful flower.  Eat the flower, but not the weed, and soon you will have a beautiful baby girl.”

The queen thanked the beggar girl indulgently.  She was skeptical, but the more she thought about it, the more she reasoned that she had nothing to lose.  A silver tub had been among her wedding gifts, and she made sure that it was ready for the next full moon.  She bathed as instructed, and then carried the silver tub back to the palace with her.  But she had not paid due attention to the time, and before she could enter the palace walls, the forest began to twitch and hiss around her, and evil little shapes melted out of the shadows to surround her.  Hobgoblins!  

“Please, leave me in peace,” she said.  “I’m the queen of this land.  I can give you whatever you want.”  

The hobgoblins looked at each other at this, and their smiles got bigger, showing needle-like teeth.  “Your firstborn child, then,” said the largest of them.  “When the heir to the throne turns sixteen, we will come.”  Then she gestured, and they all turned and were gone.  The woods were silent again.  

Weak with relief, the queen completed the rest of the beggar girl’s instructions, dashing some of the water under her bed.  When she awoke the next morning, the flower and the weed had indeed sprung up.  She ate the flower as directed, and found that it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted.  Unthinkingly, she gobbled up the weed as well, and found that it tasted no less sweet.

In time, the Queen found that she was pregnant with twins.  When the time came for her to give birth, the first twin born was large and strong-boned and coarse-featured, with a mop of wild curly black hair, and dark eyes glowing with intelligence.  She met the queen’s eyes, smiled with a full set of teeth, and said, “Mama!”  

“If I’m your mama,” the Queen said, “God grant me strength to mend my ways!”

She was now terrified at the prospect of two of these strange creatures knocking about, but the second twin was born, and she was blond-haired and pink-skinned and mild, everything that a queen could want in a princess.  The Queen named her Isabella.  The other one, she did not name at all: she had not forgotten her bargain with the hobgoblins, and it was with great guilty relief that she watched this wild thing rampage through the castle.  If she did not name her firstborn daughter and did not get attached, it would be no great struggle to give her up.  

Isabella thrived, growing into the most wonderful child.  The older twin thrived too, albeit differently.  The girl’s first and most beloved toy was a wooden spoon, and although the King insisted that both of his daughters have the most beautiful dresses, she would pick two or three favourites and wear them until they were patched and ragged.  She’d found a tattered cloak from somewhere, so that she earned the nickname Tatterhood, and she had more or less adopted a goat from the palace herds, and rode it all over, indoors and out.  She built mud castles for the frogs, and climbed every tree on the grounds.  She took apart the King’s carriage to see how it worked, although she was good enough to put it back together again.  She got jam all over the captain of the guard’s second-best set of daggers.

The Queen tried to keep Isabella away from Tatterhood, but it was useless.  The sisters always found a way to play together.  And Tatterhood, who walked first, talked first, got into everything, and peppered the palace staff with questions, delighted in teaching her sister what she had learned, so that Isabella grew to be a very capable and knowledgeable young lady.

The Queen, as I said, had a kind heart, and she did try, in the ways that she knew how, to be a good mother to Tatterhood.  She hid the wooden spoon and the tattered cloak, and drove the goat outdoors, but Tatterhood was a capital explorer, and when her mother summoned her an hour later for lessons in deportment, Tatterhood arrived riding goatback, wearing her cloak and brandishing her wooden spoon.  Soon after that, the Queen gave up trying to change her, or to separate her daughters, but she worried terribly.  In spite of herself, she had grown fond of the wild and strange girl, and didn’t want to give her over to the hobgoblins.  

As the twins’ sixteenth birthday approached, the Queen grew more and more distraught.  It had seemed like such a long time when she’d made the promise - time enough to find a solution, surely.  But now the bakers were planning the cake and the musicians were practicing birthday songs, and she had no idea what to do.  She hadn’t even told anyone.  Well, how could she?

Both girls saw this.  At their party, when their mother did not appear, Tatterhood went to her chamber.  “If the trouble is what the boys will think of me,” Tatterhood said, “don’t worry about me.  Let Isabella marry and be the heir.  No one needs to know I was born first.”

This was more than the Queen could bear.  “It’s not boys,” she sobbed.  “It’s hobgoblins!”  And the whole story came out.

Tatterhood didn’t rage at her mother, as the Queen had expected.  She looked out the window, at the setting sun, and said, “I can still fix this, if everyone does exactly as I say.”  She leapt on the back of her goat, and rode it up and down the halls, cloak flapping, spoon waving, and commanded everyone - servants, nobles, honoured guests, foreign dignitaries, everyone - to close the windows, and bolt them, and to open them for no one.  Then everyone went down to the ballroom for cake and dancing, by candlelight, while the hobgoblins roared and thumped outside.

Everything would have been fine, if they could have made it until sunup. But one prince, who was trying very hard to impress Isabella, had to show how brave he was by unlatching a window and taking a peek to see how things were.  And the instant the window opened, every candle in the ballroom blew out, and every window blew open.  For a second, the only noise was a calf’s bawling.  As everyone’s eyes adjusted to the moonlight, it became clear that Isabella’s head had been replaced by the head of a calf.

Tatterhood caused a diplomatic incident, although when the prince’s parents heard the story, they agreed that he’d had that one coming.  Then she demanded a ship and a crew and provisions: she was going to get her sister’s proper head back.

She bid their parents goodbye, and sailed for a year and a day, to the island where the hobgoblins made their home.  She stole through their stinking tunnels and burst out of the floor of their trophy room, where Isabella’s head sat atop a shelf.  As the fair twin watched, mouthing silent encouragement (while back on the ship the calf bawled incessantly, jumping up and down on the deck, punching the air with delicate little fists), Tatterhood hammered at the hobgoblins with her wooden spoon, elbows, and the odd well-placed foot, while her goat kicked them with strong hind legs.  She saw an opening, seized Isabella’s head and tucked it into her cloak, and gallopped back down the tunnel.  Two or three hobgoblins chased her halfheartedly, but none of them really wanted to catch her.  

The moment that Isabella touched her head, it was back on her shoulders, and the calf’s head was gone.  Tatterhood hugged her sister fiercely, and they set sail again, in the direction of home.

After a year and a day of sailing, they came to land.  The crew were weary and provisions were low, so the sisters dismissed them with thanks, and some of the gold in the hold.  Then they sailed along the coastline until they found a castle.  They’d talked about what to do if they found themselves in a strange kingdom.  Isabella anchored the ship somewhere conspicuous and retired below decks.  Tatterhood rode her goat up and down the decks, waving her wooden spoon, until someone came down from the castle to talk to her.  “Is it only you aboard?” the spokesperson asked.

“There’s also my sister,” Tatterhood told them, “but she will speak to only the king.”  

“The king is a very busy man, my dear.”

“We can wait.”

They asked her several more times over the next few days, but that was the only answer she would give them.

On the third day, the King, intrigued, came down to see the ship, with its wild and strange passenger, and the alleged sister.  There was jovial speculation that Tatterhood was the prettier of the two, and the sister remained below decks for very good reason.  But when Tatterhood welcomed him onto the ship with an absolutely correct diplomatic greeting, and Isabella mounted the deck, the King was enchanted by her great beauty.  He offered to open his castle to her, to both of them.  He was a widower with one son, and he would be honoured if they would accept his hospitality.

Over the weeks that followed, Isabella found herself liking the King.  He was quite a bit older, but she was of age now, and she knew her position was such that she was going to have to marry someone sooner or later.  He was kind and respectful, they liked many of the same pursuits, and she could do much, much worse.  So after they had stayed some months, when the King raised his glass at a banquet and said, “My dearest Isabella, would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?” she said, “Of course!  I have but one condition.  The Prince must marry my sister.”

“What?” shrilled the Prince, who had been lavishing all his attention on a certain bard, and had had very little to do with the wild and strange creature under his roof.  

“What?” spluttered Tatterhood.  “Um.  Thank you, but no princes for me, thank you.  But I’d gladly ride beside him in the bridal procession.  Thank you.”

“Done!” cried the King, paying no attention to his son’s stricken expression.

The day of the wedding came.  Isabella offered Tatterhood her best dress and the help of her lady-in-waiting, but Tatterhood said, “Thanks, but those are things that suit you best.  I’ll do what suits me.”  Isabella hugged her and laughed, privately thinking that she couldn’t picture her sister so tamed, and didn’t want to.

As the procession began, the Prince was sullen, and responded to Tatterhood’s questions with one- and two-word replies.  But her questions were intelligent, and her curiosity genuine, and after a time the two were chatting like old friends.  They discovered they had a lot in common, and as they rode the final mile to the great church where the ceremony was to be conducted, he kept no secrets from her.  

And Tatterhood, determined to have no secrets from him, said, “Why don’t you ask me why I ride a goat?”

“All right,” he said.  “Why is it that you ride a goat?”

“I don’t,” she said.  “I ride the most magnificent milk-white stag.”  

And when he looked again, he saw that she was in fact riding the finest stag he’d ever seen.

“You could ask me why I carry a wooden spoon,” she suggested.

“Er.  All right.  Why is it that you carry a wooden spoon?”

“What you see before you,” she said, “is not a battered old wooden spoon, but an exquisitely crafted sceptre of rare woods and precious jewels.”

“I see,” he said, and did.

“And now you might ask me why I go around in a tattered cloak, with my hair in disarray.”

“I think I know, though,” he said.  “Because it is exactly what you want.  And if and when you want something different, you’ll change.”

“Good answer,” she said, and suddenly she was a vision of regal loveliness, perfectly attired for her sister’s wedding.  

“And…” he said, choosing his words very carefully, “If I have to marry someone for diplomatic purposes as they keep telling me, I think it should be someone who understands the value of living on one’s own terms.  If you’re all right with that.  And if you’ll have me.”

She gave him a nod.  “We’re going to be good friends,” she said.  “And I guess our kingdoms are too.”

The Prince had a word with the cleric, and they made the wedding ceremony a double.  

Isabella, in spite of having a stepson two years older than her, and Tatterhood, in spite of having her sister as her mother-in-law, lived happily ever after.  Isabella and the King had several fine, healthy children together, and he doted on her until the end of his life.  Tatterhood and the Prince had no children; with Isabella’s children to continue both royal lines, it really wasn’t necessary.  But as much as Tatterhood assured her mother it was by choice, her mother still kept advising her to walk outside the palace grounds, and look for a certain beggar girl.

I’ve always kind of liked The Lindworm, but how’d I miss Tatterhood? That’s an awesome story. I like how they both start with the same idea, but follow it in different directions.  And they both have active female protagonists, though in different ways. 

What’s interesting to me is where the stories oppose each other - in The Lindworm, the twins are all about consumption - lindworm consumes his brides, younger brother desires a wife for himself. For the protagonist to succeed, she must convince the lindworm to give something up. Interesting reversal, also reminds me of other shapeshifting-lover stories (though usually the shapeshifter is more terrifying during the process than before). On the other hand, Tatterhood’s twins are givers. They care about each other, and Tatterhood fearlessly goes adventuring for her sister. It’s only after taking care of her sister’s needs that Tatterhood’s transformation allows her to finally get something for herself (on her own terms). 

It’s a little bit out of my field as it stands right now, but I would love to see if anyone’s done work on either tale and regional stories of territorial deities.  The idea of the monarch marrying the land was a thing in Ireland (possibly other places, but Ireland was what I studied), and there was a lot of cultural exchange between Ireland and Scandinavia at certain points.  “Tatterhood” has always reminded me obliquely of the Irish myth of Eochaid’s sons, and I could see “The Lindworm” working in similar ways, but with a very different approach to the land.  (Not to privilege one approach or the other; both stories appear to be Norwegian, and I can imagine some Norwegian landscapes needing a lot of taming to be suitable for human habitation.)

That would be so fascinating to look into. Initially I had connected these stories with other fairytales of transformations, where some monstrous form must either be endured or removed to transform the creature back into a man. In the case of the lindworm, the connection I first jumped to were stories where the initial monstrous transformation came about as a punishment, so to turn him back into a human is to right a past wrong, since the lindworm only exists because his mother didn’t follow the witch’s instructions. But other fairytales with transformations treat them as a test of some sort, where only the person who can follow the rules/complete the quest/see through the disguise earns the right to marry the prince/princess. And that approach does look a lot more like a marrying-the-land story, though less explicit than Eochaid’s sons. Fairytales do tend to be very different beasts from myths, though they do inherit components from them - it’d be interesting to see what the genealogy of these stories actually is…

@myobsessionsandloves @stupidbolts @iironhide

Wasn’t there a really cool (and f/f if I recall right) comic of the Lindwurm story that went around a while back on here?

yes here it is

http://mishacakes.tumblr.com/post/139126451359/finally-heres-my-contribution-to-the-valor