9. Is there a particular culture's folklore you know most about?
Not really, although I am trying to get more involved with the local folklore or the region where I live, to know about traditions, songs and fae from the area.
So far, I only have general glimpses of different European tales and spirits, more or less what anyone could possibly know without researching much.
10. Is there a particular culture's folklore you'd like to know more about?
My own! I think many of the Spanish folklore has been lost for different reasons (probably the dictatorship had a big role in the recent decades), and it takes some effort to know it. Also, there are regions of Spain with well documented folklore and fairy tales and all that, but others seem to have nothing, which is unusual to say the least.
Where I live, there is an interesting mix because many of our traditions and fae come from the North, one of the regions with the most folk tradition, due to shepherding trails.
11. Have a bit of folklore trivia you'd like to share?
I shared about Maslenitsa and Carnaval in another post I just made, so I will come up with something else...
I don't know if this is true or not, some say it is and some say there is no base for it but I am going to go for believing it is because I like the implications it has if it is true.
There is a typical hat from a village in my region, Montehermoso, that women wear with the folkloric clothing. Some versions of this hat have a small mirror on top of it, at the center of a red decoration. It is said that it's to tell if women are single (the mirror is intact), married (it is broken) or a widow (it is covered with a black piece of fabric). This is the part that some people doubt, that the mirror had that intention but I like to think it is so because historically people have wanted to know the status of women and women have wanted to show her status too so...
What is true is that the hat changes colours and decorations if it's for single women (more colourful and decorated), married or widow (darker and more sober). Obviously, the original hats were a worker piece of clothing, with less decoration and the decorated version was made for parties and celebrations.
Unrelated to the mirror, but as a piece of trivia, there is currently only one person who makes these hats: she is 29 and 4th generation of hat maker from that village. According to her, it takes about 15 days to make one hat. The straw it's made of is ryegrass.
Here are some pictures of it (the painting is from 1917, by Santiago Martínez Martín, I couldn't find the authors of the rest of the pictures).
