The Hidden People
By the look of the posted screenshots/videos and user comments, the hidden people are refered to as the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldufólk"]Huldufólk[/URL], creatures from icelandic folklore.
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Men_hur_kommer_man_in_i_berget,_frågade_tomtepojken.jpg/593px-Men_hur_kommer_man_in_i_berget,_frågade_tomtepojken.jpg[/IMG]
Being from Norway, I agree that they could be based on the Huldufólk, but looking at the pictures posted, I would say they are a combination of icelandic and scandinavian folklore. Iceland was a part of Norway until 600 years ago, so no big wonder why they should have common folklore.
In scandinavian folklore, we call the creature a "Nisse"(Norway & Denmark) or "Tomte" (Sweden).
They are small creatures, always hiding from humans, and often living on lofts in farms/houses, or more rarely in the forest. They like to live undisturbed, and can cause damage if not respected by humans.
In the Grickle-video "Hidden people", the scenario is a bit scary. Nisser is not seen as the most scary creatures in nordic folklore, but we have some other creepy ones:
Nøkken:
He is a underworld creature, lives in ponds/lakes and tries to drown people or animals by attracting them with spell-music, or by luring them in other ways. It is said that you can hear his terrifying and tearful screams right before suicides or deaths.
Pregnant or young women, and unbaptized infants are prefered victims.
Troll:
They are evil, ugly, strong human-like creatures. They appear after sunset, and in the night they kill and plunder. Some trolls steal human babies from their beds, and sometimes exchange them with their own ugly offsprings.
There are several other creatures in nordic folklore, you can watch a video of some here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-BVowBzVOo
I actually hope the Pilot game is as creepy as the "Hidden People"-video, and I think it would be an interesting step for Telltale.
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Men_hur_kommer_man_in_i_berget,_frågade_tomtepojken.jpg/593px-Men_hur_kommer_man_in_i_berget,_frågade_tomtepojken.jpg[/IMG]
![http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Men_hur_kommer_man_in_i_berget,_frågade_tomtepojken.jpg/593px-Men_hur_kommer_man_in_i_berget,_frågade_tomtepojken.jpg[/IMG]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Men_hur_kommer_man_in_i_berget%2C_frågade_tomtepojken.jpg/593px-Men_hur_kommer_man_in_i_berget%2C_frågade_tomtepojken.jpg[/IMG]){kind=link}
Being from Norway, I agree that they could be based on the Huldufólk, but looking at the pictures posted, I would say they are a combination of icelandic and scandinavian folklore. Iceland was a part of Norway until 600 years ago, so no big wonder why they should have common folklore.
In scandinavian folklore, we call the creature a "Nisse"(Norway & Denmark) or "Tomte" (Sweden).
They are small creatures, always hiding from humans, and often living on lofts in farms/houses, or more rarely in the forest. They like to live undisturbed, and can cause damage if not respected by humans.
In the Grickle-video "Hidden people", the scenario is a bit scary. Nisser is not seen as the most scary creatures in nordic folklore, but we have some other creepy ones:
Nøkken:
He is a underworld creature, lives in ponds/lakes and tries to drown people or animals by attracting them with spell-music, or by luring them in other ways. It is said that you can hear his terrifying and tearful screams right before suicides or deaths.
Pregnant or young women, and unbaptized infants are prefered victims.
Troll:
They are evil, ugly, strong human-like creatures. They appear after sunset, and in the night they kill and plunder. Some trolls steal human babies from their beds, and sometimes exchange them with their own ugly offsprings.
There are several other creatures in nordic folklore, you can watch a video of some here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-BVowBzVOo
I actually hope the Pilot game is as creepy as the "Hidden People"-video, and I think it would be an interesting step for Telltale.
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Comments
This actually looks like something Annable used as reference for his design of the Hidden People. Trolls actually play a big part in a game I'm working on as well. It would be great if stuff like this actually existed; it would make things so much more interesting.
Oh, and hey it's May 4th!
That was me.
Too much Lazy Town, to be fair.
You are in no way uncorrect by calling them Huldufólk, because of the similarity between the folklores.
Secret Fawful: Cool! Do the game-project have any title?
Who the hell made up that crap? Were they on drugs or something when they thought up about that?? Dear lord, folklore gets creepier in every culture!
A lot of folklores/mythologies are also created to explain certain things, for example if a lost child was last seen at a lake, but no body was found, one would guess that Nøkken had taken him.
Or be good or Santa will not make you toys!
Why couldn't they just say: "Oh, yeah; your kid fell in the lake so go and mourn for 1/2 days."?
Telling horror stories to your four year old about a lake creature that plays a guitar till you decide to jump in, is a good reason why people today are mentally ill.
Folklore is CREEPY.
And that's exactly what makes it so fascinating.
Which is why I find it amusing that some of my uber religious friends are allowed to read the Bible, but not good modern literature because "it is full of sin."
I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish by posting this. Deutoronomy does have some crazy stuff in it, but...
Ah, I'm not going to get into an argument with you about this. It's not worth it, unless I intended to get the thread locked.
It's just Dashing. Don't take it so seriously.
That's more or less what Dashing was getting at, I think, but I've tried to phrase it in a more anthropological and culturally sensitive sort of way.
The idea posited was that folklore and mythology of cultures other than the western, Judeo-Christian set was weird. The idea was, hey, let's grab some stuff from an accepted as "not weird" source and go with something that might turn a person's head. Might have gone overboard on it, though it wasn't intended to offend(as hard as that might be to believe), but it was done because I often deal in hyperbole. I have not been a Christian for some time, so I've somewhat lost the empathy to sense that line anymore, but I bear no ill will toward them(er, you) as a general rule.
I probably should have gone with "The world's most misbehaved children get flammable rocks for Christmas", or "There's a magical fairy who pours her bountiful riches into purchasing old teeth" though.
I never got the tooth fairy thing. What's her motivation? In France it's a mouse, who needs the tooth to use as furniture. And it being a mouse, it doesn't need money so it gives it instead. Also, it's small and goes unnoticed.
It makes more sense to me. Plus it's neat imagining a whole town of tooth-furnitured mice located under your home.
I always saw the Tooth-Fairy as making a necklace out of the teeth. I don't know why I thought this, but it made sense to me at the time. I never really wondered about the money, because I never got much money for my teeth.
The tooth mouse sounds really cute. I probably would have insisted on making a stuffed animal mouse after losing my teeth at that age.
We have the mouse too, but I never knew it was because he need it for its forniture. Interesting.
Mental images of a city of tooth-furnitured mice. That's funny
There's an Argentinian Movie.
I always loved studying folklore. Seeing how stories or creatures move from one culture to the next is fascinating, and seeing how similar animals can be related to in totally different ways is interesting as well. Like how some cultures saw owls as symbols of wisdom and respected them, while others saw them as symbols of death and decay and considered them "cursed".
Holy crap that's the most adorable thing ever
Yeah, some stories say he would transform himself into a beautiful horse to tempt people into riding him, and when they did, he would ride back into the water and drown them.
.... Can folklore be burned?
17th century witch hunters say yes.
Unfortunately, their numbers have dwindled so only a Witchhunter Sargent and a Witchhunter Private remain of the Witchhunter army...
Gone are the glory days...
The Nokken, or Näcken as we call him, is very prominent in Swedish myth where he is portrayed as a beautiful naked man who would lure children and women to drown in lakes or streams with is enchanting violin music. He could also teach other musicians to play music like him in exchange for three drops of blood, a black animal and some vodka. This was at a very great risk, because the musicians would often get enchanted by the music and couldn’t stop playing until he died of exhaustion.
There’s a contest every year in my home county, Jamtland, called Näcken of the year. Where men compete in imitating the näcken by playing music in a cold river completely naked (they are only allowed to cover themselves with material found in the woods). The winner gets the title Näcken of the year and a 2000 kronor (about 200$) gift certificate. A very hilarious tradition if I say so myself.
Heres the homepage of the [URL="http://www.näck.nu/"]competion[/URL]
How do they decide on the winner, most women and children drowned?
The first man to call dibs on a kill scores a point.
True, that’s why they changed the rules during the 80’s. Now the winner is decided by his music talent and the originality of his costume.:D
np: Jamie Lidell - You Are Waking (Compass)
Sush! You're not supposed to know that!:D
I remember there I used to watch a cartoon about the Teeth mice when I was little. Found it here on youtube!