Fables and Folktales: The Sun Maiden and the Crescent Moon

Kudos to that guy for immediately seeing through a disguise that would take anime protagonists several SEASONS to notice

Sun Maiden: "My first boyfriend became the Moon." Sokka: "That's rough buddy."

Other cultures: "The moon is a beautiful maiden, pristine and untouched!" Russian Natives, for some reason: "A GUY WAS ORPHANED THEN RIPPED IN HALF BY A WITCH WHO'D EATEN HIS SISTER"

Now, I was familiar with Baba Yaga and I already considered her as one of mythology's scariest witches, but you're telling me Siberian witches have metal teeth?! To chew through mountains!?

Brother: “He’s just not the hugest fan of being kidnapped about it” Every woman in Greek Mythology: “first time?”

Sun and moon dynamics: nothing is more classic. Side note: SOMEONE HEARD 'UNIQUE CULTURE' AND SAID 'SAVE IT'

"This demographic covers at least 9 language families" Note how she didn't say 9 languages. She said language families. By my estimates, that is a metric fuck-load of languages.

i love it when stories like this just randomly jump from 10 to 100 mph in 5 seconds. the transition from "cute story about love and boundaries" to "trying to escape from a witch wearing the skin of your dead sister" is so sudden and makes me wonder if it switched authors halfway through

“It just goes to show you: Something.” It’s the strong morals and complex analyses we come to this channel for.

If he was left-handed he would have reached out for Sun Bae's hand with his left hand instead of his right. He still would have died, but she would have been able to revive him properly. The moral of the story is that it's better to be left-handed.

Love when in myths/fairytales the way you escape from the Bad Guy is just "toss magic shit at them and hope it helps"

In many stories the sun maiden would have given the boy important magical advice for him to ignore, thus making his eventual fate at least partially justified. In this story, something shitty just happens to him through no fault of his own, and although he makes all the right choices, he still ends up torn in half. Maybe it's not coincidental that this story comes from a culture that was used to being eaten away at by a force outside their control.

This story is really sad, not only the guy is an orphan. He also lost his sister to a witch and got ripped into two, to make it worst he now lives as a half-moon for the rest of his life. I mean, woah. That’s already a lot anyone can handle Edit: Woah! So many likes? Thank you guys so much😍

That chase scene was actually legitimately scary, woman ate a tunnel through a Goddamn mountain. Sun Goddess banishing the brother for dying is ... interesting.

This quickly went from sounding like a hero's journey sort of story to psychological horror lovecraftian stuff to tragedy really fast. Almost gave me whiplash.

Lesson of the day: If your super magical radiant maiden friend is trying to save you from an all devouring witch, REACH HER WITH YOUR LEFT HAND

The nice thing is that you’re using this video on a Siberian folk tale to educate the world about marginalized groups within Russia and raising money for the Ukraine. Big Robin Hood energy.

I love how the story went from typical Mythology shenanigans to straight up horror movie/game after the sister was eaten and replaced. Like damn, that escalated quickly...

I feel like there's part of this story that is missing, like was the other half just eaten by the witch? Her having the heart seems like an important detail, especially with the shapeshifting and rock eating.

This is the most "Russian" (or maybe Eastern European, but with the whole Soviet thing Eastern Europe is somewhat synonymous with "Russia") story I've ever heard. It begins in tragedy, continues with a potential joy that is dulled by homesickness. An attempt to remedy that homesickness leads to encountering a magical apex predator juggernaut, which is only resolved by the main character being bifurcated, doomed to a half-living state constantly fending off death gnawing at what's left of him. Even the Sun Maiden becomes too depressed to handle seeing her love in such a sorry state and effectively banishes him from her sight for the majority of the time, only recalling him for brief moments before becoming too melancholy again.