Figures of Speech from Folktales

Not too long ago, I translated/retold a Mexican fairy tale called “Ya mero la besa un pobre” (A Poor Man Nearly Kissed Her). As I mentioned when I introduced the translation, Ya mero la besa un pobre is a Mexican saying similar in meaning to the English expression So close, and yet so far…. You might use it when you nearly accomplish a goal, or when sighing about a desire that is just out of reach. I also wondered if the story that I translated was in fact the origin of the expression. I still don’t know whether the story originates the expression, or vice versa; but I did start thinking about figures of speech that refer to folktales or fairy tales. I was able to think of quite a few of them; as someone who knows the stories, they all make perfect sense to me. But how do they sound to people who aren’t familiar with the folklore? Here are a few that I thought of. Some of them seem self-evident, but I think others would sound quite odd indeed, to someone who isn’t familiar with the…