Margaret told a very nice Swedish story involving putting salt on a magpie's tail leading to a wish. I think I've heard her tell it before, but that never really matters. The story is very similar thematically to the Indian one of the woman who marries a would-be alchemist. Her father persuades her husband that the secret of turning base material into gold involves the dust gathered at dawn from the leaves of banana trees, so he develops a banana plantation. Of course, he sells the bananas and becomes wealthy. When he has enough of the dust from the leaves, the father points out that, by growing the bananas, he has already turned base material into gold.
I made my first attempt at telling the Fijian story, "The Man Who Was Used as a Ball." I'm not quite happy with the demons yet, but I did, at least, remember all of the things that Tui Leku does to try to evade them. It mostly needs more practice. Which is not exactly a surprise - most stories need a few tellings with an audience to figure out what works. That's why I go to story swaps.
