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Seven-league boots are an element in European folklore. The boots allow the person wearing them to take strides of seven leagues per step, resulting in great speed. The boots are often presented by a magical character to the protagonist to aid in the completion of a significant task. From the context of English language, "Seven-league boots" originally arose as a translation from the French bottes de sept lieues,[1] popularised by Charles Perrault's fairy tales.
Mention of the legendary boots are found in:
- France – Charles Perrault's – Hop o' My Thumb, Madame d'Aulnoy's The Bee and the Orange Tree, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.
- Germany – Sweetheart Roland, Adelbert von Chamisso's Peter Schlemiel, Goethe's Faust (Mephistopheles uses them at the start of Part Two, Act Four[2]), Wilhelm Hauff's Der Kleine Muck.
- Norway – Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe – Soria Moria Castle
- Britain – Jack the Giant Killer, John Masefield's The Midnight Folk, C. S. Lewis's The Pilgrim's Regress, Wizardoligy, A Guide to Wizards of the World, Terry Pratchett's The Light Fantastic, The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Jenny Nimmo's Midnight for Charlie Bone, Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One, E. Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle, George Eliot’s The Mill On The Floss,
- United States – Zane Grey's The Last of the Plainsmen, Ruth Chew's What the Witch Left, Gail Carson Levine's The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, Roger Zelazny's Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming, Clair Blank's Beverly Gray at the World's Fair, Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Village Uncle.
- Russia – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Monday Starts on Saturday.
- ^ "the definition of seven-league boots".
- ^ Goethe (1959). Faust, Part Two. Middlesex: Penguin. pp. 216. ISBN 0-14044093-3.