Seven-league boots  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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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.

Mention of the legendary boots are found in:

• Germany – Sweetheart Roland, Adelbert von Chamisso's Peter Schlemiel, Goethe's Faust (Mephistopheles uses them at the start of Part Two, Act Four), Wilhelm Hauff's "Der Kleine Muck"
• 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.
• 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, 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".