Gurudruha, a hunter whose family is starving, hunts all day on Shivaratri without knowing it. At night he climbs a bilva tree by a pool with a pot of water. A doe comes in the first watch; as he aims, water and leaves fall on a linga below. She swears to return after seeing her young, and he lets her go; so too her sister and the stag in the next watches. At dawn the deer family returns together. He spares them, Shiva appears, names him Guha and promises Rama will visit him, and stays there as Vyadheshvara.
Shiva Purana, Koti Rudra Samhita 40, the hunter and Shivaratri, English translation (Wisdom Library)
King Chitrabhanu, keeping the fast, tells a sage of his past life as the hunter Suswara. Benighted in the forest with a dead deer, he sat sleepless in a bilva tree, weeping for his family and dropping leaves, which fell with his tears on a linga. At home he fed a hungry stranger before himself. At his death Shiva's messengers took him to Shiva's heaven, and he was reborn a king.
The hunter is the king's past life; no promising deer.
King Chitrabhanu and the Shivaratri fast (vrata book retellings; Hindu Blog; Isha); Maha Shivaratri — Wikipedia
Sources: Shiva Purana, Koti Rudra Samhita 40, the hunter and Shivaratri, English translation (Wisdom Library); King Chitrabhanu and the Shivaratri fast (vrata book retellings; Hindu Blog; Isha); Maha Shivaratri — Wikipedia
In the late Kalki Purana, Kalki learns from Parashurama, receives a horse, a sword and a talking parrot from Shiva, and through the parrot finds Padmavati of Simhala, whose every suitor turns into a woman; he marries her and the cursed kings become men again.
At Janaka's court in Mithila no king can lift the bow of Shiva that is Sita's bride-price; the young Rama lifts it, strings it and breaks it in two, and wins Sita. Tulsidas sets it at a crowded contest, and brings in Parashurama, furious at the sound.
Looking for Lakshmi, Vishnu sits in an anthill on the Venkata hill, and Brahma and Shiva come as a cow and calf to feed him. The Chola king's cowherd, finding the cow dry, follows her and swings his axe; the god rises from the anthill and takes the blow. The wound on his head is why the image wears camphor, and why pilgrims give their hair.
The demon Durgama wins all the Vedas from Brahma; worship stops, rain stops, and a hundred years of drought follow. The goddess appears with countless eyes and weeps for nine days until the rivers fill, feeds the world from her own body as Shakambhari, then kills Durgama and takes his name: Durga.
Kali, drunk with the blood of the demons she has killed, rules the banyan forest of Tiruvalangadu and terrifies it, until Shiva comes and she challenges him to dance. He drops an earring, picks it up with his toe and lifts his foot to his ear, and she cannot follow. At Chidambaram she loses the same contest and is sent to the edge of the town.
The demon Daruka can be killed by no man, so Shiva brings out of himself a goddess: Kali from the poison in his throat in the Linga Purana, Bhadrakali from his third eye in Kerala. She kills Daruka, and her anger is cooled only when Shiva lies in her path as a crying baby.
A demon made from Kama's ashes takes half the strength of any foe; the gods offer their bodies to a great fire, Lalita rises from the light, and she chooses Kameshvara with a garland.
Forbidden by Shiva to go to her father Daksha's sacrifice, Sati turns dark and terrible; when Shiva runs, she stands before him in every direction in ten forms, names them, and goes. Oral tellings put the same ring of ten round Shiva when he tries to leave Parvati or Kali.