The constellation
H1050 Paradoxical tasks
A constellation is one motif’s neighborhood in the record — the story-shapes filed around it, the tale types that carry it, and the texts where it is witnessed, every line a receipted link. Click a motif to travel. Click a text to read it. The entry · wander
● motif
● tale type
● on the shelf
● attested
The same sky, in words
beneath it
- Task: coming neither on nor off the road. (Comes in the rut or the ditch at side of the road.) · H1051 entry
- Task: standing neither inside nor outside of gate. (Forefeet of horse inside, hind feet outside.) · H1052 entry
- Task: coming neither on horse nor on foot (riding nor walking) · H1053 entry
- Task: coming neither naked nor clad · H1054 entry
- Task: coming neither barefoot nor shod. (Comes with one shoe on, one off; or in soleless shoes.) · H1055 entry
- Task: coming neither with nor without a present (game). (Lets bird fly as the reaches it toward king.) · H1056 entry
- Task: coming neither by day nor by night. (Comes at twilight.) · H1057 entry
- Task: standing between summer and winter. (Stands between wagon and sleigh.) · H1058 entry
- Task: coming neither with nor without a companion. (Comes with an animal.) · H1061 entry
- Task: coming neither washed nor unwashed. (Comes partly washed.) · H1062 entry
- Task: coming neither hungry nor satiated. (Eats a thin soup, a leaf, a single grain, or the like.) · H1063 entry
- Task: coming laughing and crying at once. (Rubs eyes with a twig to simulate crying.) · H1064 entry
- Task: bringing best friend, worst enemy, best servant, greatest pleasure-giver. (Brings dog, wife, ass, little son respectively.) · H1065 entry
- Task: sweep the floor and do not sweep it · H1066 entry
- Task: light fire but do not light it · H1067 entry
- Task: making bed but do not make it · H1068 entry
- Task: eat bread but bring it back whole. (Center of loaf eaten.) · H1071 entry
- Task: give sheep good care but do not let it fatten. (Sheep fed but kept near wolf where it is afraid and does not fatten.) · H1072 entry
- Task: filling glasses with water that has neither fallen from heaven nor sprung from the earth. (Uses horse's sweat.) · H1073 entry
- Task: furnish beef which is neither male nor female. Countertask: send for it when it is neither night nor day · H1074 entry
- Task: bringing something ever-increasing (ambition); something ever-decreasing (life); something which neither increases nor decreases (one's fated lot); and something which both increases and decreases (universe) · H1075 entry
- Task: building house neither on ground nor in sky · H1077 entry
cross-ref
carried in tale type
- The Clever Farmgirl [J1111 · ATU 875
- The King and the Farmer's Son · ATU 921