The constellation
H761 Riddle of the Sphinx: what is it that goes on four legs in the morning, on two at midday, and on three in the evening. (Man, who crawls as a child, walks in middle life, and walks with a stick in old age.)
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
filed under
- Metaphorical riddles · H720 entry
beneath it
keeps company
- Zeus smites Capaneus while he is climbing a ladder · L472 entry
- Punishment for splitting head and eating man's brains · Q211.7 entry
- Punishment: banishment (exile) · Q431 entry
- Blinding as punishment · Q451.7 entry
- The relative pleasures of love. Do men or women have the greater pleasure in sexual intercourse? Man who has been transformed to woman answers that women have the greater pleasure. The goddess blinds him as punishment · T2 entry
- Bird language learned by having ears magically cleansed · B217.5 entry
- Helpful horse · B401 entry
- Animals save person's life. (Cf. B540.) · B520 entry
- Tabu: man looking at nude goddess · C312.1.1 entry
- Tabu: revealing secrets of god · C51.4 entry
Thompson cites
- The Library (Bibliotheca) · BOOK III, ch. VI