The constellation
J2030 Absurd inability to count
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
- Counting wrong by not counting oneself. Numskulls conclude that one of their number is drowned · J2031 entry
- Are there nine or ten geese? Ten men are called in; each is to take a goose. If all have a goose, there are ten. One man is left without one. Numskull: "You should have taken one before they were all gone." · J2032 entry
- Three girls distressed by seemingly impossible task of going and returning together – one in half month, other in fifteen days, other in seven plus eight days · J2033 entry
- The interrupted calculation. While the merchant is making calculations, he asks the age of his youngest daughter, the elder daughter, and the mother, and always adds this to the number he has reached · J2035 entry
- Keeping the measure by stretching out the arms. Numskull goes to buy goods for his wife · J2036 entry
- Numskulls buy things in common: each pays full price · J2037 entry