Animals refuse to help dig well (make road) and are punished

Motif

Animals refuse to help dig well (make road) and are punished.

Mythological motifs. · Animal characteristics. · Various causes of animal characteristics. · Animal characteristics as punishment. · view the constellation · filed as A2233.1

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Scholars’ trail — 2references

The index’s own references — the collections where scholars sighted this story-shape, tradition by tradition. Titles on our shelf are live links; the rest is the frontier, not yet shelved.

general *Type 55
general *Dh III 312ff., 323.

Within the index

Filed under Animal characteristics: punishment for laziness.

4 finer motifs beneath it

Animals refuse to help dig well: may not drink from river or spring. (Cf. A2435.1.1.)Snake refuses to help make road: dies on road. (Cf. A2441.4.1.)Shrew refuses to help make road: dies on road. (Cf. A2468.1.)Sloth refuses to help make road: may not look upon sun

Filed beside it

Dog will not help build house: must remain out of doors. (Cf. A2223.1, A2433.3.2.)Owl as watchman goes to sleep: does not see by day. He is placed as watchman of wren who is imprisoned in a mousehole. (Cf. A2332.6.6.)Grasshopper builds no house for winter; ant strikes him blind: therefore born blind. (Cf. A2332.6.3.)

Carried in tale types

The Animals Build a Road (Dig Well) · ATU 552 recorded variants

wander