μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

Water of Life. Resuscitation by water.

The dead. · Resuscitation. · Water of Life. · view the constellation · filed as E80

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“The loon then flew with him toward its nest, and finally brought him to it, on a large cliff. After they had reached this, it began to fly again, and took him to a pond.??? The loon then dived with him, in order to make him recover his eyesight. It would dive and ask him whether he was smothering; when he answered that he was, it took him above the surface to regain his breath. Thus they dived, until the blind boy could see again.”

— Tales of the North American Indians, Tale 74 · served from our shelf  receiptuncorrected OCR — being verified against the scan

Attested across traditions
In our texts — keyword-matched, unreviewed
Scholars’ trail — 23references

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.

  • RussianRalston Russian Folk-Tales (London 1873) 231ff.
  • Italian NovellaRotunda
  • BabylonianSpence 130 (Ishtar)
  • India*Thompson-Balys, Penzer X 210 s. v. "Life, water of"
  • Buddhist mythMalalasekera II 347
  • ArabianBurton Nights S VI 213ff., 221
  • SiberianHolmberg Siberian 494
  • IndonesianDeVries Volksverhalen II 359 No. 104
  • HawaiiBeckwith Myth 74, 121, 153, 264
  • Fijiibid. 76
  • N. Am. Indian*Thompson Tales 355 n. 279a
  • Africa (Bushman)Bleek and Lloyd 27, 67, 137.
  • general Types 550, 551
  • general *BP I 513, II 400
  • general **Wünsche Lebensbaum
  • general Chauvin VI 73f.
  • general Hertz Abhandlungen 47ff.
  • general *Fb "vand" III 1001b, "livets vand" II 439b, "flaske" I 309a
  • general Dawkins Alexander and the Water of Life (Medium Aevum IX 173–192)
  • general Jacobs' list s. v. "Water of Life"
  • general Köhler-Bolte I 186, 562. – Icelandic: Hrólfssaga Gautrekssonar (ed. Detter) 46, 64
  • general Pelew Islands: Dixon 252
  • general (Calif. Indian): Gayton and Newman 64
Within the index
6 finer motifs beneath it
Resuscitation by bathingResuscitation by wet cloth over corpseResuscitation by water (in basket, overnight)Resuscitation by holy waterWater of life and death. One water kills, the other restores to lifeWater of death
Travels with
Resuscitation by sprinkling ambrosia. (Cf. E80.)
Keeps company with — shares receipted episodes
Basilisk. A mythical lizard or serpent whose hissing drives away all other serpentsWater of life and death. One water kills, the other restores to lifeBlind Dupe. A blind man's arrow is aimed for him by his mother (or wife) who deceives him into thinking that he has missed his aim. She eats the slain game herself

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