Task: splitting a hair with a blunt knife

Motif

Task: splitting a hair with a blunt knife.

Tests. · Tests of prowess: tasks. · Nature of tasks. · Impossible or absurd tasks. · Tasks contrary to laws of nature. · view the constellation · filed as H1023.14

Filed across the traditions

Finnish Kalevala rune 8 → on our shelf: The Kalevala, Rune VIII
India Thompson-Balys.

Within the index

Filed under Tasks contrary to the nature of objects.

Filed beside it

Task: hatching boiled eggs Task: carrying water in a sieve Task: bringing berries (fruit, roses) in winter Task: straightening a curly hair Task: pumping out a leaky ship Task: washing black wool (cloth, cattle) white Task: sewing together a broken mill-stone Task: fixing the two pieces of a broken sword together Task: mending a broken jug Task: skinning a stone Task: putting a large squash whole into a narrow-necked jar Task: catching a noise Task: catching a man's broken wind Task: turning fruit into gold Task: making sun and moon shine in the north Task: sowing rye and bringing crop next morning. (Cf. H1023.1.2.)

Keeps company with — shares receipted episodes

Magic song Magic song heals wound. (Cf. D1275.) Magic power at cross-roads Flow of blood magically stopped. (Cf. D1504.) Task: making an invisible knot with an egg Task: making boat from splinters of a spindle and shuttle

ask the rhapsode about this motif · search the shelf for “splitting” · wander