Task: washing black wool (cloth, cattle) white

Motif

Task: washing black wool (cloth, cattle) white.

Tests. · Tests of prowess: tasks. · Nature of tasks. · Impossible or absurd tasks. · Tasks contrary to laws of nature. · view the constellation · filed as H1023.6

Filed across the traditions

Swiss Jegerlehner Oberwallis 314 No. 113, 328 No. 10.
general Type 480
general *Roberts 165
general *Fb "får" I 406b, "hvid" I 700b, "skjorte" III 268a, "sort" III 467b

Within the index

Filed under Tasks contrary to the nature of objects.

1 finer motif beneath it

Task: washing large heavy quilt covered with ghi and oil without aid of soap or anything

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: 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: splitting a hair with a blunt knife 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.)

Travels with (Thompson’s cf.)

Black sheep turn white. (Cf. H1023.6.)

Carried in tale types

Son of the Witch (previously The Disenchanted Husband: the Witch's Tasks) · ATU 425B 12 recorded variants
The Kind and the Unkind Girls (previously The Spinning-Women by the Spring · ATU 480 12 recorded variants
Washing Black Wool White (previously Washing Black Cloth White: Task for Devil) · ATU 1183 1 recorded variant

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