μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

Impossible quests.

Tests. · Tests of prowess: quests. · Nature of quests. · Miscellaneous quests. · view the constellation · filed as H1371

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“Then they exchanged arrows, the Sun giving him four arrows of his own. The points of these arrows were made of coal." Now the young man began to climb the mountain. When he came up to the goats, he took one of the arrows, aimed it, and shot. It struck the animals, but fell down without killing it. The same happened with the other arrows. When he had spent all his arrows, they rushed up to him from the four sides, intending to kill him.”

— Tales of the North American Indians, Tale 39 · served from our shelf  receiptuncorrected OCR — being verified against the scan

Attested across traditions
In our texts — keyword-matched, unreviewed
Scholars’ trail — 1reference

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.

  • N. Am. Indian*Thompson Tales 313 n. 126b.
Within the index

Filed under Miscellaneous quests.

4 finer motifs beneath it
Quest for the world's endQuest for the bottom of the seaQuest for tears shed into the seaQuest for ornaments bride has worn in former birth
Filed beside it
Allegorical questsEnigmatical questsParadoxical quests. (Cf. H1050.)Quest for unknown personQuest for unknown objects or placesQuest for unknown animalQuest for lost personsQuest for lost objectQuest: answer to certain questionQuest for armor from a grave moundQuest to distant sage for adviceQuest for person who has not known sorrowHeroes seek judgment as to which is greatest. (Cf. H1311.1.)Quest for light-giving childQuest for enemies
Keeps company with — shares receipted episodes
Sun father-in-lawAnimal bribed with food. (Sop to Cerberus.)Animal as guard of person or houseGuardian animals evadedTransformation: man to featherProtean beggar: Person assumes successive forms in order to begTransformation combat. Fight between contestants who strive to outdo each other in successive transformationsTransformation to reach difficult placeTransformation to escape difficult situationTransformation to receive foodBurning magically evaded. (Cf. D1656.)Resuscitation by arrangement of members. Parts of a dismembered corpse are brought together and resuscitation follows. (Sometimes combined with other methods.)

wander