μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

King: What is your brother doing? Youth: He hunts; he throws away what he catches and what he does not catch he carries with him. (Hunts for lice on his body.)

Tests. · Tests of cleverness. · Riddles. · Enigmatic statements. · view the constellation · filed as H583.3

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Scholars’ trail — 3references

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.

  • Missouri FrenchCarrière.
  • general *De Vries FFC LXXIII 128ff.
  • general Wesselski Mönchslatein 120 No. 102
Within the index

Filed under Clever youth (maiden) answers king's inquiry in riddles. (Cf. H561.4.)

2 finer motifs beneath it
King: What is your brother doing? Youth: He runs back and forth. (Plows.)King: What is your brother doing? Youth: He sits between heaven and earth. (In a tree.)
Filed beside it
King: What do you see? Youth: One and a half men and a horse's head. (Himself, the legs of the king on horseback in the door, and the horse's head.)King: What is your father doing? Youth: He is in the vineyard and is doing good and bad. (He prunes vines and sometimes cuts good and sometimes lets bad ones stay.)King: What is your mother doing? Youth: She does for another what the latter cannot do for her. (Lays out a corpse.)King: What is your sister doing? Youth: She is mourning last year's laughter. (Nurses child, the fruit of last year's love affair.)King: What are you doing? Youth: I boil those which come and go. (Beans which keep rising and falling in water.)King: Where shall I tie my horse? Maiden: Between summer and winter. (Between wagon and sleigh.)Maiden (to king): The house has neither eyes nor ears. (No child at window nor dog in yard to announce king's approach: he therefore finds her not dressed to receive him.)Maiden (to king): Shall I feed you with loss or gain. (A slaughtered hen or milk.)Girl to king: Should it (the flood) come I shall not come; should it not come, I shall come
Carried in tale types

wander