Melons ripe and overripe analogous to girls ready for marriage

Motif

Melons ripe and overripe analogous to girls ready for marriage.

Tests. · Tests of cleverness. · Riddles. · Symbolic interpretations. · view the constellation · filed as H611.1

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.

general Iraq: Ethel Stevens Folk Tales of Iraq (London, 1931) 60.

Within the index

Filed under Youth asks for branch of tree; promised root. (Branch = youngest daughter; root = eldest.)

Filed beside it

Sign message sent by girl to enamored prince; interpreted by prince's friend Chief asks another for cutting of yams to complete his yam patch (daughter in marriage). Reply that seed yams for the year are shrivelled and old and it is too early for seedlings (his daughters are too young or too old)

wander