μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

"Better a live confessor than a dead martyr." So answers a preacher when asked whether he preferred to stay at home and confess his flock or go to war against the infidels.

The wise and the foolish. · Cleverness. · Clever verbal retorts (repartee). · Repartee based on church or clergy. · view the constellation · filed as J1261.9

Filed across the traditions
  • Italian Novella *Rotunda.
Within the index

Filed under Repartee based on levity toward sacred persons and things.

Filed beside it
Levity toward name of God Disrespect for the sacrament. (Cf. J1269.5.) Will lunch with Christ. Priest tells condemned man after confession that he will dine with Christ that evening. Mule that carries him to scaffold goes very fast and criminal says, "At this rate I shall lunch with Christ." Blessing not worth a penny. Beggar woman asks pope for shilling and, being refused, for a penny. Finally asks for his blessing, which he gives. Old woman: "If your blessing had been worth a penny, you wouldn't have given me that." Will spend the funeral money now. King asks how much his funeral will cost. "Give me the three hundred ducats now and when I am dead throw me into the Tiber." Priest may use his own mother's mass money. At his mother's funeral a boy takes the money laid on the altar for masses. When the priest objects, the boy says, "When your mother dies you may take the money too." Judgment Day a long way off. Thief told by monk that he must return stolen cloth on Judgment Day "If I have so long a period of grace, I should like to take the whole monastery." Monk's cordon cannot stand the strain. Franciscan claims that his cordon will save him from Hell. Benedictine answers that he once had a dream in which he saw St. Francis throw his cordon to save members of his order in Purgatory and so many clung to it that it snapped. (Cf. Q291.1.) How does goddess with thousand faces blow her noses?

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