μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

Numskull stays till he has finished. As he is making water he hears a brook flowing and mistakes what it is. He waits for a day and a half.

The wise and the foolish. · Fools (and other unwise persons). · Absurd misunderstandings. · Physical phenomena misunderstood. · view the constellation · filed as J1814

ask the rhapsode about this motif →

Scholars’ trail — 2references

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.

  • U.S.Baughman.
  • general *Wesselski Hodscha Nasreddin I 210 No. 23
Within the index

Filed under Physical phenomena misunderstood.

Filed beside it
Animal cries misunderstoodOther sounds misunderstoodCooking processes misunderstoodDid the calf eat the man? A fool, liking the shoes on the feet of a man hanged on a gallows, cuts off the swollen feet in order to carry off the shoes. In the room in which he sleeps that night is a newborn calf. The next morning the man takes the shoes but leaves the feet. Peasants agree that the calf has eaten the man all but the feet. They burn the house to destroy the calfFool thinks gold is being destroyed when snails crawl over itFool thinks belly is speaking to him; stabs himself. Other animals are shouting at himAnimal's action misunderstoodPhysical phenomena misunderstood – miscellaneous
Carried in tale types

wander