μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

The interrupted calculation. While the merchant is making calculations, he asks the age of his youngest daughter, the elder daughter, and the mother, and always adds this to the number he has reached.

The wise and the foolish. · Fools (and other unwise persons). · Absurd absent-mindedness. · Absurd inability to count. · view the constellation · filed as J2035

ask the rhapsode about this motif →

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 Type 1592*.
Within the index

Filed under Absurd inability to count.

Filed beside it
Counting wrong by not counting oneself. Numskulls conclude that one of their number is drownedAre there nine or ten geese? Ten men are called in; each is to take a goose. If all have a goose, there are ten. One man is left without one. Numskull: "You should have taken one before they were all gone."Three girls distressed by seemingly impossible task of going and returning together – one in half month, other in fifteen days, other in seven plus eight daysKeeping the measure by stretching out the arms. Numskull goes to buy goods for his wifeNumskulls buy things in common: each pays full price
Carried in tale types

wander