Three foolish wishes. Three wishes will be granted: used up foolishly

Motif

Three foolish wishes. Three wishes will be granted: used up foolishly.

The wise and the foolish. · Fools (and other unwise persons). · Absurd short-sightedness. · Absurd wishes. · view the constellation · filed as J2071

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“But the small eye was far back in his socket, and he could not see very well with it. A buffalo was grazing near by, and as White-man stood near him crying, he looked on and wondered. White-man said: “Bere is a buffalo, who has the power to help me in my trouble.” So the Buffalo asked him what he wanted. White- man told him he had lost his eye and needed one. The buffalo took out one of his and put it in White-man’s head.”

— Tales of the North American Indians, Tale 28 · served from our shelf receiptuncorrected OCR — being verified against the scan

Attested across traditions

North American IndigenousTales of the North American Indians, Tale 28 receipt

Scholars’ trail — 9references

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.

Spanish ExemplaKeller
IndiaThompson-Balys
JapaneseIkeda
IndonesiaDeVries's list No. 213, Coster-Wijsman 46 No. 56.
general *Bédier Fabliaux 212ff., 471
general Type 750
general *Bolte Zs. f. vgl. Litgsch. VII 453
general *BP II 212
general *Fb "ønske" III 1179a. – Breton: Sébillot Incidents s. v. "souhaits"

Within the index

Filed under Absurd wishes.

Filed beside it

Short-sighted wish Same wishes used wisely and foolishly. Given to two persons with opposite results Twice the wish to the enemy. (The covetous and the envious). A can have a wish, but B will get twice the wish. A wishes that he may lose an eye, so that B may be blind The transferred wish. A husband, given three wishes, transfers one to his wife, who wastes it on a trifle; in his anger he wishes the article in her body and must use the third to get it out Absurdly modest wish. Granted any wish, the fool chooses a trifle Absurd wishes – miscellaneous

Keeps company with — shares receipted episodes

Tabu: using magic power too often Eyes successfully replaced The eye-juggler. A trickster sees a man throwing his eyes into the air and replacing them. He also receives this power but he must not use the power beyond a specified number of times. When he does so, he loses his eyes. He usually gets animal eyes as substitutes

Carried in tale types

The Three Wishes (previously The Wishes) · ATU 750A2 recorded variants
The Smith and the Devil (previously The Smith Outwits the Devil) · ATU 3301 recorded variant

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