μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif
In our texts — keyword-matched, unreviewed
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.

  • Missouri FrenchCarrière
  • India*Thompson-Balys.
Within the index
14 finer motifs beneath it
Foolish bargain: progressive typeSquaring accounts by shaving the wife. A numskull has paid twice the regular amount for a shave. The barber shaves the wifeThe foolish attempt to cheat the buyerFoolish reward offeredThe foolish pawn. The woman sells cows and gets one of them back as a pledge for the unpaid purchase priceThe persuasive auctioneer. The auctioneer praises the man's worthless cow so much in his speech that the man takes her back himselfThe considerate seller. A numskull having an over-short turban for sale at auction warns the prospective buyer that it is too shortThief warned what not to steal. The numskull tells the thief where his door-key, his cakes, and his roasts are and warns him not to steal themThe trusted porters. A man finds a treasure, but is robbed by porters whom he has employed to rid him of the trouble of carrying itValuables given away or sold for trifleExpensive wood burned to make charcoalTo eat a hundred onions. Choice of eating 100 onions, receiving 100 blows, or paying 100 coins. Fool tries onions in vain, then the blows, and finally must give the coinsStupid boy convinced that trading all his silver for worthless cup will gain people's respectFoolish bargain: miscellaneous
Travels with
Learning a trade in bed. Working independently, the lazy fellow spoils the materials received – starts making something big, which at the end turns to nothing. For example, begins with forging a plough: this becomes an axe, the axe a knife, and knife a needle, the needle – nothing. (Cf. J2080.)

wander