μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif

The foolish pawn. The woman sells cows and gets one of them back as a pledge for the unpaid purchase price.

The wise and the foolish. · Fools (and other unwise persons). · Absurd short-sightedness. · Foolish bargains. · view the constellation · filed as J2086

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Scholars’ trail — 3references

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 1385
  • general *BP II 440
  • general Christensen DF L 35.
Within the index

Filed under Foolish bargains.

Filed beside 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 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
Carried in tale types

wander