Choice: suffering in youth or old age — Mythoi

Motif

Choice: suffering in youth or old age.

The wise and the foolish. · Wise and unwise conduct. · Choices. · Choice between evils. · view the constellation · filed as J214

Filed across the traditions

Irish myth Cross
English Wells 114 (Sir Isumbras)
Lithuanian Balys Index No. *937
Russian Andrejev No. *931 I
Rumanian Schullerus FFC LXXVIII No. 948*.
general *Wesselski Märchen 236
general Fb "rig" III 55a

Within the index

Filed under Choice between evils.

Filed beside it

Four choices, all of which are evil; man to make one choice only Choice: free poverty or enslaved wealth Choice: plainness with safety or grandeur with danger Choice: loss of beauty or speech. Latter chosen Present evil preferred to change for worse Choice of deaths Captivity preferred to death Enemies make peace rather than slay each other Choice: small injustice permitted rather than to cause troubles of state Rescue alone from shipwreck chosen over drowning with goods Choice between evils: pay tribute or lose both money and life Choice: apparent injustice over greater wrong Difficult choice between relatives Death preferred to other evils Choice between evils – miscellaneous

Carried in tale types

Placidas · ATU 938 1 recorded variant
Misfortunes in Youth · ATU 938A 1 recorded variant
Better in Youth · ATU 938B 1 recorded variant

ask the rhapsode about this motif · search the shelf for “suffering” · wander