Each of two persons wants to sleep in the middle. (Sometimes solved by placing an object on one side of the bed.)

Motif

Each of two persons wants to sleep in the middle. (Sometimes solved by placing an object on one side of the bed.)

The wise and the foolish. · Fools (and other unwise persons). · Absurd lack of logic. · Logical absurdity based upon certain false assumptions. · view the constellation · filed as J2213.1

Cited in the index

general Type 1289
general Africa (Ila, Rhodesia): Smith and Dale II 416 No. 15.

Within the index

Filed under Illogical use of numbers.

Filed beside it

A profitable fight: three for one! A priest boasts of his profitable fight with the peasants, where he has received three blows for every one given The seventh cake satisfies. Fool regrets that he had not eaten number seven first since that was the one that brought satisfaction If the horse can pull one load he can pull two Twenty better than ten. A numskull is asked how many daily prayers (Moslem) there are. "Twenty." – "There are only four." – "I said that there are twenty; that is even better." Selling his half of the house. A man owns half a house. He wants to sell his half so as to get money to buy the other half and thus have a whole house Dentist duped to pull out two teeth for one because of the expensiveness Man prefers small oysters, since he will get more to the hundred Numskull finds that one feather makes a hard pillow, thinks a sackful would be unbearable

Carried in tale types

Each Wants to Sleep in the Middle · ATU 1289 1 recorded variant

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