μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif
Scholars’ trail — 1reference

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.

  • IndiaThompson-Balys.
Within the index

Filed under Inquisitive fool.

Filed beside it
Children ask parents too difficult questions. Get no answersAbsurd scientific speculationsThe judge wants to know how the theft was committed. The witness tells. The judge: "You are wonderful; I have tried it thirty times and succeeded only once."The tailless and earless ass. Just lain down to sleep, a man is awakened by a neighbor announcing that his she-ass has borne a young one without ears or tail. The man lies awake all night wondering how the ass will keep the harness onHow the first man killed himself. The second fool imitates the first who leaps from a palm tree by means of a looped rope. The first kills himself. The second wants to see just how it happened and kills himself tooCuriosity satisfied: riding the ox's horns. As his ox, who has enormous horns, is asleep, the fool gets on the horns. The ox wakes and throws him off. When he comes to his senses, the fool says, "I had a hard time, but my curiosity is satisfied."Testing the evidence by experiment: biting the ear off. The accused pleads that the plaintiff bit his own ear off. The judge takes time for consideration, tries to bite his own ear, but falls down and breaks his headThe philosophical watchman. A master sets his servant to keep watch over his horse at night. He soon asks the servant if he is asleep. "No, I was thinking of who created so many stars in the sky." The second time the servant answers, "No, I was thinking of who dug the sea. Where did he put the soil?" The third time: "I was wondering who would carry the saddle now that the horse is stolen."What will the robber do? A man curious as to what a robber is going to do waits to intervene and goes back to sleepQuestion: did the man ever have a head? A man's head is snatched off by accident and his companions do not see what has happened. Debate: did he ever have a head?How did the cow get on the pole? A fool hides his purse on a pole on a cliff. A rascal substitutes cow-dung for the money. The fool is interested only in how the cow could have reached the pursePity for the poor Jews. On Good Friday an old woman who has heard the Passion Story exclaims, "How hard it was for the Jews who had to watch all night with Christ!"Experiment in gravity. Which has greatest attraction to earth, cup or contents? Father shows great attraction of fool's back and a stick

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