Compassionate executioner: sleeping potion supplied instead of poison — Mythoi

Motif

Compassionate executioner: sleeping potion supplied instead of poison.

Deceptions. · Escape by deception. · Death order evaded. · view the constellation · filed as K512.4

Filed across the traditions

Italian Novella *Rotunda.

Within the index

Filed under Compassionate executioner. A servant charged with killing the hero (heroine) arranges the escape of the latter.

Filed beside it

Compassionate executioners. Slaves charged with killing (drowning) the infant heroine are touched by her "laughing smile" and put her in a calfshed (hollow tree), where she is found by cowherds, who rear her "Prince will soon want me back." Executioner persuaded to let hero go Compassionate executioner: bloody coat. A servant charged with killing the hero smears the latter's coat with the blood of an animal as proof of the execution and lets the hero escape Compassionate executioner: substituted heart. A servant charged with killing the hero (heroine) substitutes an animal, whose heart he takes to his master as proof of the execution Compassionate executioner: feigns to torture victim

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