The house the old man was to build. The woman for whom he is to build the house has some beans for him. The goat eats these up. Cumulative search. Final formula: Smith give me my iron, iron which belongs to the man, man who ate up my fish, fish which belongs to the sea .... sea – shirt – washerwoman – soap – woman – wood – press – grease – herder – cheese – frame – fig – tree – horn – goat – beans

Motif

The house the old man was to build. The woman for whom he is to build the house has some beans for him. The goat eats these up. Cumulative search. Final formula: Smith give me my iron, iron which belongs to the man, man who ate up my fish, fish which belongs to the sea .... sea – shirt – washerwoman – soap – woman – wood – press – grease – herder – cheese – frame – fig – tree – horn – goat – beans.

Miscellaneous groups of motifs. · Formulas. · Cumulative tales. · Chains with interdependent members. · view the constellation · filed as Z44.1

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In our texts — keyword-matched, unreviewed

ReferenceThe Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (abridged), Chapter IXIX. The Worship of Trees

Scholars’ trail — 2references

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 *Taylor JAFL XLVI 86 No. 2035A
general *Parsons JAFL XXV 219, XXVII 222, XXXIII 40, MAFLS XV (1) 207 n. 1.

Within the index

Filed under The house that Jack built. Final formula: This is the farmer that sowed the corn that fed the cock that crowed in the morn, that waked the priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man all tattered and torn, that kissed the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow with a crumpled horn, that tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that caught the rat, that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

wander