Tests

2,753 motifs · page 6 of 14

• Girl given enigmatic commands must do the opposite. H580.1
• Three young men arrested tell who they are. H581
• Arrested man tells who he is: before his father the great incline the head and give blood and money (barber). H581.1
• Arrested man tells who he is: the hospitable fire of his father is sought (bean merchant). H581.2
• Arrested man tells who he is: father throws himself into the ranks and holds them (weaver). H581.3
• Arrested farmer tells who he is: one son is thief (priest), second beggar (teacher), and third murderer (doctor). H581.4
• Riddling answers betray theft or adultery H582
• Riddling answer betrays theft. H582.1
• The full moon and the thirtieth of the month. Prince sends servant to clever girl with a round tart, thirty cakes, and a capon, and asks her if it is full moon and the thirtieth of the month and if the cock has crowed in the evening. She replies that it is not full moon, that it is the fifteenth of the month, and that the capon has gone to the mill; but that the prince should spare the pheasant for the partridge's sake. She thus shows him that the servant has stolen half the tart, half of the cakes, and the capon. H582.1.1
• Riddling answers betray adultery. H582.2
• Enigmatic statement betrays incest. (Cf. T411.) Woman, recognizing cleric as her son by her father (Fiachna), gives him a drink of milk and says, "I give drink to my brother; he is Fiachna's son, he is Fiachna's grandson; his mother is Fiachna's daughter." The son's reply shows that he understands the situation. H582.2.1
• Woman's question to her husband disguised as woman, how many men she had in one night. This is properly understood as, how many helpers he had, and answered by lifting ten fingers. H582.3
• Clever youth (maiden) answers king's inquiry in riddles. (Cf. H561.4.) H583
• King: What do you see? Youth: One and a half men and a horse's head. (Himself, the legs of the king on horseback in the door, and the horse's head.) H583.1
• King: Are you alone at home? Youth: Not now; I see the half of two quadrupeds. (Two legs of the king and the forefeet of his horse.) H583.1.1
• King: What is your father doing? Youth: He is in the vineyard and is doing good and bad. (He prunes vines and sometimes cuts good and sometimes lets bad ones stay.) H583.2
• King: What is your father doing? Youth: Makes an evil greater. (Closes up a path; this causes another to be opened.) H583.2.1
• King: What is your father doing? Youth: Makes many out of few. (Sows grain.) H583.2.2
• King: What is your father doing? Youth: Makes better from good. (Hedges his field.) H583.2.3
• King: What is your father doing? Youth: Cuts wood which was burnt last year. (To pay old debts.) H583.2.4
• King: What is your father doing? Youth: He fences thorns with thorns. (Eggplant garden fenced with thorns.) H583.2.5
• King: What is your brother doing? Youth: He hunts; he throws away what he catches and what he does not catch he carries with him. (Hunts for lice on his body.) H583.3
• King: What is your brother doing? Youth: He runs back and forth. (Plows.) H583.3.1
• King: What is your brother doing? Youth: He sits between heaven and earth. (In a tree.) H583.3.2
• King: What is your mother doing? Youth: She does for another what the latter cannot do for her. (Lays out a corpse.) H583.4
• King: What is your mother doing? Youth: She shows the light of the world to one who has not yet seen it. (Assists at a birth.) H583.4.1
• King: What is your mother doing? Youth: She is baking the bread we ate last week. (To pay back borrowed bread.) (Cf. H583.2.4.) H583.4.2
• King: What is your mother doing? Youth: She cuts off the heads of the well to cure the sick. (Kills chickens to feed her sick mother.) H583.4.3
• King: What is your mother doing? Youth: She drives away the hungry and compels the filled to eat. (Drives away the hungry hens and stuffs the geese.) H583.4.4
• King: What are your mother and father doing? Girl: Mother is separating earth (being a midwife), and father is mixing earth (at a funeral). H583.4.5
• King: What is your mother doing? Girl: She has gone to turn one into two (to split peas). H583.4.6
• King: What is your sister doing? Youth: She is mourning last year's laughter. (Nurses child, the fruit of last year's love affair.) H583.5
• King: What are you doing? Youth: I boil those which come and go. (Beans which keep rising and falling in water.) H583.6
• King: Where shall I tie my horse? Maiden: Between summer and winter. (Between wagon and sleigh.) H583.7
• Maiden (to king): The house has neither eyes nor ears. (No child at window nor dog in yard to announce king's approach: he therefore finds her not dressed to receive him.) H583.8
• Maiden (to king): Shall I feed you with loss or gain. (A slaughtered hen or milk.) H583.9
• Girl to king: Should it (the flood) come I shall not come; should it not come, I shall come. H583.10
• Other riddling answers. H584
• Enigmatic conversation of king and peasant. H585
• The four coins. (Focus.) King: What do you do with the four coins you earn? Peasant: First I eat (feed self); second I put out at interest (give my children); third I give back (pay debts); fourth I throw away (give my wife.) H585.1
• King: Why did you not do it (marry so that sons could help you)? Peasant: I did, but it was not God's will (I married three times but it was not God's will to give me sons). H585.2
• Riddling remarks of traveling companion interpreted by girl (man) at end of journey. H586
• Man helps traveler and makes riddling remarks. Gives him food, shares his coat in rain, and carries him over stream. Reproaches him with traveling without mother, house, or bridge (nourishment, shelter, or horse). H586.1
• Traveler says he is going to the city to see what has become of the seed he sowed in the street. (What has become of the girl he left in the city to await his return.) H586.2
• Traveler says he is going to seek a hind that he saw in the woods ten years before. (A maiden.) H586.2.1
• Traveler says he must look after his net to see if it has taken fish. (He has left his lady seven years before with a pledge of faithfulness. Net has taken fish – lady has had lovers.) H586.2.2
• One traveler to another: Let us carry each other and shorten the way. (Let us tell tales and amuse ourselves on the way.) H586.3
• One traveler to another: That field (uncut) is already harvested. (Belongs to spendthrift who has already spent the money.) H586.4
• One traveler to another (as they see corpse borne by): He is not entirely dead. (Has left good property.) H586.5
• One traveler to another (when asked how he crossed an unbridged stream): I cross on an ashen bridge. (Found a ford with an ashen staff.) H586.6
• One traveler to another: Is this cup valuable or not? (Is your daughter married or not?) H586.7
• Boy says that travelers should catch the mares (walking sticks that are in the jungle). H586.8
• King gives enigmatic order to minister. H587
• Enigmatic letter of king must be explained on pain of death. H587.0.1
• King: Show me a ruby eight for a pice, nectar eight for a pice, and a faithless creature worth one-eighth of a pice. Minister: The lamp sells at eight for a pice and gives more light than any ruby; the water is the real nectar; and the dog is worthless and faithless lover because he follows anyone who feeds him. H587.1
• Enigmatic counsels of a father. Taken literally bring trouble, but when properly interpreted are valuable. H588
• Father-in-law gives daughter-in-law enigmatic permission to go home. H588.0.1
• Father's counsel: walk not in sunshine from your house to your shop. (Attend to business, rising early and retiring late.) H588.1
• Father's counsel: let pilav be your daily food. (Eat frugally.) H588.2
• Father's counsel: marry a new wife every week. (Do not see your wife too much.) H588.3
• Father's counsel: on wishing to drink wine go to the vat and drink it. (Stench in vat so great that desire for wine is turned to loathing.) H588.4
• Father's counsel: if you want to gamble, then gamble with experienced gamblers. (If you see how wretched professional gamblers are you will not want to gamble.) H588.5
• Father's counsel: dress up the trunks of trees, cover the road. (Plant the road with fruit trees and betel between the trees.) H588.6
• Father's counsel: find treasure within a foot of the ground. (Sons dig everywhere and thus loosen soil of vineyard, which becomes fruitful.) H588.7
• Father's counsel: the four wells. Three empty and one full (3 sons and father). Full one can fill the three empty but the three when full cannot fill the one when empty (sons when scattered will not support the father). H588.8
• Father's counsel: dam up the outlets. (Keep expenditures down – not outlets of rice-field as son-in-law thinks). H588.9
• Father's counsel: don't stay too late with a concubine, nor tell her any secret. H588.10
• Always eat bread with "honey". (Working diligently, your bread will be as sweet as honey.) H588.11
• "Never greet anyone." (Start your work the earliest, so that not you but others may greet you.) H588.12
• "Always wear new shoes." (Walk the fields bare-footed, wearing your shoes only when nearing the town.) H588.13
• "Have a black look" (frown). H588.14
• "Bite the ear" (do state affairs secretly). H588.15
• "Take people by the locks" (use your influence to make people subservient to you). H588.16
• "If you have to go to a prostitute, go early in the morning." H588.17
• "When you go to the bazar, eat your morning meal first." H588.18
• "A father should always check and never forgive; a mother should always forgive and never check." H588.19
• "Do not plant a thorny tree." H588.20
• Enigmatic advice: take only salt and water as food. H588.21
• Extraordinary actions explained. H591
• Man puts on shoes only when he wades river. (He cannot see what he is walking on.) H591.1
• Man uses umbrella under trees. (To protect self from falling branches and bird droppings.) H591.2
• Man cuts hooks for the revenge of his father (Hamlet). H591.3
• Enigmatic statement made clear by experience. H592
• "Love like Salt." Girl compares her love for her father to salt. Experience teaches him the value of salt. H592.1
• "Love like wind in hot sun." Husband offended but later learns wife's meaning. H592.1.1
• Poison in nectar: wife who betrays husband to his enemies. H592.2
• Nectar in poison: mistress who saves her lover. H592.3
• Dogs in human shape: friends who seduce man's wife. H592.4
• Donkey ruling a kingdom: king condemning man unjustly. H592.5
• Suitors receive enigmatic answers. Girls answer in single words, which, when arranged in certain order, show that they accept. H593
• Inhospitality reproved enigmatically. H594
• Enigmatic statement: roof has no eaves. (Else it would give the beggar shelter.) H594.1
• Enigmatic statement: the tank (pond) does not belong to you. (Else you would have given the beggar fish to eat.) H594.2
• Enigmatic statement: the flocks are only rocks and grass. (Else you would have given the beggar milk and curds.) H594.3
• Enigmatic welcome of host. Sounds very inhospitable but properly interpreted makes guests welcome. H595
• Symbolic invitation to continued liberality. H595.1
• Enigmatic counsels of relatives (other than father). H596
• Enigmatic counsels of a brother. H596.1
• Enigmatic counsels of older brother. Gray younger brother asks well-preserved older brother for the secret of his good health. Answer: A measured mouth, a close purse, and a knot on the trouser's fly. H596.1.1
• Other enigmatic statements. H599
• Girl will not drink of water which had no father or mother (i.e., stagnant). H599.1
• Enigmatic statements of a sham mad man (Hamlet). H599.2
• Clever flatterer: Sir, you are a full moon, and my sovereign is a new moon (the full moon will decline, but the new moon has but started on its growth). H599.3
• Man asked to kill thousands, press hundreds beneath his arm, etc. (To shave his head, put some hairs under his arm, etc.) H599.4
• Enigmatic counsel: uproot old trees and plant new ones (dismiss old governors and appoint new). H599.5
• Give coals orange color, let glimmer of gold appear like expanse of heaven, prepare two heads of darkness. (Request for chickens for breakfast.) H599.6
• Symbolic interpretations. H600
• Wise carving of the fowl. Clever person divides it symbolically: head to head of house, neck to wife, wings to daughters, legs to sons; keeps rest for himself. H601
• Wise division of the goat (similar). H601.1
• Symbolic meaning of numbers, letters, etc. H602
• Symbolic meaning of numbers. H602.1
• Symbolic meaning of numbers one to seven (ten, twelve). E.g. One: sun; two: Moses' tablets; three: three Maries; etc. H602.1.1
• Symbolic interpretation of letters. H602.2
• Symbolic interpretation of names. H602.3
• Symbolic interpretation of playing cards. Soldier reproved for playing cards during church says that playing cards are his prayerbook and calendar. Ace: one God, one Faith, one Baptism; 2: old and new Testaments; 3: Trinity; 4: evangelists; 5: wise virgins; 6: days of creation; 7: sabbath; 8. Noah's family; 9: ungrateful lepers; 10: commandments; knave (jack): Judas; queen (of Sheba); king: God; 12 face cards: 12 months; etc. H603
• Symbolic meaning of spiced and bitter tongue served at dinner. (Cf. H605, H606.) H604
• Angel gives symbolic interpretation of value of work as well as of prayer. Works and prays where monk can see him. (Cf. H604, H606.) H605
• Symbolic interpretation of sin. Priest drags heavy sack of sand behind him to show how men drag sin. (Cf. H604, H605.) H606
• Discussion by symbols. Sign language. H607
• Discussion between priest and Jew carried on by symbols. E.g., priest raises three fingers (Trinity); Jew raises arm (one God); etc. H607.1
• Discussion between two poets (sages?) carried on in poetic obscure language. H607.2
• Learned professor from one university examines by signs a professor at another university (actually shoemaker or miller or the like). H607.2.1
• Princess declares her love through sign language: not understood. H607.3
• Is town too full of anchorites? Saint entering holy town is sent cup full to brim of milk by its worldly-minded fakirs that he may know the town can hold no more anchorites. Saint floats a flower on milk and returns cup. H607.4
• Symbolic interpretation of official robes. H608
• Symbolic interpretation of points on a bishop's hat. H608.1
• Youth asks for branch of tree; promised root. (Branch = youngest daughter; root = eldest.) H611
• Melons ripe and overripe analogous to girls ready for marriage. H611.1
• Sign message sent by girl to enamored prince; interpreted by prince's friend. H611.2
• Chief asks another for cutting of yams to complete his yam patch (daughter in marriage). Reply that seed yams for the year are shrivelled and old and it is too early for seedlings (his daughters are too young or too old). H611.3
• Explanation of enigmatic phenomenon. H614
• Explanation of phenomenon; a man who not only picks up wood but everything that lies in his path (a miser). H614.1
• Explanation of phenomenon: large pond emptying itself into several smaller pools (man may spend without getting any return). H614.2
• Symbolic interpretations of dreams. H617
• Other symbolic interpretations. H619
• Symbolic interpretation of chairs in heaven. H619.1
• Symbolic interpretation of church and image therein. H619.2
• Roots and branches of World-tree explained symbolically. H619.3
• Symbolic interpretation of ineffectual thatching of house and building of fire in otherworld. (Cf. F171.6.5, F171.6.6.) H619.4
• Symbolical interpretation of fight between one-legged bird and twelve-legged bird. One-legged bird symbolizes innocence; twelve-legged bird, guilt. (Cf. B15.6.3.3.2.) H619.5
• The unsolved problem: enigmatic ending of tale. H620
• Skillful companions create woman: to whom does she belong? Woodcarver carves a doll, tailor clothes her, gardener gives her speech (or the like). (Answer sometimes given: her father, her mother, or her husband). H621
• Skillful companions resuscitate girl: to whom does she belong? H621.1
• Girl rescued by skillful companions: to whom does she belong? H621.2
• Hare and pig race across ditch. Each fails in his own way, pig behind hare. Which is winner? H625
• Riddles of the superlative. H630
• Riddle: what is the strongest? H631
• What is the strongest? A horse. H631.1
• What is the strongest? God. H631.2
• What is strongest? Earth. H631.3
• What is strongest? Woman. H631.4
• What is strongest? Truth. H631.5
• What is mightiest? Rain. H631.6
• What is strongest? Necessity. H631.7
• What is strongest? Wine. H631.8
• What is strongest? The king. H631.9
• Riddle: what is the swiftest? H632
• What is swiftest? Thought. H632.1
• What is swiftest? The eye. H632.2
• What is swiftest? The sun. H632.3
• Riddle: what is sweetest? H633
• What is sweetest? Sleep. H633.1
• What is sweetest? Peace in heaven. H633.2
• What is sweetest? Mother's breast. H633.3
• What is sweetest? One's own interest. H633.4
• What is sweeter than sugar? The princess's speech. H633.5
• Riddle: what is the sweetest song? H634
• What is the sweetest song? Angel song. H634.1
• Riddle: what is the sweetest sound? H635
• What is the sweetest sound? Bell-ringing. H635.1
• What is the sweetest sound? God's Word. H635.2
• Riddle: what is the richest? H636
• What is richest? Autumn. H636.1
• Riddle: what is the hardest? H637
• What is hardest? Parent's heart (said by child being sacrificed). H637.1
• What is the hardest? Death. H637.2
• Riddle: what is costliest? H638
• What is costliest? The earth. H638.1
• Riddle: what is most beautiful? H641
• What is most beautiful? The spring. H641.1
• What is most beautiful? Earth. H641.2
• Riddle: what is highest? H642
• What is highest? Sun, moon, and stars. H642.1
• Riddle: what is deepest? H643
• What is deepest? The heart of man. H643.1
• Riddle: what is longest? H644
• What is longest? The way through the world. H644.1
• Riddle: what is the heaviest? H645
• What is heaviest? Lead. H645.1
• Riddle: what is greenest? H646
• What is greenest? The Month of May. H646.1
• Riddle: what is the most beloved? H647
• What is most beloved? Life. H647.1
• What is most beloved? Health. H647.2
• Riddle: what is best? H648
• What is best? God. H648.1
• What is best? Water. H648.2
• Riddle: what is brightest? H651
• What is brightest? The sun. H651.1
• What is brightest? Mother's eyes. (Cf. H662.) H651.2