31 motifs match “confesses”  ·  back to the chapters

• Test of friendship: substitute as murderer. A man in misery gives himself up as a murderer rather than endure further misery. His friend tries to take on himself the guilt and be substituted. The real murderer, touched by the generosity, confesses. H1558.2
• "Consider the end": counsel proved wise by experience. Barber hired to cut king's throat sees on the bottom of the basin the words "Whatever you do, do wisely and think of the consequences." He drops the razor and confesses. J21.1
• Children choose father they know rather than real father they do not yet know. Woman confesses that child is not by her husband. Child, however, chooses to keep the father he knows. (Cf. J391, J1279.1.) J325
• Largest part of a prize to go to the guilty man. In order to obtain the prize, he confesses the earlier crime. J1141.1.1
• Thief persuaded detective can read thoughts: confesses. (Cf. N275.) J1141.1.9
• Magician assigned three places at a table. He confesses to carrying two persons in his body. J1141.2
• Thief suspected of crawling through hole must take off clothes. He is full of scratches and confesses. J1141.7
• The guilty protests his innocence. Animals put to graze in man's garden. Owner greets everyone with: "I know about you!" No one pays any attention to him except the guilty one who says: "I did not do it." Confesses. (Cf. N275.) J1141.9
• Minister threatens divine punishment to thief in congregation. The thief confesses. J1141.14
• Nurse's false plea admitted: child demanded. A nurse falsely demands pay for caring for a child which she says is the hero's. In court: "The child is indeed mine; give him to me." The child belongs to a peasant. Nurse confesses and is punished. J1162.1
• Imagined penance for imagined sin. A penitent confesses that a plan to sin had entered his mind. Priest tells him that the thought is as good as the deed. Assesses four florins as penance. Penitent says that he had only had it in his mind to give the florins; he must take the thought for the deed. J1551.2
• Imitation of diagnosis by observation: ass's flesh. A doctor tells his patient that he has eaten too much chicken, and this the patient confesses. The doctor's son wants to know how the diagnosis was made. The doctor says that as he rode up he observed chicken feathers and made his conclusions. The son imitates. He sees an ass's saddle. Diagnosis: you have eaten too much ass's flesh. J2412.4
• Not naked but with a hood on. She confesses that she has had relations with the priest. J2499.2
• Priest induced to betray secrets of confessional: money then exacted from him for silence. The trickster confesses that he has had intimacies with the priest's maid and then overhears the priest scold the maid. K443.8
• The double-cheating miller. He confesses that he has an oversized measure and agrees to get a smaller one. He measures back the grain in the smaller measure. K486
• Wife confesses to disguised husband. She suspects the fraud and persuades him that she knew the ruse and was testing him. He begs forgiveness. K1528
• Husband discovers wife's adultery by riddling conversation. In this indirect manner the wife confesses and promises reform. K1557
• Trickster makes woman believe that her husband is coming to punish her adultery. She confesses. K1572
• Fox confesses to cock, then eats him. K2027
• Fox confesses sins but is immediately ready to steal again. K2055
• Criminal confesses because he thinks himself accused. N275
• Criminal confesses because of misunderstood animal cries. N275.1
• Criminal confesses because of misunderstanding of a dialect. N275.2
• Detection by accidental remark. Wife misunderstands husband's remark and confesses. N275.3
• Thief imagines that group of people in street are talking and laughing at him; he confesses. N275.4
• Sheep thief confesses when preacher says, "All we like sheep have gone astray." N275.5.1
• Friends offer to die for each other. (Bürgschaft.) Each falsely confesses crime so as to save the other. Neither guilty. Often combined with P325. P315
• Birth of child prevented until girl confesses slander. She has accused a bishop of fathering the child. Q559.5.1
• Woman confesses murder: unharmed by execution fire. V21.2
• Sinner confesses before sinning and thus is pardoned. V21.5
• "I can't hear you." Rector confesses his sacristan: "Have you drunk the wine designated for the mass?" – "I can't hear you." Exchange of places. Sacristan asks rector: "Have you kissed my wife?" – "Really, I can't hear you." X441.1