23 motifs match “gallows”  ·  back to the chapters

• Mandrake from blood of person hanged on gallows. (Cf. A2664.) A2611.5
• Ass carries usurer's body to the gallows instead of to the church. He has been denied burial in the church. B151.1.1.2.1
• Tabu: buying gallows flesh or living flesh. C781.1
• Transformation to falcon in order to rescue condemned man at the gallows. D643.1
• Return from dead to punish theft of liver from man on gallows. E235.4.4
• Gallows ghost. Ghost haunts gallows. E274
• Gallows rope breaks when innocent person is hanged. H215.2
• Fear test: staying under gallows at night. H1415
• Against his will. A thief condemned to the gallows tells the king, "I do what you do and it is against my will." King: "You shall also be hanged against your will." J1285
• Taking cold in effigy. A traitor is hanged in effigy naked. Later the citizens sue for peace and arrange a meeting. They find him in a hot room swathed with many blankets. He says that he has taken cold when the night wind blew on him as he hung naked from the gallows. J1628
• Did the calf eat the man? A fool, liking the shoes on the feet of a man hanged on a gallows, cuts off the swollen feet in order to carry off the shoes. In the room in which he sleeps that night is a newborn calf. The next morning the man takes the shoes but leaves the feet. Peasants agree that the calf has eaten the man all but the feet. They burn the house to destroy the calf. J1815
• The sleeper answers for the dead man. A man falls asleep by a gallows. A company of wags come and invite the dead man on the gallows to accompany them. The sleeper awakes with a start and says, "I'll come at once." The wags flee in terror. J2618
• Deception into allowing oneself to be hanged. ("Show me how!") Executioner must show the hero how to use the gallows. The hero hangs the executioner. K715
• Matron of Ephesus. (Vidua.) A woman mourns night and day by her husband's grave. A knight guarding a hanged man is about to lose his life because of the corpse he has stolen from the gallows. The matron offers him her love and substitutes her husband's corpse on the gallows so that the knight can escape. K2213.1
• Irrevocable sentence carried out even when innocence is proved. A knight condemned for murdering his comrade is met by the latter on the way to the gallows. A centurion leads them to the emperor, who condemns all three to death: first because he has been sentenced; second for causing by his absence the conviction of his comrade; third for delay in the execution. M12
• Devil at gallows repudiates his bargain with robber. Ring turns to rope. The judge cannot find a rope and is about to release the thief because of the miracle. But the ring in the box presented by the devil as a bribe turns out to be a rope. The man is hanged. M212.2
• Oxen bear dead usurer to gallows to be buried. They are allowed to go where they will. N277
• Son on gallows bites his mother's (father's) nose off: punishment for neglect in youth. Q586
• Lover rescues his lady from the gallows. R161.4
• Fool laughs at the absurdities he sees about him. (1) Sees a man who is to die that day buy shoes. (2) Sees sheriff leading a man to the gallows: a big thief leading a little one. (3) Sees farmer weeping at funeral of his child, while priest (the real father) sings. U15
• Saint sustains man on gallows. V221.6
• Virgin Mary supports robber on gallows because he once said "Ave Maria". V254.1.1
• The deaf man and the proud nobleman. A nobleman amuses himself at the expense of the deaf man. Finally Nobleman: I wish you a thousand gallows and ropes around your neck. – Peasant: My lord, I wish you twice as many. X111.6