159 motifs match “secret” — showing the first 100; narrow the words for the rest  ·  back to the chapters

• Bee as God's spy. God, the creator, sends a bee to overhear the devil's secrets. A33.3.1
• God reveals secrets (mysteries) to mortals. A182.1
• What creature has sweetest blood: gnat's tongue torn out. Assembly to decide who has the sweetest blood so that it may be the food for the serpent. Gnat discovers that man has the sweetest blood. Rather than let him tell this secret, swallow tears out his tongue. Gnat can only buzz. (Cf. A2344.2, A2426.3.2.) A2236.1
• Ass betrays deity's secret: hence his ugly bray. A2239.3
• Owl reveals deity's secret: power of speech removed. A2239.3.1
• Birds tell a secret. B122.1.1
• Bird reveals druidic secrets. B122.1.2
• Secrets discussed in animal meeting. B235
• Animals tell hero their secrets. Do so voluntarily. B561
• Tabu: revealing secrets of supernatural wife. (Cf. C420). C31.9
• Tabu: revealing secrets of god. C51.4
• Tabu: spying on secret help of angels. C51.4.2
• Tabu: spying on secret help of fairies. C51.4.3
• Tabu: uttering secrets. C420
• Man (woman) persuaded to reveal fatal secret. C420.1
• Tabu: uttering secret overheard. C420.3
• Tabu: revealing secret of supernatural husband. C421
• Tabu: uttering secrets heard from spirits. C423.4
• Tabu: revealing secret song. C426
• Tabu: uttering secrets – miscellaneous. C429
• Tabu: mentioning secret water spring. C429.1
• Tabu: finding certain secret. C820
• Death by smothering for breaking tabu. Man given secret box conveying the power of making women love him. He disobeys warning and opens it. The women smother him to death. (Cf. C321.) C922
• Princess's secret sickness from breaking tabu. (Cf. C55.) C940.1
• Magic secret. D1273.2
• Magic ring permits owner to learn person's secret thoughts. (Cf. D1076.) D1316.4
• Magic speaking reed (tree) betrays secret. King has whispered secret to hole in the ground. Reed growing from this hole tells the secret. D1316.5
• Revelation of magic secret permits animal to be killed. (Cf. D1273.2.) D1445.1
• Fiddle made from wood secret has been confided to reveals it. (Cf. D1233.) D1610.34.1
• Man has magic servants who plow for him; he swallows them each day and keeps them secret. D1719.8
• Magic power obtained secretly from magician's friends. D1721.0.2
• Magician rebukes secret usury. D1810.0.2.1
• Speech magically recovered when third person guesses secret transaction. D2025.3
• Barber begins to recover after he reveals raja's secret. D2161.4.19.1
• Return from dead to uncover secretly buried treasure. E415.1.2
• Corpse cannot be laid until after he has confided the secret of magic charms. E451.1.1
• Fairies lose power of invisibility if mortals gain knowledge of their secret. (Cf. F361.3.) F235.8.1
• Mortal not to betray secret of fairies' gift. F348.5.1
• Mortal not to tell secret of gift of inexhaustible meat. F348.5.1.1
• Fairy escaped by learning and using his secrets. F381.4
• Woman dies on having secret love exposed. F1041.1.3.3
• Illness from keeping a secret. F1041.9.2
• Huge boil appears on forehead of youth keeping a secret. F1041.9.2.1
• Witch forced to divulge her secret powers. G275.5
• Witch bribed to divulge her secret powers. G275.5.1
• Secrets forced from overpowered monster. (Cf. G515.) G510.2
• Ogre's secret overheard. G661
• Ogre's secret overheard from tree. G661.1
• Ogre's secret overheard by masking as bird. G661.2
• Suitor test: keeping princess's secret. H338.1
• Test of wife's ability to keep secret. H472
• Test of wife's ability to keep secret: the buried sheep's head. Husband tells her that he is burying head of murdered man. She is to keep secret. She tells. When head is dug up it is sheep's head. H472.1
• Father's counsel: don't stay too late with a concubine, nor tell her any secret. H588.10
• "Bite the ear" (do state affairs secretly). H588.15
• 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
• Tasks performed by means of secrets overheard from tree. H963
• "Do not tell a secret to a woman": counsel proved wise by experience. J21.22
• Child unwittingly betrays his mother's adultery. Tells father not to step across chalk line drawn around secretary; if he does secretary may do to him what he did to Mother the other day. J125.2.1
• King has amours with great men's wives so as to learn secrets from them. J155.2
• Choice between bad master, bad official, or bad neighbor. Bad master can do evil if he desires to do so; bad official can harm a poor person and complain against him to his master; bad neighbor can betray secret things about his neighbors. Bad neighbor worst. J229.5
• Clever wife obtains secrets from husband by questioning him. J1112.5
• Thief detected by building straw fire so that smoke escapes through thief's entrance. The secret hole into the building is thus discovered and the thief caught. J1143
• Hog's head divided according to scripture. To be divided among three students according to their skill in quoting. First: "And they cut one ear off" (takes ear). Second: "And they gave him a box on the ear" (takes other ear). Third: "And they took him away secretly" (takes whole hog away). J1242.1
• Theological questions answered by propounding simple questions in science. Where was God before he made heaven and earth? and the like answered by "Why a louse bite raises a blister, a flee bite raises a swelling, and a gnat bite is unnoticeable?" If you cannot answer such simple questions how can you pry into God's secrets. J1291.2
• Keeping the secret. Man tells parson secret and asks him to keep it. The parson refuses; "If you can't keep the secret, you must not expect me to." J1482
• The wife multiplies the secret. To prove that a woman cannot keep a secret the man tells his wife that a crow has flown out of his belly (or that he has laid an egg). She tells her neighbor that two crows have flown. Soon he hears from his neighbors that there were fifty crows. J2353
• Numskull talks about his secret instructions and thus allows himself to be cheated. Told not to serve a man with a red beard or to keep sausage for the long winter, etc. J2355
• Boy talks about his secret instructions and brings his father's theft to light. He is to avoid his companions lest they smell what he has been eating. J2355.2
• "Bite the ear" (speak secretly). Fool interprets literally. J2489.3
• Contest: who will eat least. Food secretly furnished one, but plan detected and foiled. K81.4
• Deceptive bargain: fasting together. The servant girl eats secretly; the miser starves. K177
• Guessing name of devil's secret plant. The man's wife in tar and feathers overhears the devil tell the secret name of the crop he has discovered (tobacco). The devil says to the supposed animal, "Get out of my tobacco!" K216.2.1
• Thief enters treasury through secret passage. K315
• Theft of gold hoard by spying on secret hiding place. K322
• Theft by wife's paramour. Wife tells him secret of buried money. K365.3
• Sausage as revolver. Man scares robber with sausage; later boasts of event at inn. Robber hears this. Innkeeper secretly lends man a real revolver; robber is shot down when boldly attempting a second attack. K437.3
• 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
• Concealed confederate as unjust witness. A rascal who has hidden with a simple man a treasure found by them carries it away secretly, trying to have his associate condemned on the witness of a tree in which his father is concealed. K451.3
• "Have we leave to go?" Two prisoners are made stable boys on their promise not to escape secretly. Before horse race starts they ask: "Do we have your leave to go?" They go home. K475.2
• Saint who desires pottage of nettles containing no milk receives pottage into which milk has been poured surreptitiously through pipe. The secret is revealed, and the saint blesses the cook's successors. K499.2.2
• Animal persuaded to be tied through curiosity to learn secret names. K713.1.4
• Secret of strength treacherously discovered. K975
• Secret of external soul learned by deception. K975.2
• Secret learned by intoxicating dupe. K1165
• Access gained by the aid of rival's mule. Man tries in vain to learn the identity of his friend's mistress. Mounts his friend's mule, which takes him to the secret rendezvous. K1349.3
• Adulteress detected: husband secretly drops dye on her dress. K1550.1.1
• Husband returns home secretly and spies on adulteress and lovers. K1551
• Husband returns secretly and kills unwelcome suitor. K1551.1
• Husband proves intrigue by secretly blacking paramour's mouth. When he returns, his wife's face is black. K1564
• Woman excites peasant (secretary), who draws line on floor and dares her to cross it. When she does, adultery is committed. K1588
• The treasure-finders who murder one another. Two (three) men find a treasure. One of them secretly puts poison in the other's wine, but the other kills him, drinks the wine and dies. K1685
• Groom deceives bride with substituted bedmate and hides self in order to learn the secret she has promised to tell. K1844.3
• Alchemist secures payment for his "secret". K1966.2
• King's daughter secretly pledged to many to win their aid. K2034.1
• Crow gets to owls pretending crows have cast him out. Having learned secret retreats of owls, he returns to crows and leads them to victory over owls. K2042
• Illness feigned in order to learn secret. K2091
• False tokens of woman's unfaithfulness. Tokens are stolen from the woman, or her secret markings are seen by treachery. K2112.1
• King's man falsely accused of being in the secret service of another king. K2126.2
• Betrayal of husband's secret by his wife. K2213.4
• Secret of vulnerability disclosed by hero's wife. K2213.4.1