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

• Invisibility of creator learned from the impossibility of staring at the sun, his servant. A11.1
• Attendants and servants of the gods. A165
• Creator's giant servant puts a valley where earth's crust is heavy and a mountain where it is light so as to stabilize it. A857.2
• Creator's giant servant puts trees to hold earth together where it slipped. A857.3
• Creator gives liquor to his servant giant to drink. A1427.0.4
• Animal as servant of saint. (Cf. B292.) B256
• Animal as servant to man. B292
• Animal as domestic servant. B292.2
• Monkey as domestic servant. B292.2.1
• Bird as domestic servant. B292.2.2
• Bird servant to deity. B292.2.2.1
• Lion as domestic servant. B292.2.3
• Black cat as servant of giant. B292.6
• Rat servants cut jungle down, till soil for master. B292.9.3
• Animals as domestic servants. B574
• Dragon fly serves as snake's servant, feeds snake; it is called snake-feeder. B765.24
• Magic object stolen back by servant. D882.3
• Man has magic servants who plow for him; he swallows them each day and keeps them secret. D1719.8
• Magician who has sold his soul to the devil hires his servant to bury him properly: the coffin bursts. (Cf. E261.2.1.) E411.9
• Fairy punishes servant girl who fails to leave food for him. F361.14
• Fairy breaks leg of servant girl who tells lies about him. F361.17.4
• Mortal as servant in fairyland. F376
• Angels as familiar spirits. Act as servants about the house of saints and serve them otherwise. F403.2.2.2
• Water-spirits work as servants for mortal for small compensation. F420.5.1.4
• Water-spirits work as servants for mortal but disappear when compensation is offered or origin suspected. F420.5.1.5
• Giant as Creator's servant. F531.0.2
• Giant as servant to man. F531.5.10
• Man as servant of giant. F531.6.16.3
• Iron bands around heart to keep it from breaking. When master is disenchanted, bands around heart of faithful servant snap one by one. F875
• Servant grieves over master's death. Kills wife and himself. F1041.1.3.2
• Cat as servant of witch. G225.3
• Witch (female demon) has persons she has enchanted as servants. G263.0.1
• Devil and his servants live where perjurers dwell. G303.8.6
• Devil has a servant. G303.10.16
• Person as servant in ogre's house. G462
• Ogre's maidservant as helper. G530.6
• Recognition of maidservant substitute bride by her habitual conversation. H38.2.3
• Recognition by servant: saves master from death. H187
• Task: hero's servant must kill giant pig. H335.3.5
• Test of resourcefulness: not to sit at the foot of couch. Servant gives prince a lemon to place on it indicating which is head and which foot of couch. H506.6
• Solomon and Marcolf. Witty questions and answers between youth and servant. H561.3
• 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
• Tasks assigned at suggestion of treacherous servants. H919.1
• Task: bringing best friend, worst enemy, best servant, greatest pleasure-giver. (Brings dog, wife, ass, little son respectively.) H1065
• Task: buying a coin's worth of eggs and another of "ay, ay." Servant puts nettles in bag with eggs, and master cries "Ay, ay" when he touches the nettles. H1185.1
• Prince agrees to marry a servant girl if she will help him on a quest. H1239.1
• Fidelity of servant tested. H1556.0.1
• Test of valor: rousing servant's anger. Nobleman, when examining servants for hire, bids each stand before him and comb his long beard. Occasionally he snaps at them as if to bite them. Those who dodge he lets go; those who offer fight he employs. H1561.4
• Man tests industry of prospective servant girl. H1569.1.1
• "Rise earlier": counsel proved wise by experience. Man seeking explanation for being in debt arises earlier and catches his servants stealing. (Cf. H588.1.) J21.23
• "Never dismiss and old servant for his first fault": counsel proved wise by experience. J21.52.5
• Man rebukes servants for telling him of his wife's unfaithfulness. J221.1.2
• Man prefers servant girl who is present to her absent mistress. J326
• Knight disregards insult by servant. J411.9
• Fool given the truth on his back. He tells his master what the servants have done during his absence. The servants whip him on his bare back, saying at each blow, "That is the truth." When the master returns and tells the fool to tell the truth, the latter replies, "There is nothing worse on earth than the truth." J551.2
• Honest servant tells people that shop does not have many customers: dismissed. J551.7
• Intemperance in service. Emperor rebukes overzealous servant as being a nuisance. J554
• Man has disinterested party punish servant for him lest he himself be unfair in his anger. J571.4.1
• Master when angry will not punish servant who has ruined him. J571.4.2
• Unpaid servant refuses to blame master: later rewarded. J571.8
• Truth the best policy. Servant about to be caught for theft rehearses the lie he is to tell his master. He finds lies so transparent that he decides to tell the truth. J751.1
• The only person in the bath. Servant reports to master that there is but one person in the public bath Master finds three hundred. Only one person had removed stone from his path; rest had stubbed toes. He was only one worthy of the name of man. J753.1
• Flatterer always agrees with king even in opposite opinions; defense: he is king's servant. J814.2
• Servant plays at being emperor. Master sees him and says, "Now that you are emperor remember your humble master." J955.2
• Servant asks master for arms of knighthood. Is given a stalk of garlic. J955.3
• Stag found by master when overlooked by servants. Hides under hay and escapes until master himself comes. J1032
• Woman tests enduring power of gossip by having a servant ride through streets on a flayed ass. By the third day he has ceased to attract attention. She concludes that it will be the same way in connection with her intended marriage. J1075.1
• Possession of gold turns humble servant into arrogant one. J1085.2
• Clever maidservant. J1111.6
• Clever servant. (Cf. J1111.6, J1341, J1561.4, N25, P360, W111.2.) J1114
• Stone as witness. Farmer will not pay servant wages due. Closing his bargain with the servant he had said: "May this stone be witness." Judge orders stone brought to court. The farmer: "Oh, but the stone is too big (or very far away)". J1141.1.3.1
• To decide which is master and which servant they are to put heads through window and servant's head is to be cut off. Servant draws back. J1141.1.6
• Thief detected by his answer to question. "How would you treat a woman who came into your possession?" Answer: "I would use her and then give her to the servants." This reveals his true character. J1149.6
• Man tells servant that he may have anything he can take with his teeth (eat). Servant takes master's cape with his teeth. J1161.10
• Servants would not have left the coats. Merchants complain to nobleman that his servants have robbed them of money. Nobleman asks whether merchants had on those good coats when the robbery took place. When told yes, he said that the robbers were not his servants, for they would never have left good coats. J1179.5
• What is wanted, not what is asked. A servant is so trained that when the host asks for wine from a good cask he brings it from a cheap one. When the guest objects, the host says that the servant brought not what was asked for but what was wanted. J1311
• Retort from underfed servant (child). J1341
• Softening bread-crusts. An avaricious master feeds bread-crusts to his servants. "The crusts are already getting soft." J1341.1
• Stingy innkeeper cured of serving weak beer. She always gives the servants a pitcher of weak beer before meals so as to fill them up. One of them: "I wash out my insides so as to have more room for food." She changes her practice. J1341.7
• The little lumps of sugar are sweeter, says the hostess. The servant says that he doesn't like sweets and takes the large lumps. J1341.8
• Hungry student gets meat. By telling a mewing cat that it could not yet have the bones because no meat has been served him, a collegian calls attention to an oversight on the part of a servant. J1341.10
• The account-book of mistakes. A king, hearing that a man keeps an account-book of people's mistakes asks to see about his own record. He reads that the king has made a mistake in trusting a certain sum of money to a servant. King: "How if he comes back with it?" "I shall cross off your name and put him down for making a mistake." J1371
• The tailor's dream. A tailor dreams that at Judgment Day he sees a flag made up of all the pieces of cloth he has stolen Upon waking he asks his servants to warn him if they ever see him tempted to steal again. This happens. He replies, "The piece I am about to steal does not fit into the flag." J1401
• Strenuous cure for madness. Doctor throws patients into a pit of water. Servant warns queer-looking hunter to flee before master throws him into the pit. (Cf. K2137.) J1434
• Make-believe eating, make-believe work. At table the peasant says, "We will only act as if we were eating." At work the servant replies, "We will only act as if we were working." J1511.1
• Turnips called bacon: cat called rabbit. A peasant compels his servant to call turnips bacon. Under favorable circumstances the servant compels the master to call a cat a rabbit. J1511.2
• Fits become epidemic. After dinner a servant feigns a fit and goes to sleep. The master thereupon feigns a fit and beats the boy, who is thus cured of his laziness. J1511.4
• Master says that he has eyes in back of head: servant cheats him. Holds up food to master's back and then not having objection raised, eats it. J1511.9
• Oisin's poor diet in Patrick's house – pancake size of ivy leaf, measure of butter only size of rowan berry. Later Oisin gives Patrick quarter of a wild boar, servant ivy leaf and rowan berry. J1511.13
• Priest forbidden to have female servant ostentatiously washes his own clothes. Bishop reverses the order. J1539.1
• Four men's mistress. A husband disguises as a priest to hear his wife's confession. She says that she has been mistress of a servant, a knight, a fool, and a priest; i.e., her husband when he was her servant, and later her knight. He had then been a fool for demanding her confession, and was a priest because he had heard it. J1545.2
• The bigger fool. When told by servants their master is not at home, man says it is a fool that goes out in such midday heat. Whereupon master sticks his head out of the window, saying "Thou who art moving about at this time art the big fool: I have been seated all day in my house." J1552.1.1.1
• God as surety; the abbot pays. A young man is ransomed by giving God as surety for the ransom money. He fails to return as agreed. The creditor sees a wealthy abbot, who says that he is a servant of God. He robs the abbot and when the young man finally appears he tells the latter than the debt is already paid by God's servant. J1559.2
• Servant repays stingy master (mistress). J1561.4
• Servants touch cooking pot. Food being considered unclean then, guests depart empty but unwitting of true reason. J1563.5.2
• Host rebukes negligent servant. J1573
• A step-ladder for setting the table. Servant who leaves off the salt is instructed to bring in the step-ladder so as to see what is missing. J1573.1
• The forehanded servant. A parson boasts that when he asks his maid if certain work is done she always answers that it has been done long ago. A guest wagers that she can be trapped if she is asked whether she has thrown the parson's suit of clothes into the tub of water. She overhears the wager and has the suit in the water before he asks the question. J1614
• He has a family to support. Ruler to servant stealing his game: "If you wish any I'll send you some." J1636
• Rabbit thought to be a cow. Servant sent to bring in cows is found chasing rabbits. J1757