75 motifs match “wait”  ·  back to the chapters

• Demon god lies in wait for spirits descending to underworld. A317
• In other world one room contains the dead, another contains souls of the unborn waiting to enter the wombs of women, and a third contains all the evil spirits. A678
• Devil takes man waiting for water to turn to wine at midnight on Old Christmas Eve. D477.1.1
• Dragon-fighter's magic sleep. While waiting for fight with dragon, hero falls into magic sleep. (Cf. D1962.2.) D1975
• Souls await Judgment Day in shapes of birds. E751.2
• Life token: music box plays by itself as owner awaits burial. E761.7.11
• Man is waiting for bird to fall that he had shot eight days before. F638.3
• 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
• Task assigned from misunderstanding: search for prince named Sabr ("wait"). H946.1
• Little fish in the net kept rather than wait for uncertainty of greater catch. J321.2
• Bravest know how to wait. Three men are pursued in battle. First throws himself on enemies; second waits a little; third does not fight until the enemy begins. Latter is bravest. J572.1
• Man decides to make himself strong in peaceful times rather than wait until attacked. J674.2
• Impossibility of pleasing everyone. One must act therefore without awaiting everyone's approval. J1041
• Detection of theft by finding bag-repairer. Two men are in a lawsuit and before witnesses seal the documents in a bag to await arrival of the king. One of the men cuts the bag open, changes the documents, and has a repairer sew it up again. On the king's arrival the change is discovered. By having a fine carpet repaired the expert repairer is discovered. Confession follows. J1141.5
• Novel settlement: snake's wife must wait to kill prince till princess bears as many sons as snake has. J1173.1.1
• Dividing four coins among three persons. Two coins apiece given to two; other is to wait till two more coins are found. J1241.2
• Tide inquires whether moon is up. Minnow seeing absurdity of question (since tide could not be up without the moon) tells the tide to wait till he gets a drink and he will tell. J1292
• Is ready to go. A peddler scolds the dog who is waiting and tells him to get ready to go with him. The dog replies that he has nothing to carry, that it is the peddler who is late. J1475
• Daughter says "Sobur" (wait) to her father when he asks what to bring from the journey. Father finds Prince Sobur. J1805.2.1
• Numskull stays till he has finished. As he is making water he hears a brook flowing and mistakes what it is. He waits for a day and a half. J1814
• Numskull bales out the stream. He comes to a stream but not wishing to get his feet wet he sits down to wait for the stream to run down. He helps to bale the stream out with a hazelnut shell and keeps it up for months. J1967
• Foolish waiting. J2066
• The hungry fox waits in vain for horse's scrotum (lips) to fall off. J2066.1
• The daw waits in vain for the figs to ripen in winter. J2066.2
• Men (animals) wait in vain for nuts to fall from a tree. J2066.3
• Waiting in vain for fruit to fall from a non-fruitbearing tree. J2066.3.1
• Wolf waits in vain for the nurse to throw away the child. She has threatened to throw the child to the wolf. J2066.5
• Dog waits to be hit with meat. A butcher has threatened to hit him with a piece of meat. J2066.6
• Dupe waits for rear wheels of wagon to overtake front wheels. Is told that money is thus made. J2066.7
• Hare waits in vain for leaves to fall from palm tree. J2066.8
• Hare waits in vain for man's hand to fall off. He sees it dangling. J2066.9
• Crocodile goes after the second child. He finds two children bathing in the river and carries one to his hole. He tells the child to wait while he goes for the other child. Both children escape. J2173.6
• Anticipatory whipping. A schoolmaster whips his pupils to keep them from wrong-doing. He does not wait until after the deed is done. J2175.1
• Waiting at the well for the thief. A thief has stolen a salted cheese. Since one always goes to the well after eating salted cheese, the thief will also come. J2214.3
• Waiting in the graveyard for the thief. He must eventually come here. J2214.3.1
• Waiting for the thief to return for the bolster. After the cover is stolen, the numskulls conclude that the thief will certainly return for the bolster. J2214.3.2
• Waiting for the thieves to return for invoice of goods stolen. J2214.3.3
• Fool waits for God to provide. Nearly starves. J2215.4
• What will the robber do? A man curious as to what a robber is going to do waits to intervene and goes back to sleep. J2378
• Asking favor when master is in good humor. Fool waits till master is laughing at servant's stupidity. J2461.8
• Couldn't wait to dress. The overzealous visitor rides naked to see his friends. J2517
• Creditor to wait till debtor is shaved. The debtor refuses to finish shaving. K238.1
• Stealing the platter for the intended gift. Thief asks for silver platter saying that it is needed for an intended gift of confections. Servant carrying platter is told to wait until it is filled. Thief disappears with it. K362.3.1
• Robber cheated by substitution. Spending the night in company with a suspicious-looking stranger, the man does not go to sleep, but leaves his clothes in bed and waits to see what will happen. When the stranger wakes up in the night, he stabs at his sleeping companion, who shoots him down. (Cf. K525.1.) K437.1
• Trickster dupes rival by exchanging beds: receives his food. Overhears maiden tell rival she will bring food at night, waits until rival is asleep and carries him to another bed, takes his place, and is fed by maiden. K499.8
• Disguise as waiter in inn to escape. K521.4.4
• Devil must wait for man to tie his stocking before the man comes into his possession. It remains untied. K551.4.2
• "Wait till I get fat." Captured person (animal) persuades his captor to wait and fatten him before eating him. K553
• "Wait till I am fat enough to race you." Hero to be eaten by cannibals when he is fattened enough to beat them in a race. He runs away. K553.0.1
• Calf: "Wait till I grow up." K553.0.2
• "Wait till men come to take me from trap, then eat them." K553.1.1
• Wait for the fat goat. Troll lets the first two goats pass on the bridge so that he may eat the biggest one. He is thrown in the water. K553.2
• Dwarf persuaded to wait for ram. Lamb and ewe escape. Ram butts dwarf into river. K553.2.1
• Escape by pretended debate as to which must be judged. Jackals thus induce leopard to permit them to enter their cave, while he waits in vain. K622.1
• Capture by lying in wait in enemy's haunt. K782
• Fox persuades bear to lie in the haycock and wait for sheep. He sets fire to the hay. (Cf. K1013.2.) K1075
• Importunate lover (priest) is forced to hide in chest. Husband takes the chest to the waiting congregation. Clever priest comes out enacting the resurrection of Lazarus. K1218.1.4
• Woman leaves importunate lover waiting in her room. Feigns illness and then escapes. K1227.5
• Abducted princess tells her abductor to wait for her menstrual period of 12 years to terminate. K1227.10.1
• Lover gets self carried into beloved's house to wait for clean clothes after a purposeful fall in mud. K1349.6
• Lover demands return of cloth on threat to await the husband's return. K1581.5.2
• The order for six loads of snow. The order is given by the king in winter. The courtier waits until summer to present the order. Gets money as substitute. K1661
• Miracle must wait till one man is sacrificed. No one volunteers and it does not need to be performed. K1785
• Juggler promises to fly from one house to another. Keeps crowd waiting until dusk and then makes his escape. K1967
• Demanding of promised boon postponed until an auspicious moment. Granted anything he may ask, the recipient waits to announce his choice. M204.1
• Persecution by bad luck. Wishing to escape it, the luckless couple build themselves a new home. Scarcely do they establish themselves in the new home, when bad luck addresses them from the hearth: "I have already waited for you here three days." N250.2
• Horn of Roncevalles. Hero calls aid of waiting soldiers on horn. R187
• Waiting for twenty-two years to see a beauty. T24.7
• Girl mistakenly elopes with the wrong lover. The preferred suitor overtakes them, finds them asleep and waits for them to awaken. He himself falls asleep and when he wakes they have gone. T92.4
• St. Peter's wife meets him with a broom handle. She is waiting for him at the rear door of the house. T251.3
• The curious wife: wait and see. A man and his wife overhear thieves planning to rob the house, put the man out of the way, and have their will of the wife. The man wants to raise an alarm. She says, "Wait and see." T258.1
• Time seems short to those who play, long for those who wait. So says servant girl whose mistress upbraids her for late hours. U261
• Devil buys church bell and demoralizes congregation. They have always come early before since they had no bell to announce the time. Now they wait for the bell. V115.3
• Drunk man sees everything revolving and waits for his house to come to him. X815
• Pulling the needle out of the seamstress's hand. Final formula: That was just what the cat was waiting for – it sprang to devour the mouse, the mouse to tear the spider's web, the spider to entangle the dog, the dog to eat the goat, the goat to gnaw the rushes, the rushes to grow in the stream, the stream to quench the fire, the fire to burn the stone, the stone to beat the axe, the axe soon pulled out the needle that was stuck in the seamstress's hand. Z41.8