ATU 751A The Farmwife is Changed into a Woodpecker

ATU 751A

The Farmwife is Changed into a Woodpecker

Aarne–Thompson–Uther tale-type index · Religious Tales · The full type description is not served here; the number and name are the classification facts.

Motifs the recorded variants carry

Cake magically increases. (Cf. D1031.2.) 10 variants
Gods (saints) in disguise visit mortals. 10 variants
Gods (saints) in disguise reward hospitality and punish inhospitality. Usually the hospitable person is poor, the inhospitable rich. 5 variants
Inhospitality to saint (god) punished. (Cf. Q1.1.) 5 variants
Transformation: man to woodpecker. 2 variants
St. Peter's mother dropped from heaven because of hardheartedness. She is permitted to go to heaven on a stalk, but is weighted down by people holding to her skirts. She shakes them off. (Cf. Q172.) 2 variants
Punishment: transformation of lovers into lion and lioness for desecrating temple. They have had sexual relations in the temple. It was believed that lions do not mate with each other; hence their sin could not be repeated. 2 variants
Punishment: woman transformed into bird. 2 variants
Curse for inhospitality. (Cf. Q292.) 2 variants

Type numbers and names after Aarne–Thompson–Uther, via Hagedorn, trilogy (2022), CC-BY-NC-SA; motif links weighted by the dataset’s recorded tale variants. Served as classification facts with attribution.