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Aarne–Thompson–Uther index
About this index and how to read it
The ATU index classifies international folktales by type. Each row gives the type number, its title and summary, followed by the references it inherits: Arne Thompson is the earlier Aarne–Thompson type number, and Thompson lists the motif references from Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature associated with that type.
Cross-references inside a summary open the relevant tale-type or motif record. Thompson motif references in the final column are linked directly to the corresponding entry in the Stith Thompson Motif Index when that reference exists in the database. Any column heading can be clicked to sort by it, and clicking again reverses the order. Following a type number opens that type on its own page.
Anecdotes and Jokes 1200–1999
| ATU | Title | Summary ▲ | Arne Thompson | Thompson |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1844 | The Parson Visits the Sick | |||
| 1832 | Boy answers the priest | A boy rides with a rich man. Goes into church and leaves his coat lying in the sled. Hears the parson preach about the rich man who went to hell. The boy calls out, »Then he took my coat along» [X435.5]. | ||
| 1294 | Getting the Calf's Head out of the Pot | A calf gets its head caught in the pot. A fool cuts off the calf's head and then breaks the pot to get it out. [J2113]. | 1294 | J2113. |
| 1533 | The wise carving of the fowl | A clever person divides it symbolically head to head of house, neck to wife, wings to daughters, legs to sons; keeps rest for himself. (Cf. Type 875 II e.) [H601]. | 1533 | NA |
| 1916 | The Breathing Tree | A hunter cuts down a tree packed so full of animal that a crack opens as the animals inhale, closes when they exhale. | 1916 | X1116. |
| 1556 | The Double Pension (Burial Money) | A husband and wife are jointly under a pension from the king. She reports her husband dead and gets the whole pension. He likewise reports her dead and gets the whole money. [K441.1]. (Sometimes concerned with money for the burial.) (K482.1). | 1556 | K482.1. |
| 1410 | Four Men's Mistress | A husband disguises as a priest to hear his wife's confession. She says that she has been the 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… | 1410 | J1545.2. |
| 1418 | The Equivocal Oath | A husband insists that his wife take oath that she has been intimate with no one but himself. The paramour masks as ass-driver. She hires an ass from him, falls down, and lets him pick her up. She swears no one has touched her except the husband and… | 1418 | K1513. |
| 1431 | The contagious yawns | A husband planning to punish his wife, who has yawned in church at the same time as a man, sees his error when his wife in the woods calls out, »The squirrels hop from bough to bough as the yawns from mouth to mouth.» [J1448]. | ||
| 1951 | Is Wood Split? | A lazy man asks if wood is split before he accepts it as a gift [W111.5.12]. Sometimes, if rice is cooked. | 1951 | W111.5.10. |
| 1250 | Bringing Water from the Well | A log is laid across the top of the well. One man holds to the log with his hands, the next climbs down and holds to his feet, and so on; the uppermost man becomes tired and lets go to spit on his hands. [J2133.5]. Cf. Type 121. | 1250, 1250A | J2133.5., J2133.6.1. |
| 1558 | Welcome to the Clothes | A man at a banquet is neglected because of his poor clothes. He changes clothes, returns, and is honored. »Feed my clothes,» he says, »for it is they that are welcomed.» [J1561.3]. | 1558 | J1561.3. |
| 1645 | The Man Who Became Rich through a Dream | A man dreams that if he goes to a distant city he will find treasure on a certain bridge. Finding no treasure, he tells his dream to a man who says that he too has dreamed of treasure at certain place. He describes the place, which is the first man's… | , 1645, 1645A | E721., E730., N531.1., N531.3. |
| 1917 | The Stretching and Shrinking Harness | A man driving a team with a wagon in the rain finds on arrival at the top of the hill that the tugs of rawhide have stretched and that the loaded wagon is still at the bottom. He unhitches the horses and throws the harness across a stump. Later when… | ||
| 1545 | The boy with many names | A man gets lodging in a beautiful woman's house. He pretends not to know how to sleep in bed; she must go with him. | 1545, 1545B | K1327., K602. |
| 1579 | Carrying Wolf, Goat, and Cabbage across Stream | A man is to set across a stream, in a boat that will hold himself and only one other object, a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage. He must do this so that the wolf doesn't eat the goat, nor the goat the cabbage. Two solutions: (1) (a) take goat over, (b)… | 1579 | H506.3. |
| 1228 | Shooting with a Gun | A man looks down the gun-barrel as it is shot [J2131.4.1]. Cf. Type 1158. | ||
| 1807 | The Equivocal Confession | A man makes an equivocal confession to the priest he has robbed, e.g., says that he has saved a man from a bear, (meaning that he stole the priest's furs); asks his confessor for guidance. The priest, misunderstanding the confession, even praises the… | ||
| 1707 | The Noseless Man | A man who has lost his nose persuades others that they, too, can see God if they will cut their noses off. They do so, whereupon he scoffs at them. [J758.1.1]. Cf. Types 64, 1203. | ||
| 1225 | The man without a head in the bear's den | A man's head is snatched off by accident and his companions do not see what has happened. Debate: did he ever have a head? [J2381]. | J2381. | |
| 1750 | The Parson's Stupid Wife | A mercenary lover makes the parson's wife believe that chickens can be taught to talk [J1882.1]. At her request, he undertakes to hatch out hen's eggs and receives large amounts of corn to feed them. When the chickens hatch, he declares that they… | ||
| 1334 | The Local Moon | A numskull greets the old moon as if it were new. »I haven't seen it before, for I have just come to the city.» (Each town thought to have a different moon.) [J2271.1]. | 1334 | J2271.1. |
| 1804 | The eel filled with sand | A penitent confesses that a plan to sin has entered his mind. Priest tells him that the thought is as good as the deed. Assesses four florins as penance. Penitent says that he had only had it in his mind to give the florins; he must take the thought… | ||
| 1705 | Talking Horse and Dog | A person is frightened by animals successively replying to his remarks. Example: The man riding the horse and followed by the dog tells the horse to jump over a hole. Horse says, »I will not.» Man turns to dog and says, »Isn't that strange, a… | 1705 | B210.1. |
| 1661 | The Triple Tax | A poet is given by the king the right to demand a coin from the first hunchback he meets, from the first man of a certain name, and the first man of a certain city. He sees a hunchback and demands the coin. A quarrel arises in which it appears that… | ||
| 1437 | A Sweet Word | A quarrelsome husband asked by his dying wife for a sweet word answers, "Honey is sweet" or throws a Bible at her. [J1541.1, J2497]. Cf. Type 1696B*. | ||
| 1615 | The Heller Thrown into Other's Money | A rascal sees robbers dividing their booty. He puts a red string through his only coin (a heller) and slips it into the others' money. He claims the money as his, and says he has marked it with a heller having a red string through it. The robbers… | ||
| 1528 | Holding Down the Hat | A rascal stands by the side of a road near his hat under which he has hidden dung. When the dupe arrives he offers to pursue the rascal with the dupe's horse if the latter will guard his hat under which is a beautiful bird. He escapes with the horse.… | 1528 | K1252. |
| 1242 | Loading the wood | A rider takes the meal-sack on his shoulder to relieve the ass of his burden. | 1242, 1242A | J1874.1., J2213.4. |
| 1631 | Horse which will not Go over Trees | A salesman tells the buyer that he is selling the horse because it eats too much and will not climb trees. On the way home the horse bites everyone and refuses to cross a bridge. Seller is literally correct. [K134.1]. | ||
| 1739 | The parson and the calf | A sick parson is made to believe that he will bear a calf. In having his urine examined by a doctor, a cow's is substituted by mistake. (Or he dreams that he has borne a calf.) When a calf comes into the house he thinks that he has borne it.… | ||
| 1613 | "Playing-Cards are my Calendar and Prayerbook." | A soldier reproved for playing cards during church service answers thus and shows so cleverly the symbolic meanings of each of the cards that he receives a reward. [H603]. | 1613 | H603. |
| 1288 | 'These are not my feet' | A stranger helps them with a switch. [J2021]. | 1288 | J2021. |
| 1574 | The flattering foreman | 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… | 1574 | J1401. |
| 1551 | The Wager that Sheep are Hogs | A trickster wagers with a sheep driver that the sheep he is driving are hogs. The next man to overtake them will act as umpire. The trickster's confederate now arrives and declares that they are hogs. [K451.2]. | 1551 | K451.2. |
| 1624 | Thief's Excuse: the Big Wind | A vegetable thief is caught in a garden. Owner: How did you get into the garden? A wind blew me in. How were the vegetables uprooted? If the wind is strong enough to blow me in, it can uproot them. How did they get into your bag? That is what I was… | ||
| 1927 | The Cold May Night | A very cold night comes in May. Hearing of a much colder night long ago, a man sets out to find about it. In his travels he comes to (a) an otter lying in a deep hole on top of a rock: he has been so long lying there that the rock has been worn… | 1927 | X1620. |
| 1553 | An Ox for Five Pennies | A woman who has been left the ox on condition that she give the proceeds to the poor offers it for five pennies, but it must be bought along with a cock at twelve florins. She gives the five pennies to the poor and keeps the twelve florins. [K182]. | ||
| 1203 | The Scythe Cuts one Man's Head off | All have theirs cut off. [J2422]. | ||
| 1805 | Confessions of a Pious Woman | Allegorically tells her sin; repeatedly confesses the sin she committed in her youth, as its remembrance gives her delight (and the like). Cf. Type 1851. | ||
| 1620 | The conversation of the one-eyed man and the hunchback | An impostor pretends to make clothes for the king and says that they are visible only to those of legitimate birth. The king and courtiers are all afraid to admit that they cannot see the clothes. Finally a child seeing the naked king reveals the… | , 1620 | J2312., K445. |
| 1278 | Marking the place on the boat | An object falls into the sea from a boat. Numskulls mark the place on the boat-rail to indicate where it fell. [J1922.1]. | 1278, 1278* | J1922.1., J1922.2. |
| 1475 | Marriage Forbidden Outside the Parish | An order is read in church forbidding the young people to marry girls from other parishes. [X751]. | ||
| 1913 | The Side-hill Beast | Animal with two short legs on one side for convenience in living on hillsides. It can walk around the hill in only one direction. [X1381]. | ||
| 1293 | Numskull Stays until 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]. | ||
| 1215 | The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey | Asinus Vulgi. Miller blamed when he follows his son on foot; when he takes the son's place on the ass; when he takes the son behind him; and when he puts the son in front of him. [J1041.2]. | , 1215 | J1041., J1041.2. |
| 1380 | The faithless wife | Asks God how she can fool her husband. The husband from the tree (or rafters) tells her that she can make him blind by feeding him milk-toast. The husband feigns blindness and slays the lover. The body is thrown into the river. Cf. Types 1324*, 1375,… | 1380 | K1553. |
| 1557 | Box on the Ear Returned | At table each gives his neighbor a box on the ears. The soldier is to give it to the king, but he returns it to the courtier from whom he has received it. [K2376]. | 1557 | K2376. |
| 1560 | Make-believe eating; make-believe work | At the table the peasant says, »We will only act as if we were eating.» At work the servant: »We will only act as if we were working.» [J1511.1]. | ||
| 1538 | The youth cheated in selling oxen | Avenges himself. As carpenter and as doctor in the purchaser's house he punishes the latter [K1825.1.3]. Brings it about that the miller is hanged in his place [K841]. | , 1538 | K1825.1.3., K713.1. |
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