The Mythology and Folklore Database
K67F - Slaughter the sheep that looks at you.
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Source Data from Berezkin's Analytics Catalogue, if using this data please acknowledge and link to it here:
Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
Summary of Motif
A fool or a rogue is instructed to slaughter the sheep (cow, bull) that looks at him, i.e. any one. He slaughters them all, because they all looked at him.Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part group 11, Tricks and competitions won thanks to deception, absurd and obscene behavior
K67 has 9 other sub-motifsK67. At night, one person intends to throw another person's shoes or clothes into the fire, but ends up burning his own shoes or clothes. Usually, the father-in-law throws his son-in-law's shoes into the fire at night in order to freeze him out, but the son-in-law has already switched shoes, so the father-in-law burns his own. K67a. A character of low status annoys characters of high status. Learning of the intention of the characters of high status to drown him or his property (rarely: to strangle him), he arranges for one of them or their property to be drowned instead. K67b. A character of low social status (without supernatural abilities) takes a job with a character of high social status (with supernatural abilities) on the condition that the employer will not get angry with the employee. By repeatedly annoying the employer, the employee causes him to become angry and, as a result, be severely punished or pay a large sum of money. K67c. The character agrees that under certain conditions another person may tear the skin from his back or cause him some other bodily harm. K67d. The worker (rarely – the husband) annoys the master (wife) so much that he or she decides to run away, taking his or her property with him or her. The worker hides in a sack (chest) with his or her property and ends up back where he or she started. K67e. Someone promises to fulfil their duties until they hear a bird singing at a certain moment in a temporal cycle (annual or daily). Another character imitates the bird. The first recognises the deception. K67f. A fool or a rogue is instructed to slaughter the sheep (cow, bull) that looks at him, i.e. any one. He slaughters them all, because they all looked at him. K67g. Pretending to carry out his master's orders, the worker cuts off the animals' lips (to make them look like they are smiling). K67h. When a worker is sent to a place where he is to be torn apart by a predator, he tames it and lets it into the barn (stable) at home. As a result, the predator destroys the owner's livestock. k67i. The worker is instructed to follow a straight line or overcome the obstacle without breaking it. He kills and cuts up the animals entrusted to him, throws the pieces over the fence or breaks the fence, even though there is a passage nearby. Click here if would you like to see a distrbution map combining all of K67's motifs? |
Top 10 Motifs with similar dispersal patterns
| Motif | Similarity | Motif Summary |
|---|---|---|
| C33A | 99.60% | Throughout the year, someone tries to saw through or break the chain or rope that holds him or another character. On a certain day of the year, when the chain has become completely thin, it is restored to its former state, or the pole to which the chain is attached is reinserted into the ground. Cf. motif G8d. |
| F70E1 | 99.49% | An old man needs a son to do men's work. (Only the youngest) daughter takes on this task (successfully passing the test set by her father), pretending to be a man. |
| M83B | 99.41% | Two (or more) characters agree to give food to whoever has the best dream. One talks about a feast he went to in a dream (or says he was in a different world), the second admits that he ate everything alone - he was sure that after the feast, the first one would not qualify for food (which someone who finds himself in a different world does not need food). |
| K97 | 99.40% | A man prepares to kill a large bird, but does not kill it. When the bird later carries him, it pretends to leave him on a rock or throw him down. In doing so, it makes it clear how frightened it was. Either the bird first drops and catches the man, and later he makes her experience fear herself (the Volyn variant is slightly different). |
| K27Q1 | 99.24% | The hero is sent to bring lioness milk in a wineskin made from a lion skin (usually from a lion cub's skin). |
| F87A | 99.23% | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a girl bathing, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into birds. |
| K85 | 99.23% | The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. |
| L110C | 99.23% | An elderly couple makes a child out of clay (wood, straw, dough). The doll comes to life and eats everyone it sees. Usually a goat (ram) breaks it, and those who have been swallowed come out alive. |
| K8C1 | 99.22% | A tiny man is first accidentally swallowed by a large herbivore, then carried off by a wolf that began to eat the carcass of this animal. |
| K2A3 | 99.22% | The hero's companions leave him on the mountain, destroying the rope (chain) by which he climbed up or which he lowered down. |
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Map of Motif Dispersal
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This motif has been recorded in 14 traditions: Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Slovakians, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Latvians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Kalmyk, Bashkirs, Mari (Cheremis), Mordvins, Chuvash, Udmurt, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio), Germans: South (Upper German dialects): Alsace (Elsass), Baden-Württemberg, Bawaria, Swabia, Switzerland, Bohemia, Sudeten, Austria, Russian Federation