The Folktale
Stith Thompson
The silence wager. A man and his wife make a wager as to who shall speak first (close the door). The man (woman) becomes jealous and scolds; loses the wager. *Type 1351; Child No. 275; **Brown Amer. Journ. of Philol. XLIII 289; *Wesselski Hodscha Nasreddin I 263; Clouston Tales II 15; *Basset 1001 Contes II 401; Chauvin VIII 132 No. 124; Clouston Noodles 108, 184; Fb ”tie“ III 792a; Christensen DF L 79; Italian Novella: *Rotunda; India: *Thompson-Balys. |
Part Two The Folktale from Ireland to India III – The Simple Tale 1. Jests and Anecdotes B. Fools and Numskulls |
A surprisingly large number of simple tales told by unlettered men everywhere concern fools and their absurdities. This is true just as much of primitive peoples who love to see their culture heroes play the parts of buffoons [295] as it is of an older generation of British or Danish peasants who tell of the actions of the Men of Gotham or the Fools of Molbo. [296] Every generation has its new supply of such stories, though many old ones, sometimes familiar to the Egyptians or the ancient Greeks, are dressed in strange new trappings, and pass for new inventions. Out of the large body of anecdotes based upon absurd misunderstanding there may be mentioned three which have attained considerable popularity in various folk traditions. One of these tales belongs to the general class of objects with mistaken identity ( A second kind of misunderstanding may result in inappropriate and absurd actions on the part of the numskull ( The fool lives in a mental world of his own, and he may endow objects or animals with any qualities that suit his passing fancy ( A much more interesting tale of this general type is The Ox as Mayor ( The ascribing of human characteristics to the ox is one example of the widespread misunderstanding which fools are supposed to have concerning the nature of animals. Most of such anecdotes ( Our proverb about hunting for a needle in a haystack probably refers to a tale of a fool who did this. For there are many stories of just such vain searches for lost objects. Best known of all such anecdotes is that about the foolish sailors who lose an object from their boat and mark the place on the boat rail to indicate where it fell, so that they can hunt for it later ( As a part of his general disregard for reality, the fool may overlook elementary natural laws. To the peasant story-teller, some of the most interesting of these have to do with his unsuccessful attempt to grow crops ( The essential nature of the ego has not only puzzled the great philosophers but has troubled the thinking of fools. Sometimes a man may not know himself because in his sleep his beard has been cut off or his garments have been changed, or he has been smeared with tar and feathers ( Any logical arrangement of the activities of numskulls continually breaks down, since their absurdity is not confined to sensible bounds. One can only say that some fools are primarily ignorant and some primarily absent-minded. In this way it is easy to find a group whose chief failing is shortsightedness ( Much more popular as an oral tale is the story of Clever Elsie ( In a world of shrewd business men, it is remarkable that more stories of foolish bargains have not been told than actually exist. Sometimes, of course, such bargains find their main interest in the sharp dealings of the trickster rather than the stupid actions of the dupe. [299] There is one well-known story, however, where the foolish man plays the leading role ( A favorite theme in the literary jestbooks which is occasionally found in European oral tales is foolish acts in which the remedy is worse than the disease to be cured ( Jestbooks record many another shortsighted act, and most of them have been heard now and again by collectors of folklore. [301] Such is the account of the man who tries to jump into his breeches, pulling on both legs at once; of the people who carry a millstone uphill so that they may roll it down; of [p. 194] those who do not mend the roof when it is fair weather and cannot when it rains; or of the schoolmaster who whips his pupils beforehand to keep them out of mischief. One tale of this kind is well known as an oral anecdote: that of the fool who lets the wine run in the cellar while he falls into a deep study or sometimes while he chases a dog. In the sequel he usually tries to dry up the spilled wine by pouring meal on it ( A frequent theme in jestbooks is the tale of the man who believes that he is dead ( As a part of stories concerning the saints or gods who wander on earth, we frequently find a foolish mortal attempting unsuccessfully to perform a miracle in imitation of these supernatural beings. [302] Tales of foolish imitation on a purely human level are also very popular in jestbooks and collections of medieval tales. There is, for example the anecdote about the doctor's son who has heard his father tell his patient that he has eaten too much chicken. The son wonders how the diagnosis was made, and the father tells him that as he rode up he had observed chicken feathers and had made his conclusions. The son tries the same method and sees an ass's saddle in front of a house. He diagnoses the ailment as due to the eating of ass's flesh. Another literary tale of this class, occasionally told by story-tellers, is that of the two presents to the king. A farmer takes an extraordinarily large beet as a present to the king and receives a reward. His companion is eager for an even larger reward and leads a handsome steed to the palace. The king presents him with the huge beet. Though these two tales [303] are certainly literary, one anecdote of foolish imitation has had wide acceptance both as a popular tale and, especially in English-speaking countries, as a folk ballad. A husband is scornful of his wife's labors and, at her suggestion, agrees to exchange tasks. While she succeeds with his work in the fields, he makes an utter failure in his attempt at housekeeping ( The fool is frequently so literal-minded that he follows instructions even in the most inappropriate situations. The best-known tale of this kind has to do with the mother who tells her son what he should do in various circumstances ( What is really a somewhat specialized form of this same anecdote concerns the foolish bridegroom who follows his instructions to the letter. He is told, for example, that he should cast sheep's eyes at his bride. He buys some at the butcher shop and throws them at her. When he is told to put parsley in the soup, he throws in his dog, who happens to be named Parsley. When he is to clear out the room, he throws out all the furniture. In the end, of course, the bride becomes disgusted and leaves, but not before she has put a goat as substitute in the bed ( Only one of the frequent literary tales of foolish extremes has become very popular in folklore. This is The Silence Wager ( Perhaps no peoples have been so interested in anecdotes of fools and their actions as the countries around the Baltic. Scores of other tales than those suggested here are well known in this area. In Finland, particularly, a favorite cycle of stories concerns a bungling fool who has a succession of accidents. When he goes to get a midwife, he accidentally strikes the dog dead, drowns the midwife, and kills the child ( In general, it will be noticed that while a number of stories of numskulls are handed down by tradition, either as anecdotes or as songs, they flourish most in written collections of jests. In the Middle Ages these were included in books of exempla, but beginning with the Renaissance there has been an unbroken series of literary jestbooks containing hundreds of such anecdotes. The jokes in these books may appear to be new, but they are nearly always constructed on some ancient pattern. With jests and anecdotes much more than with the serious folktale, the literary collections have directly influenced traditional story-tellers and ballad singers. This close relation between literature and folklore is nowhere better seen than in numskull tales such as those we have just noticed. |
[295] For these trickster tales, see p. 319, below. [296] An excellent recent treatment of these stories is Christensen's Molboernes Vise Gerninger. For such tales in another quarter of the world, see Coster-Wijsman, Uilespiegel-Verhalen in Indonesië. [297] Especially [298] [299] For such deceptive bargains, see [300] There is also a similar animal tale known over much of Europe about wolves who climb on top of one another to a tree, and when the lowest runs away all fall ( [301] For this group of stories, see [302] See |
Types: 121, 531, 753, 1200, 1210, 1211, 1240, 1250, 1278, 1287, 1288, 1290, 1291, 1313, 1315*, 1319, 1351, 1383, 1385, 1386, 1387, 1406, 1408, 1415, 1430, 1450, 1642, 1675, 1680, 1681, 1685, 1696, 1710*, 1739 |
Motifs J1750-J1809, J1757, J1772.1, J1781.1, J1820-J1849, J1821, J1835*, J1850-J1909, J1856.1, J1871, J1873.2, J1881.1.2, J1882.2, J1900-J1909, J1904.1, J1922.1, J1930-J1959, J1932, J1935.1, J2012, J2021, J2031, J2050-J2199, J2060.1, J2061, J2063, J2081.1, J2086, J2100-J2119, J2133.4, J2133.5, J2133.6, J2160-J2198, J2176, J2311, J2321.1, J2431, J2461, J2462, J2465.5, J2511, J2661.2, J2661.4, K100-K299, K1223.1 |