ATU 1191 Sacrifice on the Bridge (previously The Dog on the Bridge)
Open in the ATU tale-type index →
The tale in brief
The Devil builds a bridge in return for the first living being that crosses it, and is cheated when a dog, a rooster or another animal is sent over first. The linked Estonian legends share only the bargain: a man promises a treasure's keeper whoever first comes to meet him at home, counting on his dog, but in most of them his child comes first.
Summary written for RunoVerse and checked against the Finnic texts linked on this page.
Estonian treasure legends
Types of Estonian treasure legends that RunoVerse links to this tale type. A canonical reference rests on a catalogue number in the legend type’s name; strong parallels and experimental matches rest on a shared plot or shared motifs.
- P 446: Nõutakse seda, kes esimesena vastu tuleb · 9 records · experimental match
Finnic sources cited in the catalogue
The entries of the catalogue’s list of literature and variants that concern Finnic tradition.
Finnish Rausmaa 1982ff. III, Nos. 64, 91
Estonian Aarne 1918, 123 No. 48
Full references:
- Rausmaa 1982ff.: Rausmaa, Pirkko-Liisa (ed.): Suomalaiset kansansadut 1–6. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1982–2000.
- Aarne 1918: Aarne, Antti: Estnische Märchen- und Sagenvarianten. Verzeichnis der zu den Hurt'schen Handschriftensammlungen gehörenden Aufzeichnungen. FF Communications 25. Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918.
Motifs and related tale types
Motifs: The Ass Beheaded J1169.4·Unwitting Bargain with Devil Evaded by Driving Dog Over Bridge First S241.1
Example tales
English example tales of this type in the Trilogy folktale corpus; their texts can be read in the ATU tale-type index.
- Kilgrim Bridge · England · Gutch, Mrs.[Eliza], Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning the North Riding of Yorkshire, York and the Ainsty = County Folk-Lore, vol. 2, Printed Extracts, no. 4 (London: Published for the Folk-Lore Society by David Nutt, 1901), p. 19.
- The Bamberg Cathedral and Bridge · Germany · Adalbert Kuhn, 'Dom und Brücke zu Bamberg,' Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen und einigen andern, besonders den angrenzenden Gegenden Norddeutschlands, vol. 1 (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1859), no. 418, pp. 372-73.
- The Bridge at Kentchurch · Herefordshire, England · Ella Mary Leather, The Folk-Lore of Herefordshire: Collected from Oral and Printed Sources (Hereford: Jakeman and Carver; London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1912), p. 164.
Sources
Tale-type number, title, classification, related types and the Finnic sources: Hans-Jörg Uther, The Types of International Folktales (FF Communications 284–286, Helsinki 2004). · Uther 2004, part II (FF Communications 285), free online ↗
Treasure-legend links: RunoVerse’s matching of the Estonian treasure-legend types with the tale types.
Motifs and combinations with other tale types: the Trilogy dataset, from Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature and the ATU catalogue.
Example tales: the Trilogy folktale corpus; each tale’s own source is named beside it.
The plot summary, the notes and the arrangement of this page are RunoVerse’s own.