ATU 156B* The Grateful Snake (previously Woman as Snake's Midwife)
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The tale in brief
A person helps a snake (in the older title, a woman acts as midwife at its birth), and the grateful snake rewards the helper with gold. In the three Estonian legends a hunter helps a snake kill a rival snake, or a herd boy frees one from an anthill, and is rewarded with hidden money.
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 357: Tänulik madu (ATU 156B*; varem tüüp 738* inimene (naine) aitab madu sünnitusel). Mitmekesine tüüp... · 3 records · canonical reference
Finnic sources cited in the catalogue
The entries of the catalogue’s list of literature and variants that concern Finnic tradition.
Estonian Aarne 1918, No. 738*, Loorits 1959, No. 140, Kippar 1986, No. 156B*
Full references:
- Aarne 1918: Aarne, Antti: Estnische Märchen- und Sagenvarianten. Verzeichnis der zu den Hurt'schen Handschriftensammlungen gehörenden Aufzeichnungen. FF Communications 25. Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918.
- Loorits 1959: Loorits, Oskar: Estnische Volkserzählungen. Fabula, Supplement-Serie A: Texte 1. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1959.
- Kippar 1986: Kippar, Pille: Estnische Tiermärchen. Typen- und Variantenverzeichnis. FF Communications 237. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1986.
Motifs and related tale types
Related types: ATU 285A The Man and the Wounded Snake (previously The Dead Child and the Snake's Tail)·ATU 476* In the Frog's House·ATU 476** Midwife in the Underworld
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 I (FF Communications 284), 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.
The plot summary, the notes and the arrangement of this page are RunoVerse’s own.