ATU 1643 Money inside the Statue (previously The Broken Image)
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The tale in brief
A simpleton sells his ox, or his cloth, to a statue, a stone or a creaking tree, and takes its silence or its creaking for a promise to pay; when no money comes he smashes it, and finds a hoard of money inside.
Summary written for RunoVerse and checked against the Finnic texts linked on this page.
Runosong types
Possibly related: the songs of these types match a passage of this tale, often words a character says or sings (as judged by a language model).
- Kivi kiitti, kanto kantto The stone thanked, the stump carried · SKVR · 1 poem
Finnic sources cited in the catalogue
The entries of the catalogue’s list of literature and variants that concern Finnic tradition.
Estonian Raudsep 1969, No. 255
Livonian Loorits 1926
Lappish, Wepsian Kecskeméti/Paunonen 1974
Full references:
- Raudsep 1969: Raudsep, Loreida: Antiklerikale estnische Schwänke. Typen- und Variantenverzeichnis. Tallinn: Institut für Sprach- und Literaturforschung der Akademie der Wissenschaften der Estnischen SSR, 1969.
- Loorits 1926: Loorits, Oskar: Livische Märchen- und Sagenvarianten. FF Communications 66. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1926.
- Kecskeméti/Paunonen 1974: Kecskeméti, István; Paunonen, Heikki: Die Märchentypen in den Publikationen der Finnisch-ugrischen Gesellschaft. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 73 (1974), 205–265.
Motifs and related tale types
Motifs: Money from the Broken Statue J1853.1.1·Where Treasure Is Found N510
Combines with: ATU 1000 Contest Not to Become Angry·ATU 1009 Guarding the Store-room Door·ATU 1013 Bathing (Warming) Grandmother·ATU 1029 The Woman as Cuckoo in the Tree·ATU 1030* Choice of Cows (previously Bargain: Choice of Cows which Go to Old or New Stable)·ATU 1211 The Cow Chewing its Cud (previously The Peasant Woman Thinks the Cow Chewing her Cud is Mimicking Her)·ATU 1218 Numskull Sits on Eggs to Finish the Hatching·ATU 1291A Three-legged Pot Sent to Walk Home·ATU 1381 The Talkative Wife and the Discovered Treasure·ATU 1381C The Buried Sheep's Head·ATU 1385* Learning about Money·ATU 1386 Meat as Food for Cabbage·ATU 1387 The Woman Goes to get Beer·ATU 1408 The Man who Does his Wife's Work·ATU 1537 The Corpse Killed Five Times·ATU 1586 The Man in Court for Killing a Fly·ATU 1600 The Fool as Murderer·ATU 1642 The Good Bargain·ATU 1653 The Robbers under the Tree·ATU 1681B Fool as Custodian of Home and Animals·ATU 1685 The Foolish Bridegroom·ATU 1691 The Hungry Clergyman (previously 'Don't Eat too Greedily')·ATU 1696 'What Should I Have Said (Done)' Miscellaneous type
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 ↗
Possibly related runosong types: a reading of the song types by a language model (Claude Opus 5.5, 2 November 2026); only links it rated high or medium in confidence are shown.
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.