ATU 1960A The Great Ox
Open in the ATU tale-type index →
The tale in brief
A tall tale of an enormous ox. In the Finnic songs a swallow flies a whole day from one of its horns to the other, and a slaughterer for it has to be sought far and wide.
Summary written for RunoVerse from Antti Aarne’s list of tale types of 1910 and the Finnic texts linked on this page.
Runosong types
Possibly related: the songs of these types tell this tale (as judged by a language model).
- Iso härkä The Great Ox · SKVR · 187 poems
- Suur härg The Great Ox · ERAB · 171 poems
- Soome härg The Finnish ox · ERAB · 9 poems
- Veljen kuolema Brother's Death · SKVR · 4 poems
- Suur härg - härja tapp Great ox and ox slaughter · ERAB · 1 poem
Finnic and Finland-Swedish sources cited in the catalogue
The entries of the catalogue’s list of literature and variants that concern Finnic tradition.
Finnish Rausmaa 1982ff. IV, Nos. 208, 211, 238, 239, 241, 242, 244, 245
Finnish-Swedish Hackman 1917f. II, No. 393
Estonian Aarne 1918
Full references:
- Rausmaa 1982ff.: Rausmaa, Pirkko-Liisa (ed.): Suomalaiset kansansadut 1–6. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1982–2000.
- Hackman 1917f.: Hackman, Oskar (ed.): Finlands svenska folkdiktning I A: Sagor. Referatsamling 1–2. Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1917–1920. Read online ↗ (National Library of Finland)
- 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: Giant Ox B871.1.1.1·Giant Serpent B875.1·Lie: The Great Animal X1201·Lie: The Big Chipmunk X1224.1·Lie: Large Boar Has Bristles as Long as Pitchfork Tines X1233.1.1·Large Cow X1235.1·The Great Horse X1241.1·The Great He-Goat X1244.3·Lie: The Great Snake X1321.1·Lie: The Big Frog X1342.1
Combines with: ATU 1738 The Dream: All Clergymen in Hell·ATU 1882 The Man who Fell Out of a Balloon·ATU 1920A 'The Sea Burns'·ATU 852 Lying Contest (previously The Hero Forces the Princess to Say, 'That is a Lie')
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.