← RunoVerse

ATU 2010 Ehod mi yodea (One; Who Knows)

Formula Tales › Cumulative Tales (ATU 2000–2100)

Open in the ATU tale-type index →

The tale in brief

A counting song of questions and answers: who knows one? one is our God; who knows two? and so on to twelve or thirteen, each number tied to something sacred, with every earlier answer repeated at each step. In the Finnic songs ('What is one?') the numbers mostly stand for everyday things, such as two eyes in the head, four teats on a cow and five fingers on a hand, though one may still be God in heaven; only a few songs repeat the earlier answers.

Summary written for RunoVerse and checked against the Finnic texts linked on this page.

Runosong types

The SKVR or ERAB type index cites this tale type in its description of these song types:

Possibly related: the songs of these types follow the formula of this chain tale (as judged by a language model).

Finnic sources cited in the catalogue

The entries of the catalogue’s list of literature and variants that concern Finnic tradition.

Finnish SKS

Motifs and related tale types

Motifs: Symbolic Meaning of Numbers One to Seven (Ten, Twelve) H602.1.1·Ehod Mi Yodea (One; Who Knows?); Le Dodici Parole Della Verità, Las Doce Palabras Retorneadas Z22

Related types: ATU 812 The Devil's Riddle

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 ↗

Runosong types cited in the type indexes: the song-type indexes of SKVR and ERAB.

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.