ATU 2300 Endless Tales
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The tale in brief
A tale that never ends, because the same small event repeats without limit (sheep crossing a bridge one at a time) or because the story keeps returning to its own beginning. Finnish examples: 'The hare has long ears ... this song will never end, let us sing it from the start', and 'Shall I tell you the white ox?', which only repeats the question.
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:
- Jäniksellä on pitkät korvat The hare has long ears · SKVR · 3 poems
- Valkea kana muni uunin alle White hen laid an egg under the stove · SKVR · 1 poem
- Sanongo siule valgieda härgie? Shall I tell you of the white bull? · SKVR · 1 poem · cited for comparison
- Satu meni saunaan, punaiset pöksyt jalassa Satu went to the sauna in red trousers · SKVR · 1 poem · cited for comparison
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: Endless Tales Z11
Related types: ATU 2302 The Crow on the Tarred Bridge
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.
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.