ATU 280A The Ant and the Cricket (previously The Ant and the Lazy Cricket)
Open in the ATU tale-type index →
The tale in brief
All summer the cricket sings while the ant gathers food; when winter comes the hungry cricket begs from the ant and is turned away. The one Finnish song keeps only the cricket: it played in the bog and could not be bothered to cook, though snow already covered the ground, and the lazy thing died at home.
Summary written for RunoVerse and checked against 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).
- Sirkka soitti suolla Cricket played in the marsh · SKVR · 1 poem
Finnic sources cited in the catalogue
The entries of the catalogue’s list of literature and variants that concern Finnic tradition.
Finnish Rausmaa 1982ff. V, No. 210
Estonian Kippar 1986
Karelian Kecskeméti/Paunonen 1974
Full references:
- Rausmaa 1982ff.: Rausmaa, Pirkko-Liisa (ed.): Suomalaiset kansansadut 1–6. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1982–2000.
- Kippar 1986: Kippar, Pille: Estnische Tiermärchen. Typen- und Variantenverzeichnis. FF Communications 237. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1986.
- 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: Ant and Lazy Cricket (Grasshopper) J711.1
Example tales
English example tales of this type in the Trilogy folktale corpus; their texts can be read in the ATU tale-type index.
- An Ant and a Grasshopper · Anianus (L'Estrange, 1692) · Source (Internet Archive): Roger L'Estrange Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists, with Morals and Reflections (London: Printed for R. Sare, et al., 1692), no. 217, p. 189. Source (books.google.com): Roger L'Estrange Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists, with Morals and Reflections (London: Printed for R. Sare, et al., 1699), no. 217, p. 197.
- An Ant Formerly a Man · Aesop (L'Estrange, 1692) · Source (Internet Archive): Roger L'Estrange Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists, with Morals and Reflections (London: Printed for R. Sare, et al., 1692), no. 188, p. 158. Source (books.google.com): Roger L'Estrange Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists, with Morals and Reflections (London: Printed for R. Sare, et al., 1699), no. 188, p. 166.
- The Ant and the Grasshopper (Bewick) · Aesop (Bewick, 1818) · Source (Internet Archive): The Fables of Aesop and Others, with designs on wood, by Thomas Bewick (Newcastle: Printed by R. Walker for T. Bewick and Son, 1818), pp. 307-308. Source (books.google.com): The Fables of Aesop and Others, with designs on wood, by Thomas Bewick (Newcastle: Printed by R. Walker for T. Bewick and Son, 1818), pp. 307-308.
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 ↗
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.
Example tales: the Trilogy folktale corpus; each tale’s own source is named beside it.
The plot summary, the notes and the arrangement of this page are RunoVerse’s own.