ATU 846 Devil Always Blamed

Religious Tales › Other Religious Tales (ATU 827–849)

The tale in brief

The devil is blamed for every mishap, even those he had no part in: a person does wrong or comes to grief by his own doing and says the devil made him do it, while every good turn is credited to God, even one the devil did himself.

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:

Vitsari ja Kööpeli Vitsari and Kööpeli · SKVR · 3 poems

Finnic sources cited in the catalogue

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

Finnish Rausmaa 1982ff. II, Nos. 84–86, Jauhiainen 1998, No. E1086

Estonian Aarne 1918, No. 49

Full references:

Rausmaa 1982ff.: Rausmaa, Pirkko-Liisa (ed.): Suomalaiset kansansadut 1–6. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1982–2000.
Jauhiainen 1998: Jauhiainen, Marjatta: The Type and Motif Index of Finnish Belief Legends and Memorates. FF Communications 267. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1998.
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: Gods (Saints) in Disguise Visit Mortals K1811·Man Thanks Earth for Saving His Life; Had He Fallen into Well He Would Have Blamed Fortune N111.4.1

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 ↗

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.