ATU 90 The Needle, the Glove, and the Squirrel

Animal Tales › Wild Animals (ATU 1–99)

The tale in brief

A needle sets out with a glove and a squirrel; its catches are poor and it gets a beating, until it slips into an animal's stomach and the animal dies.

Summary written for RunoVerse from Antti Aarne’s list of tale types of 1910 and 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:

Orava, kinnas ja neula Squirrel, mitten and needle · 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. 83

Estonian Kippar 1986

Karelian, Cheremis/Mari 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: Needle Kills an Elk L391

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.