ATU 921 The King and the Farmer's Son
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The tale in brief
A king questions a farmer's boy and gets clever riddling answers, about one and a half men and a horse's head and the like.
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:
- Viisaampansa vieressä yönsä maannut Slept beside a wiser one · SKVR · 2 poems · cited for comparison
Finnic and Finland-Swedish 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. 130, 131
Finnish-Swedish Hackman 1917f. I, No. 183
Estonian Loorits 1959, No. 191
Lappish, Lydian, Karelian Kecskeméti/Paunonen 1974
Full references:
- Rausmaa 1982ff.: Rausmaa, Pirkko-Liisa (ed.): Suomalaiset kansansadut 1–6. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1982–2000.
- Hackman 1917f.: Hackman, Oskar (ed.): Finlands svenska folkdiktning I A: Sagor. Referatsamling 1–2. Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1917–1920. Read online ↗ (National Library of Finland)
- Loorits 1959: Loorits, Oskar: Estnische Volkserzählungen. Fabula, Supplement-Serie A: Texte 1. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1959.
- 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: Paradoxical Tasks H1050·Task: Coming Neither on Nor Off the Road H1051·Task: Standing Neither Inside Nor Outside of Gate H1052·Task: Coming Neither on Horse Nor on Foot (Riding Nor Walking) H1053·Task: Coming Neither on Horse Nor on Foot H1053.1·Task: Coming Neither on Horse Nor on Foot H1053.2·Task: Coming Neither on Horse Nor on Foot H1053.3·Task: Coming Neither on Horse Nor on Foot H1053.4·Task: Coming Neither on Horse Nor on Foot H1053.5·Task: Coming Neither on Horse Nor on Foot H1053.6·Task: Coming Neither Naked Nor Clad H1054·Task: Coming Neither Naked Nor Clad H1054.1·Task: Coming Neither Naked Nor Clad H1054.2·Task: Coming Neither Naked Nor Clad H1054.3·Task: Coming "Neither in Softness Nor in Hardness H1054.4·Task: Coming Neither Barefoot Nor Shod H1055·Task: Coming Neither with Nor Without a Present (Game) H1056·Task: Coming Neither by Day Nor by Night H1057·Task: Standing Between Summer and Winter H1058·Identification by Severed Limbs H106·Identification by Severed Hand H106.1·Severed Head as Proof of Killing H106.2·Task: Coming Neither with Nor Without a Companion H1061·Task: Coming Neither Washed Nor Unwashed H1062·Task: Coming Neither Hungry Nor Satiated H1063·Task: Coming Laughing and Crying at Once H1064·King: What Do You See? Youth: One and a Half Men and a Horse's Head H583.1·King: Are You Alone at Home? Youth: Not Now; I See the Half of Two Quadrupeds H583.1.1·Girl to King: Should It (The Flood) Come I Shall Not Come; Should It Not Come, I Shall Come H583.10·King: What Is Your Father Doing? Youth: He Is in the Vineyard and Is Doing Good and Bad H583.2·King: What Is Your Father Doing? Youth: Makes an Evil Greater H583.2.1·King: What Is Your Father Doing? Youth: Makes Many Out of Few H583.2.2·King: What Is Your Father Doing? Youth: Makes Better from Good H583.2.3·King: What Is Your Father Doing? Youth: Cuts Wood Which Was Burnt Last Year H583.2.4·King: What Is Your Father Doing? Youth: He Fences Thorns with Thorns H583.2.5·King: What Is Your Brother Doing? Youth: He Hunts; He Throws Away What He Catches and What He Does Not Catch He Carries with Him H583.3·King: What Is Your Brother Doing? Youth: He Runs Back and Forth H583.3.1·King: What Is Your Brother Doing? Youth: He Sits Between Heaven and Earth H583.3.2·King: What Is Your Mother Doing? Youth: She Does for Another What the Latter Cannot Do for Her H583.4·King: What Is Your Mother Doing? Youth: She Shows the Light of the World to One Who Has Not Yet Seen It H583.4.1·King: What Is Your Mother Doing? Youth: She Is Baking the Bread We Ate Last Week H583.4.2·King: What Is Your Mother Doing? Youth: She Cuts Off the Heads of the Well to Cure the Sick H583.4.3·King: What Is Your Mother Doing? Youth: She Drives Away the Hungry and Compels the Filled to Eat H583.4.4·King: What Are Your Mother and Father Doing? Girl: Mother Is Separating Earth (Being a Midwife), and Father Is Mixing Earth (At a Funeral) H583.4.5·King: What Is Your Mother Doing? Girl: She Has Gone to Turn One into Two (To Split Peas) H583.4.6·King: What Is Your Sister Doing? Youth: She Is Mourning Last Year's Laughter H583.5·King: What Are You Doing? Youth: I Boil Those Which Come and Go H583.6
Combines with: ATU 875 The Clever Farmgirl [J1111.4]·ATU 920 The Son of the King and the Son of the Smith·ATU 921F* Plucking Geese (previously Geese from Rus)·ATU 922 The Shepherd Substituting for the Clergyman Answers the King's Questions·ATU 922A Ahiqar [K2101, P111]·ATU 922B The King's Face on the Coin
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.