Motif
impossible domestic task completed by animal helpers
impossible_domestic_task_completed_by_animal_helpers
A motif of the Divine Intervention and Guidance family. Every row below is a tagged passage; each rests on a quote in its source text.
2 occurrences
2 traditions
native american plains (1) · slavic (1)
native american plains
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Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians TALES OF SUPERNATURAL PATRONS . 152 / HISTORICAL TRADITIONS . / INTRODUCTION. / HERO TALES.; lines 6167-6258 confidence: high
Before sunrise the husband tells his mother to build a fire and cook, and orders his wife to tan and quill-embroider the hide that day. She carries it to bushes and cries because she cannot tan it in one day; a badger asks why she cries.
The wife is told to tan and quill-embroider a buffalo hide in one day, cries because she cannot do it, and receives aid from badgers, beavers, rodents, insects, and a skunk who process the hide.
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slavic
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Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources SOUTHERN SLAVONIANS. / XXXV.--THE LORD GOD AS AN OLD MAN. / XXXVI.--BULGARIAN HOSPITALITY. / XXXVII.--CINDERELLA.; lines 5859-5954 confidence: high
The stepmother scatters millet in the cottage, threatens Cinderella with death if the work and dinner are not done, and Cinderella remembers the cow's instruction to seek help at the grave.
Cinderella is required to pick up scattered millet and prepare dinner, while the pigeons repeatedly promise to do the work and the tasks are found completed.
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