Yu.E. Berezkin, E.N. Duvakin

Thematic classification and distribution of folklore and mythological motifs by area

Analytical catalogue

Introduction
Bibliography
Ethnicities and habitats

I100C. The Pleiades and the Cuckoo. 16.28.31.

God turned her husband into a cuckoo, and his wife and children into Pleiades.

Germans, Czechs, Danes.

Western Europe. Germans: Dähnhardt 1910 [East Prussia: husband mistreated his wife and seven children; they turned to God; God punished her husband by making him a cuckoo, turning a woman with children into stars; wife became the Evening Star, the children of the Pleiades; during the cuckoo, the Pleiades hide; 2) Mecklenburg: The Pleiades are the wife and children of the Cuckoo; 3) Pomerania: the husband quarreled with his wife, became a cuckoo, the wife with children - the Pleiades ]: 426-427; Grimm 1883 [Christ, passing by the bakery, asked the owner for bread, who refused; but the baker's wife and her six daughters secretly fed Christ; for this he placed them in heaven, making them the Pleiades; husband punished, turning it into a cuckoo; while she cuckoo, the Pleiades are not visible in the sky]: 729.

Central Europe. Czechs [Christ and his disciples went to the bakery, asked for bread; the owner refused, but the hostess gave her; Christ placed her and her children in heaven, these are the Pleiades, and turned the owner into a cuckoo]: Dänhardt 1909: 127.

Baltoscandia. Danes [a girl gave birth to seven illegitimate children; the man called them the children of a hooker; God turned him into a cuckoo, a woman with children in the Pleiades; they are not visible when the cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo is cuckoo]: Dähnhardt 1910:427.