M143. Fox in the well, ATU 31, 32.

.12.14.-.17.21.-.24.26.-.31.34.

Once in a hole or well, one character convinces another to go down to it, so he gets out on his own, leaving the other at the bottom.

Fulbe [fox and hyena], Berbers and Arabs of Morocco, Berbers and Arabs of Algeria, Spanish [fox and wolf], Catalans [fox and wolf], Portuguese [fox and wolf], Latins [fox and goat], Italians (Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta, Veneto, Tuscany, Umbria, Calabria, Puglia, Campania, Latius, Rome, Molise), Irish [fox and wolf], French, Walloons, Flemish [fox and wolf], Germans (Mecklenburg), Flemish, Friesians, Dutch, Palestinians, Iraqi Arabs, Toto [fox and goat], Shans [fox and tiger], Thais [cat and goat], Khmu [liar and tiger], Viets [hare and tiger], sedang [fox and goat], Marathi [baboon and goat], Javanese [dwarf deer and elephant], dusun [dwarf deer and bull], tidong [dwarf deer and boar], Koreans [fox and bear], Ancient Greece [fox and goat], Slovenes, Hungarians, Bulgarians [fox and goat], Macedonians, Greeks, Ukrainians (Galicia, Hutsulshchina, Ugric Russia, Odessa, Kursk), Czechs, Kurds [fox and goat], Persians [fox and wolf; fox and bear], Danes, Swedes [fox and wolf], Icelanders, Norwegians [fox and bear] goat], Western Sami, Latvians [fox and goat], Lithuanians, Estonians [fox and wolf; fox and bear; fox and goat], seto [fox and wolf or bear], Livonians, Finns, Karelians, Buryats [fox and goat].

West Africa. Fulbe [The fox wanted to get drunk, a rope with two buckets hung in the well; the fox sat in one and went down; Hyena asked what the Fox was doing at the bottom of the well; the fox pointed to the reflection of the moon, replied that eats cheese, and save the other half for Hyena, let him sit in a bucket; Hyena descended, and the Fox in the other bucket went upstairs and left]: Olderogge 1959:256.

North Africa. Algerian Arabs (Tiaret Plateau) [The Jackal is thirsty, fell into a well; the fox asks how he went down so deep; the Jackal invites Lisa to descend, holding the rope; the Fox descends and stays in the well and the Jackal goes up and goes; Jackal is more cunning than Lisa]: Aceval 2005, No. 142:158; Algerian Berbers and Arabs, Moroccan Berbers: El-Shamy 2004, No. 31:7-8; Algerian Berbers, Berbers and Arabs of Morocco: El-Shamy 2004, No. 32:8

Southern Europe. The Portuguese [once in the well, the fox lures the wolf to go down (for cheese, behind the reflection of the moon); the wolf sits in the bucket and descends, thereby lifting the fox upstairs]: Cardigos 2006, No. 32:24; Portuguese (Coimbra) [the crane invited the fox to dinner with corn porridge; the fox did not get anything because the porridge was in the jug; next time the fox invited the crane, poured the porridge on the stone and that's it licked it herself; pretended to be unable to walk, the wolf agreed to carry it on her back; she says: she ate porridge and food on horseback; next time the wolf understood the words and threw the fox into the well; she pretended that there were a lot of good things in the well; let the wolf sit in the bucket, go down and look for himself; the wolf came down and the fox went up to another tub and continued singing its song]: Coelho 1879, No. 8:16-17; Catalans [after falling into a well, the fox convinces the wolf to go down in a bucket to eat cheese (this is a reflection of the moon); the wolf descends in one bucket, the fox rises in another]: Oriol, Pujol 2008, No. 32:27; Spaniards [the hungry wolf wants to eat the fox; it leads him to the well, which reflects the moon - it's cheese; the wolf tells her to go down first; the fox sits in the bucket, screams from the well that there is a lot of cheese - let the wolf will go down in another bucket; the wolf goes down, the fox in the first bucket rises and runs away]: Camarena, Chevalier 1997, No. 32:54-56; Latins [Phaedra's fable (1st century): "To the fox, into the well by accident who fell down/And could not get out along the steep edges, /A goat came up, who was thirsty, /And when he came up, asked the fox if the water was tasty /And how much of it? Fox, thaya deception:/"Come down, buddy: the water is so good,/That I will never tire of enjoying it." /And the bearded man jumped down. And the fox, /Grabbing his long horn, slipped out, /Leaving the goat tied in the well" (trans. M.L. Gasparova)]: Phaedr. IV. 9 (Gasparov 1962:42); Italians (Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta, Veneto, Tuscany, Umbria, Calabria, Puglia, Campania, Latius, Rome, Molise): Cerise, Serafini 1975, No. 32:13.

Western Europe. The Irish [wolf descends into the well in one bucket, the fox goes up in another]: Suilleabháin, Christiansen 1963, No. 32:35; Flemish [fleeing persecution, the fox jumps into a bucket that goes down into the well; to go back, invites the wolf to sit in another bucket; the wolf goes down, the fox rises, runs away]: Meyer 1968, No. 32:22; walloons [the wolf chases the fox, she jumps into the bucket, it goes down into the well; invites the wolf to jump into another bucket; the wolf goes down and the fox gets up and runs away]: Laport 1932, No. 32:26; French, German, friezes : Uther 2004 (1), No. 32:32; Germans (Mecklenburg), Dutch, Irish, French: Uther 2004 (1), No. 31:31

Western Asia. Palestinians, Arabs of Iraq: El-Shamy 2004, No. 31:7-8.

Tibet is the Northeast of India. Toto [the fox offered the hare to take away the cottage cheese pot from the traveler; let the hare pretend to be limping, the man leave the pot, run after the hare, and the fox will pick up the pot; they did so, but the fox did so, but the fox ate cottage cheese and said that the pot was empty; the hare pretended to eat aronnica leaves (poisonous); said it was royal sugarcane; the fox asked for it to be given to her; her throat began to burn; the hare began to comb his hair at the well, said it was a royal mirror; hare: you have to go to the mirror from a take-off; the fox fell into the well; told the goat that the water was very fresh, let it also come down; the goat jumped into the well, and the fox jumped on his back and got out of the well; the hare pretended to hit the drum, which is the hornet's nest; this is the king's drum; the fox began to beat, bit to death]: Majumdar 1991, No. 12:239 -241.

Burma - Indochina. Shana [the hare and the tiger agree to cut the grass for the roof; the hare pretends to have a fever, the tiger agrees to carry it on their backs; the hare sets fire to the grass carried by the tiger, runs away; the cow runs away advises the tiger to run uphill, the flame is only hotter; the buffalo advises running down to the lake, bringing the tiger there on his back; since then, tigers hunt cows and do not touch buffaloes; the fire causes the tiger's skin turned striped, and the buffalo's neck shows the place where the tiger held its paws; the hare sits next to the bee nest, says he is guarding the grandfather's gong; allegedly reluctantly allows the tiger to hit the gong, he runs away, or his grandfather will come and punish him; the tiger has been bitten by bees, since then the tigers have brown spots on their faces; (other episodes follow, missed in the text); the hare falls into a hole, the tiger jumps after him, the hare climbs the tiger, jumps out, the tiger stays in the hole]: Milne 1910:242-245; Thais [the cat fell into the well; praises the water to the goat that has come up; the goat jumps into the well; the cat promises to go for a stick to help the goat get out; on the head of the goat gets out of the well and leaves]: Kornev 1963:140-141; ahem: Lindell et al. 1977, No. 5 [the couple has a son Aay CaaLaay ("liar"; A.); while parents they work in the field, A. stuck a bunch of crap with feathers, asked his father to catch the bird, he smeared himself; his parents left him to be eaten by the tiger; A. asks the tiger not to eat it - he will show where to steal the pig; they carry a pig on a stick; A. let the tiger carry the part of the trunk where the thorns are, told him not to moan, otherwise the food would become bitter; the tiger moans; A. points to the sunrise, sends the tiger there for fire, at this time makes a fire, cooks meat, puts bitter fruits in the tiger's part; A. prepares pig testicles, says he has cut off his genitals; the next day, the tiger agrees to have A. cut off his genitals testicles; A. runs away; tells people who cut straw that a tiger is coming; puts on the clothes they threw, the tiger does not recognize him, he pokes his wound with a sickle; elsewhere he sprinkles hot juice there; runs and falls into a hole; tells the tiger that the sky is falling, let him jump; stabbing the tiger with a needle, he pushes A. out of the pit, calling the peasants; they ran to the pit, A. burned the village, hiding meat and rice; says that wherever his spear and arrow go, there is meat and rice; the old woman has a golden stick, A. exchanges it for a wooden one, which supposedly creates food (it is hidden in advance); A. runs away, carries it home for a long time brushwood, unrecognized says that this pile was brought by son A.; people: if the son is so strong, then A. must be afraid]: 41-46; 1978, No. 3 [a childless woman wants to go to the monks to ask for a child; all refuse to transport her across the river; she builds a sand stupa by a tree, asks the tree to give her three children to take revenge on those in power, monks and elders; gives birth to three children, dies; the eldest is Aay Caa Laay ("liar"; A.); he was adopted by husband and wife; he feathered a bunch of crap, asked his adoptive father to catch the bird, he smeared himself; the same with his adoptive mother; they left it to be eaten by the tiger; A. asks the tiger not to eat it - he will show where to steal the pig; they carry the pig on a stick; A. let the tiger carry the part of the trunk where the thorns are, told him not to moan, otherwise the food will become bitter; the tiger moans; A. shows a star, sends a tiger there for fire, at this time he makes a fire, cooks meat, lays it for himself, puts bitter fruits in the tiger's part; the tiger returns without fire, A. sends him for leaves make spoons, pour white on the leaves himself so that the tiger thinks it was from birds (and looked for it longer); the tiger eats bitter meat because he moaned on the way ; A. cooks pig testicles, says that he cut off his genitals; the next day the tiger agrees that A. cuts off his testicles; when A. climbs a tree, the tiger sees that everything is in place; A. throws the fruits away while the tiger picks them up, manages to go down and run away; tells the girls that a tiger is coming, they threw off their clothes, A. put them on, the tiger did not recognize him; the same with women and children; with men who cut straw; every time A. asks show the wound, pokes hot smut at it, splashes hot juice, stabs it with straw; jumps into a hole; tells the tiger that the sky is falling, even if it jumps; just don't push it upstairs, or else the sky will crush; stabs the tiger with a needle, he pushes A. out of the hole, A. stoned it; tells the peasants that a tiger has fallen into the pit; they ran to the hole, A. burned the village, hiding meat and rice; says that where his spear and arrow go, there is meat and rice; shows that people believe, throw spears, but find nothing else; they catch A., hang a tree in a basket to then knock the tree into the river; he walked by a man with a gong, his eyes hurt, A. convinced him to switch places - his eyes would recover; people knocked down a tree, the man drowned; A. says he met his deceased parents in the river, they offered him take what he wanted, he took the gong; everyone jumped into the water and drowned except the old woman with an empty calebass; A. smashed the calebas with a stone, the old woman also drowned; A. told the governor that his wife fell off the roof, and to his wife that her husband was wounded by a boar; they ran to look for each other, collided with their foreheads; the governor expelled A. three blows into the slit gong, and A. measured three lengths of the gong, built a house there; children the governor was relieved at the house of A.; A.: let them either poop or pee, but not both together; governor: try it yourself! A. emptied his bladder, tied his penis, put a pile in the governor's house; he ordered to go where the earth turned upside down; A. built a house on the field where they plowed with a plow; the hunchback came, carrying the vessel to back; A.: Look, there are two suns in the sky; she looked, the vessel fell and broke; people filled bamboo vessels with intestinal gases, came to A. not knowing it was him; he fed them buffalo manure and arranged so that they opened their vessels under their noses]: 50-62; Viets [The hare eats honey on the tree, the Tiger comes up; the Hare asks that the Tiger, before eating it, allow him to hit the drum; hits the bee's nest, the bees flew out, buzzing; the tiger likes the buzz, he wants to hit the drum too, bitten, the Hare ran away; next time the Hare hits bamboo trunks, tells Tiger he plays zitre, advises the Tiger to hit not with its paws, but with its tail; the bamboo pinched the Tiger's tail, half came off; the hare fell into the hole, tells the Tiger that the sky is falling to the ground; the Tiger also jumps into the hole; the hare tickles him, that throws him away angrily; hunters kill the Tiger]: Nikulin 1970a: 31-35 (=197:24-26); sedang [the fox fell into the well; told the goat that the water there was unusually clean; the goat jumped down; after getting drunk, doesn't know how to get out; fox: stand on my hind legs, I'll climb in and then I'll get you out; the fox gets out and leaves]: Nikulin 1970a: 177-178.

South Asia. The Marathi [the baboon and then the goat fell into the well; the baboon climbed onto the goat's back and didn't help]: Dexter 1938 in Bødker 1957, No. 778:80; India (southern?) [the wolf sees a fox falling into the well; she replies that she did not fall at all, but was sent by society to prevent the water from leaving the well altogether, there is no other source nearby; for this she is promised a pension and a life allowance; from time to time a relative replaces her, he is also entitled to a pension; the wolf wants a pension himself, threw a rope to the fox, she got out, and she climbed into the well; fox: there you'll stay until the owner extracts your bones]: Raju 1887:15-17; Malayali [the jackal fell into the well; said the water at the bottom is very tasty - jump here; the goat jumped, the jackal jumped on her back and got outside, but the goat stayed; the jackal began to teach the cat where to look for food: in the backyards; dogs appeared here; the cat jumped on the tree and they tore the jackal]: Menon 1995:57.

Malaysia-Indonesia. Java [Kanchil fell into the well; tells the Elephant that today the prophet Suleiman will bring down the sky; the Elephant jumps into the well, Kanchil on his back, gets upstairs, the Elephant remains in the well]: Braginsky 1972:25; Dusun [dwarf deer (plandok) fell into a hole; replies to the bull that he meets his parents in the pit; the bull also wants to see his parents, jumps down; the same with a rhino, a deer, another deer; the plandock climbed over their backs, jumped out of the well]: Evans 1913:477; the Milanau district was probably a tidong [plandock (dwarf deer) fell into a hole; tells the boar he came down because that the sky is about to fall; the boar jumps into the hole; the same with the deer; the plandock asks the deer to climb the boar, climbs the deer himself, jumps out of the hole; the deer and the boar began to dig the hole wall, got out, went looking for a plandock; he climbed a tree where the bees nest, says he is a different plandok, guarding the royal gong; the deer wants to hit the gong; the plandock says he will move away first so as not to become deaf from the sound; the bees bit the deer to death; the boar chases the plandock, which stopped at a tree around which the boa constrictor is wrapped around; says he is guarding the royal belt; allows the wild boar to put it on carefully; boa constrictor strangled and ate a wild boar]: Ling Roth 1896:347-348 (=Gomes 1911:259-261).

China - Korea. Koreans [the fox went down to the hole with rice porridge and chicken; tells the bear that she is full and can't get out, invites him to go down and help her, and then she will help him; the bear came down, put his back up; the fox ran away, the bear died in the hole]: Pack 1991:348.

The Balkans. Ancient Greece [a fox falls into a well; a goat is thirsty; a fox praises the water in a well; a goat jumps into a well; a fox offers a goat to help it get out, promises to help it get out of the goat; climbs the goat's back and horns to the surface, leaving the goat in the well]: Gasparov 1968, No. 9:66 (=1991:303); Bulgarians [once in the well, the fox persuades the goat to sit in the bucket and go down; at this time she gets up in another bucket, runs away]: Daskalova-Perkovska 1994, No. 32:47; Slovenes, Hungarians, Greeks: Uther 2004 (1), No. 32:32; Slovenes, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Greeks: Uther 2004 (1), No. 31:31

Central Europe. Russians (Moscow) [the fox fell into the well; answers the goat that it is cooling, the water is delicious; the goat jumped; the fox on his back, on his horns and jumped out of the well]: Vedernikova, Samodelova 1998, No. 6:36; Russians [Nekrasov and Orenburg Cossacks only]: SUS 1979, No. 31:55-56; Ukrainians: SUS 1979, No. 31 (Galicia, Hutsulshchina, Ugric Russia, Kursk) [Wolf (goat, bear, deer) and fox (man) in a hole; wolf stands on its hind legs, fox jumps on top of him and jumps out of the hole], 32 (Odessa region) [Fox in the well: convinces the wolf to sit in the second bucket; the wolf descends, the fox rises]: 55-56, 56; Czechs: Uther 2004 (1), No. 32:32.

Caucasus - Asia Minor. Kurds [the fox fell into the well; the goat came up and wanted to drink; the fox advises him to stand on his head and go down; he climbs out the goat's horns, the goat remains in the well]: Yusupova 2004, No. 19 : 19.

Iran - Central Asia. Persians: Marzolph 1984, No. 32 (Markazi, Kermanshah) [the fox enters the well; the wolf (or bear) follows it, descending on the second bucket; thanks to this, the first bucket with the fox rises; the fox runs away, the wolf is killed]: 39; Romaskevich 1934a, No. 62 []: 327-330.

Baltoscandia. Danes, Icelanders, Finns: Uther 2004 (1), No. 32:32; Finns, Livonians, Lithuanians: Uther 2004 (1), No. 31:31; Swedes: Liungman 1961, No. 32 [fox fell into the well; the wolf sits in another bucket and as it descends, the fox bucket rises; the fox ran away, the wolf stayed in the well]: 8; Stier 1971, No. 46 [the fox fell into the well, told the wolf that there was cheese, he believed when he saw the reflections on the water; sat in a bucket, and the fox got up in another, ran away]: 182-183; Karelians: Kecskeméti, Paunonen 1974, No. 32:217; Estonians, Seto [fell in a hole or well of a face lures a bear or a sheep there and gets out down its back, which stays in the well]: Kippar 1986, No. 31:55; Estonians [once in the well, the fox persuaded the wolf go down to her by sitting in another bucket; as the wolf descends, she rises; ran away and the wolf stayed in the well]: Kippar 1985, No. 32:55; Western Sami (Norway, Karlsøy) [fox gets on the goat's horns and jumps out of the well]: Quigstad 1925, No. 31:9; Norwegians [the fox and the goat are in the well; agree that the fox will first get out leaning on the goat's horns, and then will pull him out; the fox runs away, shouting to the goat: If your brains were as long as your beard, I would think how you would get out before you climbed]: Hodne 1984, No. 31:28-29; Latvians [Lisa, hitting a hole, he lures a goat there. He jumps on his back and gets out of the hole]: Aris, Medne 1977, No. 31:252

Southern Siberia - Mongolia. The Buryats [the fox chased the hare, fell into the well; answers the goat that it is lying in the well, because it is cool there; the goat says it is thirsty, the fox invites him to jump down; the fox, stepping on the goat's horns, jumped out, promised to pull it out, but ran away; the old man and the old woman found the goat, pulled them out]: Barannikova et al. 2000, No. 4:41.