The Captive Khan and the Clever Daughter-in-Law
The Captive Khan and the Clever Daughter-in-Law

Summary/Abstract: The Aarne-Thompson-Uther index contains rich data on the tale repertoire of the main areas of Eurasia and North Africa, but it is still Eurocentric, and does not reflect many widespread tale-types that are not registered in Europe or rarely found across the region. We have revealed several plots of such kind. Their distribution seems to point to the eastern part of the Great Steppe as the area of their origin. Later on waves of nomads might have brought these plots to Europe. In this article, two of them are analysed in detail: The Encoded Message (that includes rather different versions) and The Big Bull. Both find correspondences in Balto-Finnic traditions, which allows us to discuss them in the context of previously unrecognised or poorly studied parallels between the Caucasus and Northern Europe. The approximate date of these links is the second part of the first millennium A.D.

• Details
• Contents