B104B. Woman turns into woodpecker. .16.31.

A woman refuses to share bread with Jesus who came to her, and he turns her into a woodpecker.

{Uther 2004, #751A, The Farmwife is Changed into a Woodpecker, includes not only variants with transformation into other birds and animals, but also those in which there is no transformation at all and the method of punishing the greedy woman is different; see, for example, Catalans}. The plot of 751A in Aarne, Thompson 1964 assumes the transformation of the greedy woman specifically into a woodpecker (The Peasant Woman is Changed into a Woodpecker), differing from the more general plot of 751, The Greedy Peasant Woman, however, even there the stated transformation into a woodpecker is absent, at least in the Russian text (reference to Andreev and ultimately to Afanasyev 1959). We include in the list only traditions for which the texts themselves or their retellings with a mention of the transformation of a woman into a woodpecker are available.

Germans (Pomerania, East Prussia), (Danes), Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, Karelians.

( Cf. Southern Europe. Catalans [a woman has just baked bread, and the Lord asks her for a piece; she replies that she will not, for she has no other bread; then the Lord asks her to scrape up the rest of the dough and bake him some bread anyway; this loaf turns out to be as big as the first; but the woman still does not give anything; then the Lord floods the house with water and a lake appears on this spot]: Oriol, Pujol 2008, no. 751A: 147).

Western Europe. Germans (Pomerania) [while walking on earth, the Lord went to a baker's wife and asked for bread, but she drove him away; then the Lord turned her into a woodpecker, and it gets its food from wood; the woman had a red headdress, but the spotted woodpecker also has a red head]: Dähnhardt 1909, no. 8: 125-126; Germans (East Prussia) [a baker's wife, who had a red headdress, drove away the Lord when he asked her for bread; he turned her into a black woodpecker, which gets its food from under the bark]: Dähnhardt 1909, no. 7: 125.

Baltoscandia. Norwegians [when Jesus and St. Peter walked the earth, they went to a woman kneading dough; her name was Gertrude and she had a red cap; Jesus asked for some bread; in order to bake bread for those who came, G. took a tiny piece of dough, but it immediately became enormous; and no matter how much she put it aside, it only grew; then she replied that she would give them nothing; Jesus: for your hard-heartedness, you will become a woodpecker, getting food from under the bark, and you will drink only rainwater; she became a black woodpecker, and her red cap became red feathers on his head]: Dähnhardt 1909, no. 1: 123-124; Danes [the Lord and St. Peter walked the earth and went to a woman named Gertrude; she was just baking pancakes and the Lord asked her to give him one; there was a little dough left in the dough trough; when G. put it in the frying pan, the Lord made it so that there was a lot of dough; she felt sorry for it; she left less and less dough in the frying pan, but it continued to grow; for her greed the Lord turned her into a wren, which hides from people in (living) hedges]: Dähnhardt 1909, No. 6: 125-126; the Swedes [St. Peter and the Lord came to a woman who was baking bread and offered to chop wood; they asked for bread as a reward; she did not give it; the Lord hit her with a dough spatula; the woman turned into a woodpecker, the spatula into its beak; the woman was wearing black clothes and a red headdress, which is why the black woodpecker has a red head]: Dähnhardt 1909, No. 2: 124 (here are also texts from Finnish Swedes and Estonian from Vormsi, Nos. 3, 4: 124-125); Finns [when Jesus was a boy, he went to a woman and asked for bread; she gave him a small piece, he put it in the oven and the bread became huge; the woman began to give him smaller and smaller pieces, but the bread grew bigger each time; she said that (she had no time and) she must go to the calves; Jesus turned her into a woodpecker; it flew out through the chimney and turned black; constantly calls to the calves]: Dähnhardt 1909, No. 5: 125; Karelians [an old beggar went into a poor house; the owners slaughtered their only cow for him, but there was no flour; he ordered to look in the barn: the barn was full of flour; in the morning the cows were mooing in the barn; in another poor house there was nothing but kvass; the owner's daughter wanted to draw it, but in the barrel there was not kvass, but gold; the old man was invited to a rich house to thresh grain; they ordered him to go to the barn right away, without eating; the barn burned down; they asked him to chop wood, giving only the edge of a block; the old man turned the woman into a woodpecker, ordered her to get food from the tree; in another house the old man was refused a ride on horseback; the horses died; the owners rushed after the old man; the gentleman was riding in a sleigh, they asked him to give him a ride; the sleigh rises to him - to where the old man went; people ask them to let go, fall and break]: Konkka 1953, no. 51: 337-339.