K56e1. Song with mention of days of the week. .14.-.16.27.
A man sees merry dwarfs (spirits, witches). Their song mentions the names of the days of the week. The man sings along, naming the days whose names the dwarfs like. He is rewarded. (Usually another tries to get the same reward, but names the wrong days of the week and is punished).
Kabyles, Spaniards, Catalans, Basques, Portuguese, Galicians, Aragonese, Italians (Lombardy, Tuscany, Basilicata), Sicilians, Bretons, Scots, Irish, English, French (Picardy, Ardennes, Nivernais, Champagne, Pays de la Loire, Jura, Ariège), Walloons, Bulgarians, Greeks.
North Africa. Kabyles [one brother is a hunchback, the other has dropsy; the hunchback found himself in a "bath" (étuve du hammam maure), heard the genies singing "Thursday, Friday, Saturday"; began to sing along: "Thursday - couscous (a meat dish), Friday - malo, Saturday - turnip"; the genies decided to reward him for his charming voice, they removed his hunchback; the other brother asked him to tell how he got rid of his hunchback; the former hunchback agreed to do it for a hundred douros; the one with dropsy went there too, but began to sing "milk - Thursday, Friday, Saturday"; they did not like his song, they added the hunchback removed from his brother to him; he told the neighbors that he bought the hunchback from his brother for a hundred douros]: Arezki 2010: 144-146.
Southern Europe. The Spanish [a hunchback came to the mill, where the witches sing: Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday – three, Thursday and Friday, Saturday – six (Lunes y martes, miércoles tres. Jueves y viernes, sábado seis..); the hunchback: And Sunday – seven; the witches: for this they must take away his hump; upon learning of this, another hunchback went to the mill; he sang in exactly the same way, but the witches glued on to him a second hump, taken from the first; the people laughed at him]: Camarena, Chevallier 1995, no. 503: 382-383; the Spanish (Burgos) [while working in the forest on a moonlit night, a woodcutter hears cheerful singing: Lunes, y martes, y miércoles, tres! (Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday – three); he came up and added: Y jueves y viernes y sábado, seis! (And Thursday, Friday, Saturday – six); the witches liked it, they threw out the wood from his sacks and filled them with gold coins; at home the wife borrowed a measure from a neighbor; he smeared the bottom with pitch, a coin stuck to it; at night he went into the same forest; the witches sing: Lunes y martes y miércoles, tres! Jueves y vierbes y sábado, seis! man: Y domingo, siete! the witches are outraged – he ruined the song; they found the man and began to beat him with sticks; he barely escaped alive]: Marcos et al. 2002, no. 35: 125-127; Catalans (including Ibiza and Mallorca) [a hunchback comes to a gathering of witches, and they take his hunchback; he tells this to another hunchback, who also goes to the witches, but only gets a second hump - the one that the witches took from the first man]: Oriol, Pujol 2008, No. 503: 107; Portuguese [the hunchback got lost and came across dancing witches, singing along: Entre quintas e sextas e sábados {quintas e sextas here probably do not mean fives and sixes, but Thursdays and Fridays}; the witches were delighted and removed his hunchback; he told his friend about this - also a hunchback; but after "Saturday" he added "Sunday"; the enraged witches stuck a second hump on him; there is also a version from Coimbra]: Braga 2002: 297-298; Portuguese []: Parafita 2023: 106; Galicians [there lived two men, each with a lump (marrá) on his face; one saw witches dancing one night and saying: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday – three; the man added: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday – six; the witches liked it and took his lump away; another man went to the same place; when he said "Thursday, Friday, and Saturday", the witches did not answer; he decided to add: "Sunday and Monday – eight"; after this the witches did not take his lump, but planted a second one, which they had taken from the first man]: Contos 1972, no. 101: 102; Basques [a hunchback asked an old witch to take him to the Sabbath; she warned him that when they began to list the days of the week, he must not say "Sunday"; but he said it; for this his hunchback was removed; another hunchback also came to the Sabbath, did all the same things, but they added the first one's hunchback to his]: Cerquand 1876, No. 25: 17-18; Aragon[a hunchback sings along with the witches, the grateful witches take his hunchback away; "Lunes y martes y miércoiles, tres", "Jueves y viernes y sábado seis"; another man, hoping to receive a reward as well, sings along "Y domingo siete"; hearing about Sunday, the furious witches glue the first man's hunchback onto his back]: González Sanz 1996, no. 503: 84-85; Italians (Tuscany: Florence): Calvino 1980, no. 90 [approximately as in Crane]: 332-334; Crane 1885, no. 27 [two poor hunchbacks live in Parma; one goes on a pilgrimage; at the market someone shouts "Eat Parmesan"; the hunchback thinks they are going to eat him; hides in the yard; at one o'clock in the morning a noise is heard, voices "Saturday and Sunday"; "And Monday," adds the hunchback; the spirits are so glad that he has made their song more harmonious that they remove his hump; another hunchback comes to the same place, picks up "And Tuesday"; the spirits say that he has ruined their song, they put the hump that was removed from his comrade on his front; =Kotrelev 1991: 183-184]: 102-104; the Sicilians [a hunchbacked shoemaker spent the night in an empty house; he was let in for free, because the house was haunted by evil spirits; at midnight four little men fell from the ceiling one after the other; each said: Oh, I'm falling, and the shoemaker answered: Well, fall then; they began to dance and sing: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday"; the shoemaker began to sing along, the spirits liked it, they took his hump and hung it on the wall; having learned of this, the hunchbacked woman came to this house, but did not like her singing and the spirits added the shoemaker's hump to her; the next night the little men put the shoemaker in a coffin, carried him to a cave and left him; he left there, remembered his forgotten hat, returned and found gold coins; having collected 2000, he bought many houses and lived well]: Pitré 2009, no. 64: 292-294 (retold in Clouston 1887(1): 368-369).
Western Europe. Bretons [hunchback Nonnik hears the gnomes singing a song about the days of the week, stopping at Thursday; adds Friday and Saturday, the grateful gnomes take his hump from him; his neighbor hunchback Gabik comes to the gnomes, adds about Sunday, but not in rhyme; the gnomes put the second hump, which they took from N., on his back]: Luzel 1887(2): 251-256 (translated in Lopyreva 1959, no. 36: 154-157, in Luzel 1995: 139-142; also texts on a similar plot from Lower Brittany in Delarue, Tenèze 1964, no. 503: 228-229 and in Brekilien 1999: 173-179; (cf. the Bretons [the evil spirits gather on Saturdays, chanting, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - Thursday, Friday! Only an outsider can pronounce the names of Saturday and Sunday; one day a rag picker was passing by, heard, shouted, Then Saturday and Sunday ; he was carried off to the moon, where he stands, holding his sack on his back; he will be replaced by the one who repeats his words on the same day and hour]: Kabakova 1998, no. 16: 30-31); Walloons (Belgian Luxembourg) [a hunchback wandered into a clearing and saw singing witches; they liked him and took his hump; another hunchback went there too, but the witches were outraged that he was disturbing their singing, so they added a second hump to him]: Harou 1894: 285; Walloons [a hunchback sees dancing dwarfs and dances with them; they like the way he sings along; dwarfs: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday; hunchback: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday; Saturday, Sunday, Monday; dwarfs: Sunday, Monday; hunchback: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday; the dwarfs turn into beautiful fairies and take his hump; another hunchback goes to the same place; sings badly or names the days weeks not as the dwarfs like (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday; Sunday, Monday, Wednesday); the dwarfs add to his hump the one they took from the first hunchback]: Laport 1932, no. 503: 59; the French [the motif of listing the days of the week in Picardy, the Ardennes, Champagne, Pays de la Loire, Jura, Ariège]: Delarue, Tenèze 1964, no. 503: 230-233; the French(Picardy) [two hunchbacks worked on a farm; one was sent by his master into town to take some money to the landowner; there he was treated to a feast and sang and set off back at midnight; to overcome his fear, the hunchback began to sing along the way; in the forest, some dwarfs came running to sing; they asked him to dance with them; then they began to sing "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and that's it"; the hunchback reminded them of Sunday; dwarfs: now they are free and saved; at one time they had broken God's command to work on Sunday, since they had been chasing a deer for three days and had killed it only on Sunday; they had forgotten the name of this day and will be saved when a mortal reminds them of it; as a reward, they took the man's hump and each gave him something valuable; another hunchback named Pierre decided to repeat everything; but the dwarfs did not like his song; and when it came to the days of the week, they skipped Saturday, and he couldn't figure out which day was missing, and then he got everything mixed up; dwarfs: now we won't remember for a thousand years which is correct; they added to him a second hump, taken from the other, and made him dance until sunrise; he was found half dead]: Carnoy 1883: 18-37; French (Nivernais; published 1897) [the fairies were sitting on the roof and singing: Monday, Tuesday! a hunchback passing by added: and Wednesday; the fairies were delighted and took his hump away as a reward; he told another hunchback what had happened; he added: and Thursday; the fairies didn't like it, they stuck on him a second hump, which they had taken from the first hunchback]: Drouillet 1973: 108-110; Scots [on the island of Iona, the hunchbacked youth Fachy climbed a mountain away from people; the moon rose, he saw a dwarf dancing and singing along, "Monday, Tuesday"; F. sang along "Wednesday"; this word went well with the rhythm, the grateful dwarves removed F.'s hump; upon learning of this, the greedy hunchback Hugh, who lived on the island of Tiree, also went to the dwarves in the evening; when they sang "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday", Hugh added "Thursday"; but the word did not fit, the dwarves got angry and added a second hump to him]: Loseva et al. 1959: 74-78; Irish : Jackson 1936 [dwarfs and a hunchback: "Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday"]: 287; Plénard 2017 [the hunchback passes places from which the voices of elves are heard; their queen sings: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday; the hunchback sings the same thing after him; the elves liked it and the queen sent for the hunchback's hump to be removed; when another hunchback heard this, he went to the same place, but said "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday"; "Thursday" was superfluous and the hump taken from the first hunchback was added to it]: 104-105; Irish (Munster, County Waterford) [as a hunchback passed by, he heard a woman's voice singing "Monday, Tuesday!"; he added "And Wednesday"; for this the elf queen removed his hump; when another hunchback heard this, he added "Thursday"; the elves did not like it and they stuck a second hump on the man, taken from the first hunchback]: Ussher 1914, No. 5: 115; Irish(Munster, County Tipperary; first published in T. Crofton Crockerm Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, 1825) [A hunchback of Lusmore comes at night from a distance, stops to rest, hears the elves singing from the ditch, repeating over and over "Monday, Tuesday"; sings along with them, adding "and Wednesday"; the elves are delighted, reward him by taking away his hump; he tells this to an old woman, who tells it to another hunchback; he is brought to the ditch, left overnight; he adds to "and Wednesday" (augus Da Cadine) also "augus Da Hena" {I have not found the translation}; the elves do not like it, they stick a second hump on his chest, which they took from the first, he soon dies]: Jacobs 2001: 218-223 (=Riordan 1987: 262-267); Isle of Man [Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.]: Riordan 1987: 234-237.
Balkans. Bulgarians [a hunchback spends the night in a mill or in the mountains; witnesses a dance of devils or samodivas, sings along with them: today is Thursday, tomorrow is Wednesday; they take away his hump; another hunchback (an envious brother) goes to the same place, but when the devils start singing, he tries to straighten them; for this they stick on him the hump they took from the first man]: Daskalova-Perkovska et al. 1994, no. 503: 178-179; Greeks (Kos, Lesbos) [a hunchback ends up with dancing demons, dances with them or plays for them; sometimes they name the days of the week, but cannot finish the list and the hunchback helps; they take away his hump and sometimes give him gold; another man repeats everything, but receives a second hump and coals]: Megas 2012, no. 503: 162-163.