M39g2. To rake nuts with a pitchfork, ATU 1229*. .15.16.27.28.

Instead of gathering nuts in a basket or raking them with a shovel, the fool rakes them with a pitchfork.

Italians (Tyrol, Rome), (Maltese), Walloons, French (Nivernais, Gascony), Germans (Austria, Switzerland), Hungarians, Romanians, Transylvanian Saxons, Bosnians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Slovaks, Czechs.

Southern Europe. Italians (Tyrol) [a husband went away to earn money, telling his wife to look after the house; especially to take care of the head of cheese - it is for Long May; the wife asks everyone who passes by if he is Long May; one beggar answered that he was, he received the cheese; another time the husband asked to bake bread; wife: big or small? husband: yes, like people going to mass {unclear}; the wife kneaded all the flour that was in the house, baked loaves of bread in the shape of human figures; a third time the husband told her to look after a basket with a nail in it; in fact, there is money in it; a crockery seller came; wife: I don’t have many coins, but maybe you will take the nail; seeing that there was money in the basket, the seller said that the nail would come in handy and quickly took away the basket; and he left so many plates that the wife made holes in them and hung them on the wall; husband: I will return if I find someone more stupid than you; saw a woman trying to load nuts into a basket with a pitchfork; another was spinning on the roof, and when the spindle fell, she waited for her husband to return from the field and give it to her; a third was holding a sieve to the sun and carrying the warmth into the cellar; a fourth was trying to make a donkey hatch chicken eggs; the husband returned to his wife]: Schneller 1867, No. 56: 162-165; Italians (Rome) [at a wedding, the father asked the bride to go down to the cellar for wine; she took the plug out of the barrel, began to fill the bottle and thought: she will give birth to a son named Cicco Petrillo, he will grow up and suddenly die; she began to sob; and the wine was pouring out; the mother came down and began to cry with her daughter; the same father; the groom went off to look for three other similar fools; if he does not find them, he will not return; a man is trying to rake out nuts with a pitchfork, which he brought in a boat, he did not think about a shovel; another has led the oxen to the river and is trying to give them water by bringing them water with a spoon; a woman is sitting on a mulberry tree, holding her husband's trousers: he died, in paradise, she is waiting for him to come down from heaven and put his feet in her trousers; the groom has returned to the bride]: Calvino 2017, no. 105: 493-495; (cf. the Maltese [small beans are boiled in boiling water; a fool tries to fish out a bean with a fork]: Mifsud-Chircop 1978, no. *1229A: 475).

Western Europe. Walloons [at 37 the foolish daughter is still unmarried; finally the groom arrives; the mother sends her daughter to the cellar for beer; she is gone for a long time, the mother comes down herself; the daughter ponders what to name the future child; the mother also begins to think about it, then the father; the groom leaves, promising to return if he finds even greater fools; a peasant tries to load nuts into a cart with a pitchfork; another tries to drag a pig up an oak tree so that it can eat acorns; a man jumps from a tree in his trousers; the groom comes back and marries the fool, they have many children]: Laport 1932, no. 1450: 107-108; French (Nivernais) [the groom came to arrange the wedding; the father sent his daughter to the cellar to fetch wine; she began to think: if children are born, what to name them? all the names have already been taken; the mother, then the father also go down and begin to think; groom: I'll come back if they find three more fools like you; in one place, people are trying to move a church away from a pile of dog shit; in another, a woman is dragging a cow onto a stove where grass has grown; in a third, a man is trying to move a pile of nuts with a pitchfork; the young man came back and married the girl]: Drouillet 1973: 135-137; French (Gascony) [after the death of his mother, Jeannille got married; in the morning he sent his wife to get some water; she was gone for a long time; he sent his mother-in-law to find out what had happened; the young woman complains to her mother that she will someday have a child, but there is no cradle; they both discuss the problem; J. sends her father-in-law - the same thing happens to him; J. does not want to stay with such fools and goes wandering; a woman beats a pig with a stick because it does not climb an oak tree for acorns; J. knocks acorns off the branches with the same stick; another woman tries to pick nuts with a pitchfork, J. does it with a shovel; in another place the son holds a pair of trousers, and the old father tries to jump into them from the table; J. teaches how to put on trousers; seeing how stupid people are, J. returns to his wife]: Soupault 1963, no. 42: 222-226; Germans (Eisenburg, border of Hungary and Austria) [text in dialect; apparently approximately the same as that of the Italians of Tyrol]: Bünker 1906, no. 12: 25-33.

The Balkans. Hungarians [a peasant has a wife and daughter; a young man came to see them; the daughter went down to the cellar for wine; she began to think: she will get married, she will have a son, she will buy him a short fur coat, the boy will climb into the cellar, a log will fall on him, kill him, who will get the short fur coat; the daughter cries, the mother, then the father join her; the groom goes to look for three more fools; one man tries to throw nuts onto the roof with a pitchfork (the guy took them, poured them into a sieve, and received money as a reward); another carries light into the house with a trough (the guy cut through the windows); a woman pushes chickens under a hen (the guy: the hen will hide them herself at the sight of the kite); the guy returned, married the girl, they bought the short fur coat, but the boy did not kill himself]: Vazhdaev 1962: 91-94; Transylvanian Saxons : Thudt, Richter 1971: 150ff in Uther 2004(23), no. 1229*: 82; Romanians , Bosnians , Serbs : Uther 2004(2), no. 1229*: 82; Bulgarians [fools try to rake nuts with a pitchfork (put eggs in donkey stirrups); a passerby teaches how to pour nuts into a sack or basket or rake with a shovel]: Daskalova-Perkovska et al. 1994, no. 1229*: 401.

Central Europe. Slovaks [a woman went down into a cellar and saw a {protruding} stone; began to sob: if her daughter gets married and has a child, the stone will fall on its head; the daughter joins her; the indignant son goes off to look for those who are more stupid than his mother and sister; in one village a woman beats a hen because she does not feed her chickens milk; a young man taught her to feed the hens grain; in another place a man carries a light into the house in a sack; another rakes nuts with a pitchfork; a young man tells a woman that he has come from the other world; she gives him clothes and money to give to her deceased husband; her current husband rides on horseback after a deceiver; unrecognized, the young man asks her to watch over the hat with a golden bird under it, and he himself gallops away on the man's horse; under the hat there is a pile of shit; the boy returned home, having forgiven his mother and sister]: Gašparíková 1993, no. 263: 188–189; Czech : Uther 2004(2), no. 1229*: 82.