Filius ingratus
The Ungrateful Son
A rich widower searches for a wife for his only son. He sets his sights on a beautiful girl with a large dowry, but her guardians object to the marriage, pointing out that the father could still marry and have another son of his own. To assuage their fears, the father formally settles all his wealth upon his son, and the family of the bride-to-be consent to the marriage.
Soon, the young couple have a baby, and the daughter-in-law begins to push her husband to make their lives better, at his father's expense. The couple move into the father's spacious home, then take over his large, warm rooms, leaving the old man to move into the chilly attic. When the father asks for support, it is given grudgingly, if at all: when he requests a cloak, it is thin and old; when he begs for a blanket for his bed, it is the rough blanket upon which the dog used to sleep. At last, he no longer leaves the attic, but still the daughter-in-law complains that he is a drain on their finances, so he moves to a miserable shack.
One day, he comes to his son's house, hungry and cold; seeing him approach, the son hides the roast chicken they had been about to eat. Instead, he offers his father thin broth, and the old man leaves. When the dish with the chicken is returned to the table and opened, however, the capon has transformed into a serpent, which springs at the young man and wraps itself around his neck, squeezing until he is on point of death. The wife screams, and when they are unable to remove it, summons a priest who hears the young man's confession. Hearing the son's sins against his father, the priest summons the old man who hurries to the house, weeping over his son. The priest tells him that through God's grace and his own forgiveness, he can save his son - and the old man reaches out, and the snake falls away from the young man's neck. The father and son embrace, and the son repents; he restores his father to diginity and comfort in his own home, and the whole family serve him respectfully until his death.
Note: this story is one of three tales of ungrateful sons who treat their fathers badly after inheriting told back-to-back by the stepmother in Storia di Stefano. It is immediately followed by Nepos and Arca.
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Nishimura notes the following motifs, references, and analogues: Motifs and Types: TMI D444.2: Transformation: meat to toad. P236.1: Folly of father’s giving all property to children before his death; they abandon him. Q551.1: Ungrateful son punished by toad clinging to face. ATU 980: The ungrateful son. TU970: Chicken turns to snake. Analogues: Scala Coeli, 534 ‘L’homme au crapaud’. Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 437 ‚Einer trüg ein Krot im Antlit‘. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, KHM 145 ‘Der undankbare Sohn’ (Etienne de Bourbon in note). Reference stories, etc.: Jataka, 446 ‘Takkaḷa-j.’; Nihon Ryoiki, 1.24 ‘Story of a bad woman who was not filial to her mother and was rewarded with a terrible death’; Aki no Yoru no Tomo, 1.5 ‘Money God’; Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, 28, ‘Type Index’ 899 ‘Turn into frog when the daughter-in-law sees you’. |
| Critical Literature |
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| Nishimura (2001), Rajna (1880), Comparetti (1869) |
| Filius ingratus appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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| Filius ingratus is narrated in the following occurrences | ||||
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| Filius ingratus appears in the following manuscripts |
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| This inset story appears in no manuscripts of the database |