Linteum
The Linen Sheet
A young, naive wife tells her worldly, clever older sister that she is wants to take a lover, as the sister herself has so often done. The older sister warns her against it, but the younger sister does not listen to her warnings. She seduces a man and brings him to her bedchamber, locking the door behind her, but her husband soon comes home. Finding the door locked, he calls out to her, and the young wife panics and does not answer. The husband calls out again, knocking on the door, demanding she let him in. The commotion gathers all the neighbours within earshot, and thinking fast, the young wife calls that she will not open the door for anyone but her sister. The sister is summoned, and she slips into the room, where she finds the young wife and her lover. The sister tells the lover to hide in a corner, then overturns a huge jar of oil, breaking it. They open the door, and the sister informs the husband that the broken jar was the cause of all the upset - the young wife had seen a cat stealing food, thrown a rock at it, and hit the jar instead, the sister claims. She did not want to open the door for fear her husband would beat her for this mistake. Hearing this, the husband forgives his wife, and begins to clean up the oil, and the three fall to friendly chatting. This reminds me of the story, the sister says, about a wife who took a lover when her husband was away, then when he returned, hid her lover in a corner, then she and another woman distracted her husband. How did they distract him, the husband asks. Here, like this, says the sister, and she and the young wife pull one of the fine pieces of linen off the bed, and stretch it out between them, pointing to the fineness of the weave. This is what they did, the sister said, and while they blocked the husband's view of the room, the lover was able to escape. While the husband laughs appreciatively at this story, the young wife's lover, hidden behind the upheld sheet, sneaks out of the bedchamber.
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The motif of the gullible husband is widespread, of course, so there are many close analogues and references, as Nishimura notes: Motifs and Types: TMI K1521.5.1: Lover escapes behind the sheet which wife holds up to show her husband, TU4319: Escape covered with sheet. Analogues: Aristophanes’ The Women at the Festival includes an annecdotal version of this c. line 500; Disciplina Clericalis, Example 10 ‘The Linen Sheet’; The Book of Tales by A.B.C., 162 (91) ‘Old wives,…’; Vincentius Bellovacensis, Speculum Morale, 3.9.5 (p. 1395AB); Legrand d’Aussy, Anciens Fabliaux, 4, 189 ‘De la mauvaise Femme – extrait du seconde Fabliau’; Scala Coeli, 510 ‘Ruse de la femme d’un pèlerin…’; Gesta Romanorum, 123 ‘Die listige Schwiegermutter’; Arcipreste de Talavera o Corbacho, 2.10 ‘De cómo la muger miente jurando e perjurando’; Steinhöwel, Äsop, ‘Alfonsi extract’, 14. Sachs, nr.2439, ‘Die schwieger mit dem leintucch’, and nr.4851, nr.74, ‘Die kuplet schwieger mit dem alten Kauffmen’ The Mother-in-law who acts as go-between and the Old Merchant’; Cervantes, El celeso extremeña; Seisui Haisetsu, ‘The Husband’s Sister’s Eyes blocked’. Similar stories are found in Hagen, Gesamtabenteuer, 39 ‘Der Ritter und die Nüsse’; Le Jardin parfumé, 11.8 ‘Story of a woman who let the lover go’; Nihon Mukashibanashi Taisei, vol. 10, p. 221, and Rakugo ‘Furoshiki’. Reference stories, etc.: Hitopadesha, 1.5 ’The Old Man and the young Wife’; two stories in Shorin Kanwa (ed. by Sawada Mizuho, pp. 120-121), Myokado Sowa (wife puts a basket over her husband) and Kidan Shinpen (lover hides behind a married woman and escapes); Tohoku Ensho Ukiyo Banashi, 184 ‘Kanake-nuki’; two Rakugo stories: ‘Oza mairi’ and ‘Kageboshi no Maotoko’; Okayama no Ensho-tan, p.8; Bandello, Le Novelle, 1.23 and 3.57; Giovanni Fiorentino, Il Pecorone, 1.2; Straparola, Le piacevoli notti, 5.4. Bibliography: Chauvin IX 8; Schwarzbaum, XXII, pp. 19-20; Nishimura, ed. Disciplina Clericalis, pp. 280-282; Nakagomi Shigeaki, “Rakugo ‘Furoshiki’ Reconsidered”. |
| Critical Literature |
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| Nishimura (2001) |
| Linteum appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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| Linteum is narrated in the following occurrences |
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| No recorded narrations available. |
| Linteum appears in the following manuscripts |
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| This inset story appears in no manuscripts of the database |