Nomina
The Three Wishes
A man makes his living telling fortunes, with answers supplied by a demon, or a witch, or a spirit. One day the magical being informs him that they must depart, and offer to tell him three magic spells - or the names of three divine/infernal powers - to thank him for his friendship. He can use these three spells, or three names, to grant wishes. The man is overjoyed, and rushes home to tell his wife. What should I wish for? he asks, and she replies that he should wish for ways to better pleasure women - or, that he should wish for more penises. As soon as his wish is stated, however, he finds himself covered with penises, and panics, crying out that he wishes they were gone. Once that wish has been said, the penises vanish - but so too does his original genitalia. Both husband and wife unhappily agree that final wish must therefore be the restoration of his original penis.
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Nishimura notes analogous motifs and references: Motif and Type: TMI J2071 Three foolish wishes; ATU 750A The three wishes. Analogues: Perry, Aesopica, 668 'The Three Wishes’; Fabliau, MR 133, 'Les 4 Souhais de Saint Martin’; La Fontaine, Fables, 7.5 ‘Three Wishes’; Perrault’s Fairy Tales, ‘Foolish Wishes’; Hebel, Kalendergeschichten, ‘Three Wishes’; Hagen, Gesamtabenteuer, 37 ‘Die drei Wünsche’; Altdeutsches Decamerone, 4.10 ‘Die drei Wünsche’ (by Der Stricker); Grimm’s Fairy Tales, KHM 87 'Der Arme und der Reiche'; Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, 28 ‘Type Index’ 16 ‘Mittsu no Kanae Goto. Reference stories, etc.: Panchatantra, (Textus simplicior) 5.8 ‘The Two-headed Craftsman with Four Arms’, (Textus ornatior. Purnabhadra) 5.6 ‘The Dull-witted Weaver’; Euripides, Hippolytus, line 888; Avianus, Fables, 22 ‘Le convoiteux et l’envieux’; The Book of Tales by A.B.C., 217 (146) ‘The envious one of mean condition…’; Jacques de Vitry, Exempla, 196 ‘An avaricious and an envious man…’; Fabliau MR 135 ‘Du convoiteus et de l’envieus’; Scala Coeli, 594 ‘L’homme envieux qui demande à perdre un œil’; Gower, Confessio Amantis, 2.2 ‘The Traveler and the Angel’; Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 647 ‘Der Neidig und Geitig begerten Lon’; Steinhöwel and Caxton’s Fables of Aesop, ‘Avianus Extract’ 17; Isoho Monogatari, vol. 3, 21. The story of King Midas and his foolish wishes is told in Ovid, Metamorphoses, 11.85-145; Gower, Confessio Amantis, 5.1. Additional Bibliography: Chauvin VIII 19; Landau 17, 32; Hagen, II, pp. xxii-xxvi; Takagi Toshio, A Study of Fairy Tales, p. 225; A World Tour of Laughter, pp. 38-42; Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, ‘Kenkyu-hen 2’, 16. |
| Critical Literature |
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| Nishimura (2001), Epstein (1967), Clouston (1884), Marzolph and Chraïbi (2012) |
| Nomina appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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| Nomina appears in the following manuscripts |
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