Viduae Filius
The Widow's Son
A king passes through a small village with his army, marching past the house of a widow and her son, who have one chicken to their name. The king's son flies his hawk as they pass, and the hawk kills the widow's rooster. Furious, the widow's son kills the hawk - and the prince then kills the widow's son. Hearing the commotion and the wails of the widow, the king arrives to adjudicate. He gives the widow a choice - either to have the prince executed in vengeance, or to take him into her household as a replacement for the son that he killed. She decides to take the young prince as her son.
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The ruler in this story is often identified as Trajan; for this reason the relevant motifs (TU4989, TU5267) are often referred to as 'Trajan and the widow', as Nishimura notes. Nishimura also tracks relevant analogues and reference stories: Analogues: Novellino, 69 ‘Vom großen Gerechtigkeitssinn Kaiser Trajans‘; Golden Legend, 46 ‘St. Gregory’ (p. 451); Marvels of Rome (ed. Nichols), 1.4 (§ 7 in ed. Parthey); Dante, Divine Comedy, ‘Purgatory’, 10.73-93 (also mentioned in ‘Heaven’, 20.43-45). Reference stories, etc.: Minakata Kumagusu’s ‘The Story of the Cock’; Ailianos, Varia Historia, 13.24 ‘People who have suffered calamities by the laws they made’; Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium, 6.5.ext. 3; Novellino, 15; The Book of Tales by A.B.C., 224 (154) ‘A man must show a just behavior’; Gesta Romanorum, 50 ‘Der gerechte Herrscher und sein Sohn’; Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 226 ‘Eim Ebrecher beid Augen ußstechen’; Gower, Confessio Amantis, 7.9 ‘Kalmydotylus the Consul’; Rakugo ‘Yabu-Isha (2)’; Shiji [Shiki], 5 ‘Qin Hongqi’ (pp. 125-126); Shiki [Shiji, History], ‘Shangjun Biography 8’ (pp. 101-108) and 21 ‘Ren Pa and Rin Shojo Biography’ (pp. 27-28); Gibbon, The History of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 11 (p. 14), ch. 57 (pp. 81-82). Bibliography: Chauvin VIII 246. G. Paris, La légende de Trajan, 1878. |
| Critical Literature |
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| Nishimura (2001), Clouston (1884) |
| Viduae Filius appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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| Viduae Filius is narrated in the following occurrences | ||||
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| Viduae Filius appears in the following manuscripts |
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| This inset story appears in no manuscripts of the database |