Noverca

Critical Literature

No critical literature available

The inset story appears in the following manuscripts

Manuscript	Language	Siglum (Version)	Language Group within Version
Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal 3354		Overlap of Versions A and L	French A/L Overlap
Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal 3516	Old French (Picardie)	Overlap of Versions A and L	French A/L Overlap
Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 95	Old French (Nord)	Overlap of Versions A and L	French A/L Overlap
Brussel Koninklijke Bibliotheek 9245		Overlap of Versions A and L	French A/L Overlap
Cambridge University Library MS Gg.6.28		Overlap of Versions A and L	French A/L Overlap
University of Pennsylvania Library Ms. Codex 931		L (Sept Sages de Rome)	French Version L

The inset story appears in the following versions and secondary versions

Version	Original Language	Branch of Tradition	Adapted from
L (Sept Sages de Rome)	Old French	West	A (Seven Sages)
S (Scala Celi)	Latin	West	(Lost) Liber de Septem Sapientibus

The Stepmother

A man's wife dies, and he eventually remarries. His new wife fears that he will favour his son from his first marriage above any children she might have, so she plots against him. When her husband doesn't believe her lies about his son's behaviour, she steals and (in some versions) breaks his treasured golden goblet. She hides the pieces of it in her step-son's room, and upon their discovery, her husband believes his son's guilt. He orders the boy to be killed, and in vengeance, the family of his first wife kill both him and the stepmother.

Noverca offers an obvious and direct parallel to the frame story. Nishimura (2001) notes the parallels to Aesop's fables and the story of Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 44:1-17), and other stories in the Thompson Motif Index code K401.2.3 ("Surreptitious transfer of stolen object to innocent person’s possession brings condemnation").