Puer 5 annorum
The Wise Five-Year-Old
Three business partners are on a trading trip together, bringing with them great wealth. They come to stay with an old woman to whom they entust their riches for safe keeping. In order that none of them should cheat the others, they instruct the old woman not to return their treasure to any one of them alone, but only to the three of them together, to which she agrees. The three men go to bathe in a pool behind the house, but have forgotten a comb; of the three offers to ask to borrow a comb from the old woman. He approaches her, and instead asks her to give him all their gold, saying they wish to count it. She replies that she swore not to give it to any one man, so he tells her he has his companions' consent to retrieve the gold. To prove it, he brings her to the door, and shouts across his companions, saying, 'She will not give it to me unless you both tell her to do so!" The bathers shout back that she should give it to their companion, so the old woman fetches their gold, and he takes it and disappears. Eventually the two other companions, wondering what has taken so long, come to look for their partner. The old woman explains that she gave him their treasure, as they instructed, and the two are furious, crying that they had requested a comb, not their gold. They take her the court, and present their case before a judge, who rules that the old woman must repay them as their wealth was lost through her carelessness. Crying, the old woman leaves the courthouse. She is approached by a five-year-old boy who asks why she is weeping, but she asks him to leave her alone and continues along the road. He follows, until she at last explains, and he tells her that if she will give him a coin to buy dates, he will tell her how to get out of her predicament. She agrees, so he then instructs her to return to the judge and tell him she still has the money, and that she will return it to the men - but only if they can bring their third companion there. If they cannot, she will not give them anything, as they instructed her not to hand over the gold to any but the three of them together. When the judge hears this, he rules in her favour, and immediately knows that she must have had advice; he begs to know who had the widom to give her such instructions. She explains that it was the young boy she met on the road. The boy is brought before the judge, who is so pleased with this wisdom and cleverness that he takes him under his wing.
(From Libro de los Engaños)
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Nishimura notes relevant motifs and analogues: Motifs and Types: TMI J120 Wisdom learned from child; J1161.1 Three joint depositors may have their money back when all demand it; ATU 1591 The three joint depositors; TU3353 Money left by two men. Analogues: Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium, 7.3, ext. 5 (as a story of Demosthenes); The Books of Tales by A.B.C., 78 (7) ‘A wise man’s counsel is to seek,…’; Scala Coeli, 46 ‘Un avocat conseille une femme trompée par deux larrons’; Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 113 ‘Die Witfrau solt 500 Gulden keim on den andern geben'; Schwarzbaum, Jewish and World Folklore, 165 ‚The two Partners, the Rabbi and the Five Thousand Pounds’. Reference stories: Stories of a man who gets something else (usually his wife or daughter) by slurring his words (the motif is TMI K1354.1 = ATU 1563 “Both?”): Afanasjew, Russian Ridiculous Tales, 44 ‘The Priest and the Hired Hand’; Tohoku Ensho Ukiyo Banashi, 83 ‘False Agreement’, etc. Bibliography: Chauvin VIII 28; Landau 22; Schwarzbaum, XXI, p. 271, n. 7. |
Critical Literature |
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Nishimura (2001), Clouston (1884), Comparetti (1869), Orazi (2006), Perry (1959) |
Puer 5 annorum appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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Puer 5 annorum is narrated in the following occurrences | ||||
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Puer 5 annorum appears in the following manuscripts |
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