"Doctor Know-all" () is a German
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful bei ...
collected by the
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm (1786–1859), were Germans, German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of Oral tradit ...
, tale number 98 in ''
Grimms' Fairy Tales
''Grimms' Fairy Tales'', originally known as the ''Children's and Household Tales'' (, , commonly abbreviated as ''KHM''), is a German collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, Jacob Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm, first publish ...
''. It has an
ATU index of 1641. Another tale of this type is ''
Almondseed and Almondella''.
Analysis
The folktale is widespread "throughout Europe, India, Asia, some parts of Africa" and in the Americas.
Commenting on the tale repertoire of female storyteller Argyro, a Greek refugee from Asia Minor, Greek scholar Marianthi Kaplanoglou stated that she knew a story of the tale type ATU 1641, a "common" type to both "the Greek and Turkish corpora".
German scholar , in his catalogue of Persian folktales, listed 10 variants of the tale type across Persian sources, with the title ''Der falsche Wahrsager'' ("The False Soothsayer").
According to Professor
Bronislava Kerbelytė Bronislava Kerbelytė (January 27, 1935 – November 5, 2024) was Lithuanian folklorist, professor. , the tale type is reported to register 229
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
n variants, under the banner ''Doctor Know-All''.
[Skabeikytė-Kazlauskienė, Gražina. ''Lithuanian Narrative Folklore: Didactical Guidelines''. Kaunas: Vytautas Magnus University. 2013. p. 41. .]
References
Further reading
* Retherford, Robert. ""Suan the Guesser": A Filipino Doctor Know-All (AT 1641)". In: ''Asian Folklore Studies'' 55, no. 1 (1996): 99-118. Accessed April 6, 2021. doi:10.2307/1178858.
External links
*
*
''Doctor Know-all''
{{Brothers Grimm
Grimms' Fairy Tales
Fictional farmers
Fictional physicians
German fairy tales
ATU 1640-1674