Beschrijving
The Adulteress’s Penance. A merchant admires a sovereign who invites him to his castle. At dinner the merchant observes that the sovereign’s wife is served her meal in a skull (her lover’s head with beard). In his bedroom he finds two dead young men hanging. The sovereign explains to him that his wife had committed adultery with a duke whereupon he had him beheaded. In return, the son of the duke killed the two young men. As penance, the woman has to eat from the skull, and the two corpses are a reminder of the murder.
Motief
Q478.1
Commentaar
Documented in the Middle Ages, e.g. Gesta Romanorum (No. 56).
Combinaties
449, 507, and 851.
Oorspronkelijk Verhaaltype
992A
Subgenre
sprookje