Beschrijving
The Mouse Tower of Bingen [Q415.2, Q291]. This tale exists chiefly in two different forms:
(1) A knight who had plundered the property of St. Clement is attacked at night in his bedroom by an army of mice. Unable to ward them off, he prays to be hung in a chest from the ceiling. The mice go away. When the chest is taken down, the knight is found inside gnawed to death by other mice.
Or, the Polish King Popiel flees from mice to a wooden tower on an island. Even there the mice find him and kill him.
(2) A prominent cleric (Archbishop Hatto I or II) levies taxes during a famine and demands that those who do not pay (the poor) be burned to death. As they die, he likens their cries to the sound of squealing rats (mice). God punishes him for this cruel deed by plaguing him with mice. In order to get rid of the mice, the bishop flees to a tower on a rock in the Rhine (near Bingen). The mice attack him even there and eat him up.
(1) A knight who had plundered the property of St. Clement is attacked at night in his bedroom by an army of mice. Unable to ward them off, he prays to be hung in a chest from the ceiling. The mice go away. When the chest is taken down, the knight is found inside gnawed to death by other mice.
Or, the Polish King Popiel flees from mice to a wooden tower on an island. Even there the mice find him and kill him.
(2) A prominent cleric (Archbishop Hatto I or II) levies taxes during a famine and demands that those who do not pay (the poor) be burned to death. As they die, he likens their cries to the sound of squealing rats (mice). God punishes him for this cruel deed by plaguing him with mice. In order to get rid of the mice, the bishop flees to a tower on a rock in the Rhine (near Bingen). The mice attack him even there and eat him up.
Motief
Q415.2
Q291
Commentaar
Tale with legendary traits. Documented in the early Middle Ages, e.g. in Annales Quedlinburgenses and Chronicon episcoporum Merseburgiensorum.
Oorspronkelijk Verhaaltype
751F*
Subgenre
sprookje