Beschrijving
The Great Vegetable. This miscellaneous type comprises various tales dealing with an enormous vegetable (turnip, cabbage, mushroom, potato, melon, pumpkin, cucumber, grain, tobacco, etc.) [X1401–X1455]. Cf. Type 2044. The following are the most common variants:
A turnip grows so big and so fast that the fence has to be moved three times during the summer. It takes a whole day to pull up the turnip, and seven days for a swallow to fly around it. A sow (hare) eats her way into the turnip, which grows back around her. When the turnip is cut open, the sow is found inside with seven piglets (seven cartloads of hares are found inside). Fifteen men uproot the turnip using levers, and two horses are needed to move it. A boat is made from its rind.
The cabbage (mushroom) is so big that an entire regiment of soldiers fits under its leaves (cap). Part of it is used to make soup for a battallion, but the rest of the vegetable is still too big to pass through the lock of the canal.
Six men work for six weeks to dig up the potato, but they excavate only its top half.
A stalk of rye is so fat that a hog can go through it, or a man can drive a horse and wagon through the stalk and turn around inside it. Five men can stand on its stump. One grain is so big that just cutting it in two yields a bucket of sawdust.
The tobacco is so tall that, to prune it, nine ladders have to be stacked one on top of the other. It takes two men a whole day to cut out both sides of the stalk. Standing on the stump they fight for two days over the tobacco. Cf. Type 1920A.
A turnip grows so big and so fast that the fence has to be moved three times during the summer. It takes a whole day to pull up the turnip, and seven days for a swallow to fly around it. A sow (hare) eats her way into the turnip, which grows back around her. When the turnip is cut open, the sow is found inside with seven piglets (seven cartloads of hares are found inside). Fifteen men uproot the turnip using levers, and two horses are needed to move it. A boat is made from its rind.
The cabbage (mushroom) is so big that an entire regiment of soldiers fits under its leaves (cap). Part of it is used to make soup for a battallion, but the rest of the vegetable is still too big to pass through the lock of the canal.
Six men work for six weeks to dig up the potato, but they excavate only its top half.
A stalk of rye is so fat that a hog can go through it, or a man can drive a horse and wagon through the stalk and turn around inside it. Five men can stand on its stump. One grain is so big that just cutting it in two yields a bucket of sawdust.
The tobacco is so tall that, to prune it, nine ladders have to be stacked one on top of the other. It takes two men a whole day to cut out both sides of the stalk. Standing on the stump they fight for two days over the tobacco. Cf. Type 1920A.
Motief
X1401
X1455
Combinaties
1889C, 1889E, 1889F, 1920A, 1920C, 1920F, 1960F, 1960G, 1960J, and 1960K,.
Oorspronkelijk Verhaaltype
1960D
Subgenre
mop