Motif Index of German Secular Narratives                 
Published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna
 Introduction   Matière de Bretagne   Chansons de Geste   Miscellaneous Romances   Oriental Romances   Heroic Epic   Maere and Novellas   Romances of Antiquity   Index 

Heinrich Kaufringer, Die Rache des Ehemannes (ca. 1400)
HKRE-1
HKRE-54
HKRE-187
HKRE-236
HKRE-250
HKRE-387
HKRE-420
  

Maere and Novellas

Heinrich Kaufringer, Die Rache des Ehemannes (ca. 1400)
Euling, K. (ed.): Heinrich Kaufringers Gedichte. (=StLV 182) Tübingen 1888. Vol. 13, p. 151–165

HKRE-1:   A knight’s wife spends her time with the minister while her husband fights at tournaments. One day the minister asks for two teeth from her husband to prove her love.
Motif References:

H 467 Other tests of wife’s love or faithfulness

HKRE-54:   She pretends that he smells form the mouth and has the teeth broken out and gives it to her lover who has silver covered dice made. After drinking wine the minister entrusts the knight with the story that his dice have only recently been a knight’s teeth.
Motif References:

J 2324 Wife persuades her husband to have a good tooth pulled

HKRE-187:   The knight learns the truth and wants to take revenge. He pretends to ride to a tournament but returns secretly and hides in his wife’s bedroom. She appears with the minister for a love game.
Motif References:

K 1550.1 Husband discovers wife’s adultery
K 1551 Husband returns home secretly and spies on adulteress and paramour

HKRE-236:   When they fall asleep he cuts off the minister’s scrotum.
Motif References:

Q 241 Adultery punished
S 400 Cruel persecutions
Q 451.10 Punishment: genitalia cut off
K 1558.1 Husband castrates paramour
K 1561 The husband meets the paramour in the wife’s place. Beats him or cuts off privates

HKRE-250:   The husband has the minister’s scrotum made into a beautiful precious purse and gives it to the minister as a present.
Motif References:

K 1558.2 (Tu) The awful present: Husband cuts off paramour’s genitals and making ornamented bag of them, giving paramour as present

HKRE-387:   Then the husband forces the minister to bite off his wife’s tongue by threatening to kill him.
Motif References:

Q 451.4 Tongue cut off as punishment
Q 451.4.8 Tongue cut off as punishment for (alleged) adultery
M 500 (Bm) Threats

HKRE-420:   The knight casts out his unfaithful wife in the presence of her relatives.
Motif References:

S 411 Wife banished
K 1271 Amorous intrigue observed and exposed