How the Killing of the Old Men Was Stopped is a Serbian fairy tale that first appeared in Kazadzic, a journal of Serbian folklore, having been submitted by Mr. I. L. Szeckovic from Paracin.D. L. Ashliman, "Killing of Old Men: folktales of Aarne-Thompson type 981 and other legends about geronticide" It is Aarne-Thompson type 981, "Wisdom of Hidden Old Man Saves Kingdom."

Synopsis A man hid his father in a land where everyone was supposed to be put to death at fifty. He won a bet about first seeing the sunrise by following his father's advice and looking west, so he saw it on a mountaintop. People concluded that the old should no longer be put to death.

Motifs This story type is known the world over, and although the precise problem solved by the old man differs, the lesson is invariably the same: to cherish the old as a source of wisdom.D. L. Ashliman, Why old people are no longer put to death

Variants Antiquity Justin's Historia Philippicae contains a variant in chapter XVIII,3,1.

Europe A Maltese variant titled "The Kaukama and the Kaukam" was included by Margaret Murray and L. Galea in Maltese Folk-Tales.

"Why People Ceased to Kill Old Men," is a variant collected from the Gagauz of Moldova.

A Ukrainian variant, "How They Used to Put Old People On the Plank," was collected from an informant named Naum Savchenko.

Jung Károly published a variant collected from a female narrator in 1951.

Africa A variant was collected from the Wala people of Ghana by Mona Fikry-Atallah.

"Impossible Against Impossible" is a Liberian variant.

Asia In Japan, there is a legend called Ubasute or Ubasute-yama. Uba means old woman. However, in the story, sometimes be an old father type. There are two types of stories: The unreasonable question type and the branch-and-fold type.

"About The Country That Exiled People Over Seventy Years Old," in the Konjaku Monogatarishū is an Indian variant. It replaces the execution of elders with exile and a woman solves the riddles.

Keigo Seki's Folktales of Japan includes a variant, "The Mountain Where Old People Were Abandoned".

References

External links Other stories of this type