Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index

The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU Index) is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: Originally published in German by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1910), the index was translated into English, revised, and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1928, 1961), and later further revised and expanded by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther (2004). The ATU index is an essential tool for folklorists, used along with the Thompson (1932) Motif-Index of Folk-Literature.
Austrian consul Johann Georg von Hahn devised a preliminary analysis of some 40 tale "formulae" as introduction to his book of Greek and Albanian folktales, published in 1864.
Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, in 1866, translated von Hahn's list and extended it to 52 tale types, which he called "story radicals". Folklorist J. Jacobs expanded the list to 70 tale types and published it as "Appendix C" in Burne & Gomme's Handbook of Folk-Lore.
Before the edition of Antti Aarne's first folktale classification, Astrid Lunding translated Svend Grundtvig's system of folktale classification. This catalogue consisted of 134 types, mostly based on Danish folktale compilations in comparison to international collections available at the time by other folklorists, such as the Brothers Grimm's and Emmanuel Cosquin's.
Antti Aarne was a student of Julius Krohn and his son Kaarle Krohn. Aarne developed the historic-geographic method of comparative folkloristics, and developed the initial version of what became the Aarne–Thompson tale type index for classifying folktales, first published in 1910 as Verzeichnis der Märchentypen ("List of Fairy Tale Types"). The system was based on identifying motifs and the repeated narrative ideas that can be seen as the building-blocks of traditional narrative; its scope was European.
The American folklorist Stith Thompson revised Aarne's classification system in 1928, enlarging its scope, while also translating it from German into English. In doing so, he created the "AT number system" (also referred to as "AaTh system") which remained in use through the second half of the century. Another edition with further revisions by Thompson followed in 1961. According to American folklorist D.L. Ashliman,
The AT-number system was updated and expanded in 2004 with the publication of The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography by German folklorist H.-J. Uther. Uther noted that many of the earlier descriptions were cursory and often imprecise, that many "irregular types" are in fact old and widespread, and that "emphasis on oral tradition" often obscured "older, written versions of the tale types". To remedy these shortcomings Uther developed the Aarne–Thompson–Uther (ATU) classification system and included more tales from eastern and southern Europe as well as "smaller narrative forms" in this expanded listing. He also put the emphasis of the collection more explicitly on international folktales, removing examples whose attestation was limited to one ethnic group.
In The Folktale, Thompson defines a tale type as follows:
The Aarne–Thompson Tale Type Index divides tales into sections with an AT number for each entry. The names given are typical, but usage varies; the same tale type number may be referred to by its central motif or by one of the variant folktales of that type, which can also vary, especially when used in different countries and cultures. The name does not have to be strictly literal for every folktale. For example, The Cat as Helper (545B) also includes tales where a fox helps the hero. Closely related folktales are often grouped within a type. For example, tale types 400–424 all feature brides or wives as the primary protagonist, for instance The Quest for a Lost Bride (400) or the Animal Bride (402). Subtypes within a tale type are designated by the addition of a letter to the AT number, for instance: tale 510, Persecuted Heroine (renamed in Uther's revision as Cinderella and Peau d'Âne ["Cinderella and Donkey Skin"]), has subtypes 510A, Cinderella, and 510B, Catskin (renamed in Uther's revision as Peau d'Asne [also "Donkey Skin"]).
As an example, the entry for 510A in the ATU index (with cross-references to motifs in Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk Literature in square brackets, and variants in parentheses) reads:
The entry concludes, like others in the catalogue, with a long list of references to secondary literature on the tale, and variants of it.
In his 1997 essay "The motif-index and the tale type index: A critique", American folklorist Alan Dundes explains that the Aarne–Thompson indexes are some of the "most valuable tools in the professional folklorist's arsenal of aids for analysis". They have, however, been subject to criticism concerning their construction, where they apply, and what they exclude.
The tale type index was criticized by V. Propp of the Russian Formalist school of the 1920s for ignoring the functions of the motifs by which they are classified. Furthermore, Propp contended that using a "macro-level" analysis means that the stories that share motifs might not be classified together, while stories with wide divergences may be grouped under one tale type because the index must select some features as salient. He also observed that although the distinction between animal tales and tales of the fantastic was basically correct – no one would classify "Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf" as an animal tale, just because of the wolf – it did raise questions because animal tales often contained fantastic elements, and tales of the fantastic often contained animals; indeed a tale could shift categories if a peasant deceived a bear rather than a devil.
In 2009, describing the motivation for his work, Uther presents several criticisms of the original index. He points out that Thompson's focus on oral tradition sometimes neglects older versions of stories, even when written records exist, and that some included folktale types have dubious importance.
In regards to the typological classification, some folklorists and tale comparativists have acknowledged singular tale types that, due to their own characteristics, would merit their own type. Although such tales often have not been listed in the international folktale system, they can exist in regional or national classification systems.
In his 2009 critique, Uther finds that the distribution of stories is uneven (with Eastern and Southern European as well as many other regions' folktale types being under-represented). Similarly, Thompson had noted that the tale type index might well be called The Types of the Folk-Tales of Europe, West Asia, and the Lands Settled by these Peoples. However, Dundes notes that in spite of the flaws of tale type indexes (e.g., typos, redundancies, censorship, etc.;
The ATU folktype index has been criticized for its apparent geographic concentration on Europe and North Africa, showing over-representation of Eurasia and North America. The catalogue appears to ignore or under-represent other regions. Central Asian examples include: Yuri Berezkin [ru]'s The captive Khan and the clever daughter-in-law (and variants); The travelling girl and her helpful siblings; and Woman's magical horse, as named by researcher Veronica Muskheli of the University of Washington.
Author Pete Jordi Wood claims that topics related to homosexuality have been excluded intentionally from the type index. Similarly, folklorist Joseph P. Goodwin states that Thompson omitted "much of the extensive body of sexual and 'obscene' material", and that – as of 1995 – "topics like homosexuality are still largely excluded from the type and motif indexes." In a 2002 essay, Alan Dundes also criticized Thompson's handling of the folkloric subject material, which he considered to be "excessive prudery" and a form of censorship.
A quantitative study published by folklorist S. Graça da Silva and anthropologist J.J. Tehrani in 2016, tried to evaluate the time of emergence for the "Tales of Magic" (ATU 300–ATU 749), based on a phylogenetic model. They found four of them to belong to the Proto-Indo-European stratum of magic tales.
Ten more magic tales were found to be current throughout the Western branch of the Indo-European languages, comprising the main European language families derived from PIE (i.e. Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Italic and Celtic):
International collections: