Religious motifs : Overview. Search. About religious motifs
Description of this motif: The sphinx is an ancient figure from the fables, known from Egyptian and Greek myth. The sphinx has the body of a lion and the head of a man, ram, or hawk, sometimes wings. The sphinx is characterized by profoundness and mystery and by killing those who could not answer its riddle. The riddle is its distinctive mark, and "sphinx" may simply mean "riddle".
Overview
The tales are sorted by year. The leading numbers refer to the number of occurrences of the motif in the respective texts.
- 1 The Galoshes of Fortune (1838)
- 2 The Marsh King's Daughter (1858)
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