Aarne–Thompson index
Aarne–Thompson index,shorthand for The Types of the Folktale, the classification system for international folk tales developed and first published in 1910 by the Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne under the title Verzeichnis der Märchentypen (Index of Types of Folktale). Aarne's system, designed initially to organize and index the Scandinavian archival collections, was translated and enlarged by the American folklorist Stith Thompson in 1928, and revised again in 1961. Although its scope is limited primarily to European and European‐derived tales known to have existed in oral tradition at the time of publication, the principal value of the index lies in the creation of a single classification system by which culturally distinct variants are grouped together according to a common reference number.
Together with Thompson's six‐volume Motif‐Index of Folk Literature with which it is cross‐indexed, The Types of the...
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