Tales are one of the genres that have many functions such as values education, mother tongue teaching, tradition transfer, and entertainment in folk culture and literature. Tales, which are carried through the oral tradition since they are one of the products of folk literature in which the local has moved to the universal from the past to the present, carry the traces of the culture in which they are in context, although they have universal motifs. Motifs, which are important small pieces that enable the formation of a literary text, sometimes alone and sometimes a few together, form the roof in a tale. One of the main motifs that make up the roof in tales is the test motif. Test motifs are frequently encountered especially in tales with successive events in a complex structure. Stith Thompson has conducted a comprehensive study on motif titled Motif Index of Folk-Literature in 6 volumes. The test motif to be taken as a basis in this study is included in Article H of this work. This article, which has seven main headings, has a large number of subheadings. It is seen that this motif is handled together with various sub-types in Turkish tales. In this study, Gümüşhane tales were selected as the sample. The examples of all sub-types of the test motif in approximately one hundred and thirty Gümüşhane tales examined support this assumption. This research has the characteristics of qualitative research. The data of the research were collected using the document analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods.

Tale, Test, Motif, Gümüşhane, Motif Index.