Secret Tests of Character in myths and religion.
- Older Than Feudalism: The Bible is full of these.
- The famous Solomon "splitting the baby" story from The Bible. King Solomon is faced with two women, each claiming a baby is theirs. Solomon offers to have a guard cut the baby in half to test the women's reactions (facetiously arguing this is a fair division of "goods"), and concludes that the one who would rather give up the child than see it die is the baby's real mother. No word on what happened to the other woman, who accepted the fake offer just to spite her rival.
- Solomon himself had one when God offered to give him one blessing, and instead of material wealth or military might Solomon chose wisdom; pleased with this, God gave him the other things as well.
- Joseph (the one with the coat of many colors) pulls one on his brothers in the Book of Genesis. Jacob's older sons, jealous of Jacob's love of Joseph (11 of 12), sold him to a slave-trader and told their father he had been killed by a wild animal. Through some strange circumstances, he wound up serving Pharaoh, who made Joseph a minister. When drought hit the region, Egypt rode it out due mainly to Joseph's ordering the granaries to store the surplus from previous years. Jacob's tribes were less fortunate and the elder sons went to Egypt to beg the minister (not recognizing him) for assistance. He agreed to aid them, and invited them to dine with him, only to accuse the youngest son Benjamin of stealing from him. When the other brothers defended Benjamin, ultimately confessing their previous misdeeds, Joseph revealed himself to them, saying that they had passed his test, and permitted the tribes of Israel to live in Egypt.
- In the Book of Genesis, God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham is already about to go through with it when an angel tells him to stop, because it was just a test of his obedience to God.
- Zigzagged in a midrash about Moses as a small child. Moses was raised by Pharaoh's daughter, and Pharaoh was afraid that when he grew up Moses would try to usurp the throne. His advisers came up with a test in which Moses was shown a tray with a royal crown and hot coals; if he reached for the crown he would be put to death, while if he reached for the coals there was nothing to fear. Moses began to reach for the jewels—but an angel guided his hand to reach for the coals instead, causing Moses to burn his hand. Moses put his hand in his mouth, thereby burning his tongue (it doesn't make sense even in context), explaining why Moses described himself as "slow of speech".
- In Islam, everything that happens to a Muslim is a secret test of character and patience by Allah, whether it be a blessing or a plight. In the former, one should thank their Lord for it instead of claiming credit, and in the latter, one should stay patient and put their trust in Him to protect them and relieve them from their pain, instead of becoming impatient and cursing everything that’s happening to them or blaming it on something.
- One Chinese folktale tells of an Emperor who had no children, and wanted to pass on the throne to someone worthy. So he sent every child in the kingdom a seed to grow, telling him that he would judge the flowers that they grew after one year to pick an heir. One little peasant boy cared for his seed extensively, getting it the best soil and sunlight, but no matter what he did, it didn't grow. Finally, at the end of the year, he went to the palace with his empty pot and was sure that he would lose, since the flowers that the other children had were all magnificent and beautiful, while he had nothing. However, when the Emperor came to his pot, and the boy tried to explain that he had tried to do the best for his seed but it still had not grown, the Emperor stopped and declared him to be the winner. Turns out, all the seeds that he had given to the children were cooked, and would never grow, but only this little boy had the courage and honesty to not replace it with a live seed and admit that he may have done something wrong. The Aesop, of course, is that honesty is required in a leader, even if the consequences may be humiliation or loss of face. The tale was adapted into the children's book The Empty Pot by Demi.
- This story also appears as a training test given to young Usagi by his teacher Katsuichi in Usagi Yojimbo.
- Another European adaptation of the story has a princess trying to determine which of three knights will be her husband (or a king offering the test as an Engagement Challenge). As in the original, the knight who comes back with an empty pot is declared the winner.
- This is the main point behind Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain is bound to receive a blow to his neck by the Green Knight and expects to die. While he is awaiting his appointment with the Green Knight, he stays at the home of a lord, who asks that Gawain give him any gift he receives each day in return for a meal of whatever the lord kills in the hunt. The lord's wife hits on Gawain and gives him a kiss on the first two days. He gently resists her advances and gives her kiss to the Lord each evening, to everyone's amusement. On the third day, the wife gives Gawain a belt she says will protect him from harm. Gawain does not give the lord this belt. When he meets the Green Knight, the knight misses his first two swings, but nicks Gawain on his third swing. The knight then transforms into Gawain's former host, saying that the whole thing was a test. He would have killed Gawain had he despoiled his wife, and he nicked Gawain with the third swing as punishment for withholding the belt. Gawain feels humiliated, but the knight consoles him that he was spared because his only crime was loving life.
- There's a second story about Gawain that features this trope: Ragnell, a hideous hag of a woman, comes to court and demands a favor of Arthur, who agrees. The favor turns out to be marriage to Sir Gawain, who rather reluctantly goes along with Arthur's wishes. After the wedding, Gawain and Ragnell return to their chambers. Suddenly, Ragnell the hag transforms into her true form, that of a beautiful maiden. She gives Gawain a choice: either she can be beautiful during the day and hideous at night, or vice-versa. He returns the choice to her; this was the correct answer all along, and since it proves his chivalry and respect for her, she can remain in her beautiful form all the time. A variation of this tale appears as "The Wife Of Bath's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales.
- An illustrated riddle book tells of two people suspected for a crime each being given a stick and told that they are magical sticks that will grow longer overnight when in the possession of a criminal. The riddle question is: Why was the person with the shorter stick arrested for the crime the next morning? The answer: The sticks were not magical, but the guilty person, not knowing this, cut off part of his stick, whereas the innocent one didn't bother tampering with his own because he knew he had nothing to fear.
- A farmer whose chickens are being stolen, and he knows one of his two hired hands is guilty, so he confronts them and says he'll give them a foolproof test; a black chicken in a box who's a natural lie detector (it will crow loudly when the thief touches it). Reach in there and touch the chicken, the farmer says, and I'll know who's the thief. The first man reaches into the box, then withdraws his hands without a mark on them. The second reaches in, and his hands come out stained black. The chicken doesn't crow either time. But the bird was actually white, with soot sprinkled on it; and the farmer knows the first man is the thief, because only a guilty man would be afraid to test his honesty.
- There's an unsolved locked room murder, with only three people who possibly could have done it, but there's no evidence to convict anyone, and they all go free. Sometime later, the deceased's father holds a memorial dinner and invites the three. After dinner, he plops a glass of liquid down and proclaims that he's figured out the murderer's identity, and poisoned his food. The glass contains the antidote. One of the three gulps it down...and collapses, gasping and twitching. The father had no idea who the killer was; the "antidote" was the poison. Most versions of this story have a Cruel Twist Ending where the man who drank the poison wasn't the killer, he just panicked... and sees one of the other two smirking at him as he dies.
- In Chinese legend, a magistrate is called in when two identical brides show up at the wedding, and he makes a "bridge of marriage" out of cloth to determine who gets to marry by crossing it. One cries and says she can't, the other crosses, and the magistrate uses his seal of office and a net to catch her as a fox spirit, since no ordinary woman could cross that bridge.
- One folktale from Europe has a poor woodcutter losing his ax in a river. The guardian spirit of the river then rises up and presents axes made of pure gold and silver, asking if the woodcutter has lost them; the woodcutter denies the riches and repeatedly asks for his own ax back. The spirit is pleased with his honesty and rewards the man with all three axes as a prize. Some versions add an ending where a greedy woodcutter tries the same trick and excitedly declares the golden ax his own, at which point the guardian spirit punishes him.
- The tale of "Patient Griselda," retold by everyone from Geoffrey Chaucer to Caryl Churchill, features this trope. The titular character is a young peasant girl who is chosen to marry a rich marquis, on the condition that she always does whatever he commands without question. After several years of obedience, Griselda has a daughter, and the marquis demands that she give him the baby so that he may kill it; she remembers her vow and does so. Later, she bears a son, and her husband again takes the infant to murder it right away, which Griselda agrees to. The marquis next announces that he is leaving Griselda and forces her to go home to her father, and true to form, she obeys the order. Finally, the marquis summons Griselda back to the palace to be a lady-in-waiting to his new bride, and makes her plan the wedding for them. Griselda does everything without a word of protest, at which point the marquis reveals the children (now preteens) alive and well (in some versions, the would-be new bride is Griselda's daugther, for extra Squick points). The nearly sixteen years of torture were all a test to see if Griselda would truly remain faithful to her word. She passes and gets to live with the marquis and her children for the rest of her life (although nowadays, readers might wonder "Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?").
- One Algonquin "Just So" Story has Strong Wind — who has the power to make himself selectively invisible — announce that he will marry the first maiden who can see him as he comes home at the end of the day. But little does anyone outside his inner circle know — nobody can see him unless he allows them to do so. The real purpose of the test is to determine if the would-be bride is honest enough to marry him, since he won't marry a woman he can't trust. To verify if they actually can see him, he has his sister (whom he always allows to see him) ask questions about his appearance, such as what he's wearing or what his bow is made of. When he finally has a contender who admits she can't see him, he makes himself visible to the girl, allowing her to pass the "official" test.
- An urban legend sometimes told at seminaries involves a seminary class that is having its final exam. When the students arrive at the exam room, they see a sign that says the exam has been moved to another building on the other side of the campus. As the students are walking to the new location of the exam, they each encounter a homeless man who tells them he is starving and asks if they can give him a little money to get something to eat (in other versions, the man is barely conscious and looks very ill). When all the students finally arrive at the exam room, the professor comes out and tells them that the real exam was the homeless man; those that stopped to help him passed the exam and those that ignored him failed.
