I50C. Sharabha (animal with legs on its back). .23.32.40.

A hoofed animal is described as having a second set of legs on its back and running either normally or on its back, making it tireless.

Ancient India, Bashkirs, Asian Eskimos.

South Asia. Ancient India [“They say that in the steppes of Kunkana, called Danak, {there lives} an animal called the sharabha . It has four legs, but on its back there are four more {limbs}, like legs and growing upwards. It has a small trunk and two large horns, with which it can strike an elephant and tear it in two. It resembles a buffalo in appearance, but is larger than a ganda {rhinoceros}. The Indians say that it often strikes with its horns some animal and throws it {whole} or part of it on its back so that it falls between the two upper limbs and decomposes there, becoming a swarming mass of worms, which penetrate its back; and it rubs itself against the trees all the time until it perishes. They say that sometimes this animal, hearing thunder, takes it for some other animal and rushes against it; it climbs after it to the mountain peaks and, throwing itself from there at it, falls down and breaks into pieces”: Biruni 1963.

Volga – Perm. Bashkirs [The trout asks the old man how to escape from the pike – Cross to a mountain stream ; the wood grouse to escape from the golden eagle – Live not in the mountains, but in the forest ; two roe deer run away from the wolf; the old man ties them back to back – When one runs, let the other rest ; the running roe deer jumped onto the moon, the wolf after her; they run there forever; the beast in front (the double roe deer) has eight legs; (zap. 1963; fragment zap. in the late 19th century by Lossievsky)]: Barag 1987, No. 3: 32-33, Nadrshina 1985, No. 2: 9-10.

Arctic. Asian Eskimos (Chaplino) [a man leaves a shamaness for a new wife; the new wife gives birth to a son; the doe gives birth to a boy; the human son sees how the one born of the doe swallows reindeer; then swallows the parents; the young man runs to the old woman; she gives him a reindeer with four legs on the stomach and four on the back ; he runs first with one, then with the other; running away from his brother-monster, the young man cuts off the legs one by one, throws them, the brother devours them; when he cuts off the last one, he reaches the old woman's house, runs in; the old woman breathes fire on her pursuer, killing him; she gives the young man the same gift; he comes to the shamaness, burns her in the house with his breath]: Kozlov 1956: 191-193.