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Berezkin/Duvakin Catalogue of Motifs
English translation, enhancements and additional metadata by Jonathan Fielder-White
Source: Berezkin and Duvakin's Analytical Catalogue · Original catalogue (Russian)
About the catalogue and its sources
Unless otherwise stated, narrative and tradition data comes from Berezkin and Duvakin's Thematic classification and distribution of folklore and mythological motifs by area (Analytical catalogue).
Original Berezkin/Duvakin catalogue (Russian)
The English translation uses AI assistance alongside manual verification. Errors may occur; consult the original source when in doubt.
B - Origins of the environment
| Ref ▲ | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Two creators, A50. | Two anthropomorphic creators compete in the creation of the earth and/or humans. One is or becomes the master of the underworld or is associated with the spirit world, in contrast to the first, who is associated with the human world. | 90 | 166 |
| B1a In B1 family | Three worlds: division of the universe. | Anthropomorphic characters agree to divide the tiers of the universe among themselves – heaven, earth and the underworld. | 8 | 11 |
| B1b In B1 family | Two creators. | Two female progenitors participate in the process of creation. The actions of one bring good, the other evil. | 6 | 7 |
| B1c In B1 family | One creator deceives another. | Two creators agree that the older of them (the main creator) will be the one whose object is in a certain state (usually: whose tree or flower grows or blooms earlier). While one was asleep or absent, the other switched the objects and deceitfully achieved primacy. | 13 | 13 |
| B1d In B1 family | Two workers. | Two characters are building the world, one works poorly, the other well, so different parts of the universe (or a specific island) have different appearances. | 8 | 8 |
| B1e In B1 family | The hero and his ten brothers. | The protagonist of the narrative is one of many (seven or more) brothers with whom he is in conflict, but who are not his irreconcilable enemies. | 6 | 13 |
| B1f In B1 family | Two brothers: the winner and the loser. | In the era of creation, two men have a common origin, are not antagonists, and display their characteristics in a series of episodes. One is intelligent and successful, the other is simple-minded and irresponsible. | 36 | 82 |
| B1g In B1 family | Four brothers-transformers. | Four brothers change the world, freeing it from monsters, transforming its inhabitants and obtaining valuable resources (water, fire, cultivated plants, etc.). Usually one of the brothers is the leader, and the others help him. All four often have a common name. | 8 | 15 |
| B1H In B1 family | The hero and his ten brothers | 4 | 11 | |
| B2a In B2 family | The earth is a female being, A401. | The earth is a female character (alone or alongside a male character) and is considered to be female or associated with women. | 272 | 484 |
| B2b In B2 family | The earth devours the dead. | The earth feeds on the people buried in it. See motif B2A. | 16 | 22 |
| B2c In B2 family | The earth as an anthropomorphic body. | The earth as a whole, elements of the landscape or fertile soil arise from the human body and (or) the earth (islands) are born of a woman. | 18 | 24 |
| B2d In B2 family | Marriage of heaven and earth, A625. | The sky (the Sun, Thunder, the Wind living in the sky) is considered male and marries the Earth, who is female; The sky is combined with the female Water; with the daughter of the Earth; the creator (master) of the sky and the creator (mistress) of the earth are husband and wife; rarely: the female Sky (or Sun) is combined with the male Earth. | 111 | 167 |
| B2e In B2 family | Earth-man. | The Earth or the world as a whole is a male character (alone or alongside a female character). | 57 | 71 |
| B2f In B2 family | Difficult funerals. | The character cannot bury the deceased, not knowing how to do it or not finding a place for burial. | 13 | 23 |
| B2f1 In B2 family | Buried in the head. | (While the earth does not yet exist or has not yet hardened), birds bury the dead in their bodies – usually in their beaks or heads, which explains the unpleasant smell or the origin of the crest, swelling on the beak, etc. | 11 | 19 |
| B2f2 In B2 family | Carries an unburied corpse. | The character carries the body of the deceased for a long time, unable to bury it or not knowing how to do so, but eventually buries the body in the ground. | 5 | 6 |
| B2g In B2 family | The chameleon walks on soft ground. | The chameleon walked on the ground when it had not yet hardened. | 5 | 8 |
| B3 | Primary swamp. | At first, the earth is soft, resembling a swamp. | 21 | 26 |
| B3a In B3 family | Primary waters, A810. | The waters are primary. The earth is lowered onto the water, appears above the water, grows from a piece of solid substance placed on the surface of the water or liquid mud, from an island in the ocean, is exposed when the waters recede, etc. | 300 | 674 |
| B3b In B3 family | The grown earth. | Initially, the earth or the world as a whole was small in size, then it grew; fertile soil grew from a small amount of initial substance. See motif B3A (the earth grows from a piece of solid substance thrown onto the surface of the water). | 234 | 277 |
| B3c In B3 family | Attempt to drown God. | When the creator, having created the land, lies down to rest, the antagonist tries to drown him, dragging him to the edge of the earth. As a result, the earth expands, and the antagonist is unable to reach its edge. | 15 | 17 |
| B3d In B3 family | Worm excrement. | The earth is obtained by a worm; it arises from worm excrement, extracted from the worm. | 18 | 40 |
| B3e In B3 family | The earth fell into the waters. | At first, below the sky there is only air and water or (rarely) swamp, an indefinite abyss. A character descends from the sky, creates or has a support created for him, and the earth grows out of it; the earth is lowered, dropped from the sky; the earth is thrown, placed on the surface of the sea, and grows into land; the earth is brought from somewhere else (not from the underworld) and placed on the waters. (This is a more general motif compared to motif b79a1, "The bird dropped the firmament onto the waters"). | 81 | 112 |
| B3F In B3 family | An object dropped from the sky. | A character in the sky accidentally drops an object. The search for this object in the world below the sky leads to the creation of the earth or a change in its appearance. | 4 | 3 |
| B4 | The elongated land. | Islands or mainland pulled out of the ocean, pulled by a rope. | 30 | 59 |
| B4a In B4 family | Fish break off islands. | Fish beat against the ground, breaking off islands from the mainland. | 4 | 3 |
| B5a In B5 family | The pair of creators: dialogue. | At the beginning of time, female and male characters meet and engage in dialogue. | 14 | 18 |
| B5b In B5 family | Universal mother. | A woman (alone or with her companion) creates or gives birth not only to humans, but also to various creatures, objects, and parts of the universe. | 39 | 52 |
| B5c In B5 family | Mother and daughter at the beginning of time. | At the beginning of time, there are an old woman and a young woman. One or both of them conceive in a miraculous way. A son or twins are born, who settle the world. | 6 | 15 |
| B6 | Walking towards each other, they get married. | The first or only remaining man and woman move towards each other, going around a mountain, a pole or otherwise following a circle from opposite sides, and when they meet, they get married. | 17 | 24 |
| B6a In B6 family | Discarded egg. | The first woman gives birth to several eggs. One or two of them remain unchanged for a long time and are thrown into the river, believing them to be spoiled. However, it is precisely from these eggs that characters of high status emerge (or should have emerged). | 4 | 4 |
| B7a In B7 family | Spit-out water. | Someone possesses water or a drink. Another character swallows what is hidden, runs away and spits out what is hidden, making the water or drink available to everyone. | 16 | 23 |
| B7b In B7 family | Water from a vessel. | The sea (flood, river) flows out of a small container. | 39 | 39 |
| B7c In B7 family | Sprinkled water. | Fresh water, which its sole owner hides in a vessel or pond, is scattered throughout the world. | 8 | 9 |
| B7d In B7 family | Water pours from a bone. | Water pours from a broken bone, flooding the earth. | 5 | 5 |
| B8 | The frog hides the water. | The frog hides the water (usually drinks up a lake or river). Thanks to another character, the water returns to the body of water(s). (Among the Khan, Upper Tanana, and Varikho, the motif is not cosmogonic). | 15 | 30 |
| B9 | Water in a tree. | A huge amount of water is contained in the trunk of a tree, or the tree turns into water. | 48 | 79 |
| B10 | Drunk water, A1013. | The character drinks a lake or all the water in the world, or the only water is in his stomach. They pierce his stomach or remove the plug, forcing him to burp up the water - the water pours out. See motif B7. | 45 | 58 |
| B11 | The appearance of rivers. | A river (rarely: a chain of lakes, a narrow strait) or its current course is created by humans or animals. See motifs B12, B13. This section covers other variants of the motif. | 38 | 37 |
| B11a In B11 family | The mammoth – creator of the landscape. | The mammoth, represented as an underground fish-like creature, creates rugged terrain on wet ground and digs river beds. | 15 | 13 |
| B11B In B11 family | The drowned mammoth. | At the beginning of time or during the flood, the mammoth drowned or sank into the ground, and since then it has not been seen on earth. | 9 | 10 |
| B12 | Snake rivers. | The riverbed follows the path of a snake, fish, dragon, or crab; the river arises from parts of the snake's body; the river is a snake. | 76 | 81 |
| B13 | The crossed riverbed. | A character deliberately or accidentally makes a riverbed by digging it out, drawing it on the ground or spilling water as he walks (cf. motif B13A: water rushes in the footsteps of a person against his will, he tries to run away from it). | 20 | 16 |
| B13a In B13 family | Water rushes after a person. | A stream of water (with a predator in it) rushes after a character who is trying to escape from it. | 32 | 43 |
| B14 | The character creates river rapids. | In order to regulate the flow of the river in a certain way, the character creates rapids and waterfalls. | 16 | 18 |
| B14A In B14 family | Tears turn into water. | Rivers, springs, the sea, floodwaters, and rain arise from tears (for rivers of tears in the world of the dead, see motif H16). | 68 | 82 |
| B15 | River from a woman's body. | The river flows from the organs of a woman's body. | 11 | 13 |
| B16 | Salt water: bodily secretions, A1115. | The water of the sea, rivers, etc. comes from the fluid that flows from the body of a living being, or is contaminated by it; therefore, it is salty or opaque. | 34 | 40 |
| B16a In B16 family | Sea of urine. | The sea is formed from urine or blood. | 14 | 12 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.