Folklore Database · Browse
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B16b In B16 family | The wolverine makes the sea salty. | The sea is salty because a wolverine or a fox bathed in it or urinated in it. | 6 | 8 |
| B16c In B16 family | The mill grinds salt, ATU 565. | The magic mill is ordered to grind salt, but is not given the command to stop. The mill sinks into the sea, usually grinding salt to this day. | 46 | 32 |
| B17 | Night in a vessel. | Darkness is a special object that can be carried and transferred (usually brought from the original owner in a vessel or bag). | 52 | 76 |
| B18 | Light in a vessel, A1411.1. | Daylight, warmth, sun or moon are stored in a vessel, under a vessel, under a cover, in a bag, etc. | 47 | 50 |
| B19 | Night and married life. | Before nightfall, people could not make love in peace. | 12 | 19 |
| B20 | Expedition to the upper world. | People ascend to the sky to hunt, fish, or gather honey; they do not give honey, fish, or good meat to the person who remained below; that person makes sure that they remain in the sky forever. | 8 | 13 |
| B21 | Destruction of the world tree. | People climb trees to hunt, fish or gather honey. The tree is felled, people fall down and undergo a metamorphosis, or remain in the upper world. | 12 | 17 |
| B22 | The offended person knocks down the tree. | The character left under the tree is offended by those who climbed up the tree (usually they do not share their food with him or her). In retaliation, he or she knocks down the tree. The events described are of cosmic proportions. | 12 | 26 |
| B22a In B22 family | Boys and the tapir. | Boys climb a tree to eat fruit and refuse to throw the fruit down to the tapir, who tries to kill the boys. | 8 | 11 |
| B23 | Fire and smoke in defiance of the ban. | The deity forbids the use of fire for cooking and punishes those who violate the prohibition. | 13 | 22 |
| B24 | Transformation into wild boars. | People who have entered into conflict or violated a prohibition are transformed into wild boars or peccaries. | 8 | 8 |
| B24a In B24 family | Transformation into wild pigs: a circle of feathers. | After a character surrounds a group of people with a circle of feathers or throws feathers into their dwellings, the people turn into wild pigs or peccaries. | 5 | 5 |
| B25 | Pigs fall from trees. | Characters who climb trees or vines and then fall turn into wild pigs or other game animals. | 7 | 16 |
| B26 | Gone to the animals. | A person who follows wild animals (temporarily) turns into one of them or their master, or lives with animals that look like humans to him. | 56 | 74 |
| B27 | Variants of metamorphosis. | The characters ponder what object or creature they should transform into, and once they have made their choice, they undergo metamorphosis. | 39 | 57 |
| B27a In B27 family | Transformation into thunder and lightning. | The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become thunder and/or lightning. | 10 | 8 |
| B27b In B27 family | Transformation into stars. | The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become a celestial object. | 13 | 23 |
| B28 | The travelling transformer. | Travelling from one locality to another, the character successively transforms people into birds and animals, into stones, sanctuaries (or transforms monstrous animals into ordinary ones), establishes cultural norms, determines the biological characteristics of creatures, the appearance of the locality, etc. | 69 | 127 |
| B28a In B28 family | Nailed to the ground. | A character pinned to the ground by a rod, transported somewhere to the edge of the world and associated with an object that continues to influence people. | 7 | 18 |
| B28b In B28 family | Taming of things. | The inhabitants of the area where the hero finds himself are afraid of creatures that are tools, utensils, and plants that are now harmless. The hero easily defeats these creatures and usually transforms them into what they are now. | 16 | 32 |
| B28c In B28 family | Lice drag a person into the water. | Lice grab a person and drag him into the sea. | 3 | 2 |
| B28d In B28 family | Unrecognised transformer. | Not understanding who they are dealing with, the characters respond to the wandering Transformer that they are preparing weapons to kill so-and-so or a hiding place to escape from so-and-so. The Transformer kills them himself or turns them into animals. | 21 | 32 |
| B28d1 In B28 family | Knives turn into deer antlers. | Not understanding who he is facing, the man promises to kill the Transformer. The Transformer turns his weapon into deer antlers and him into a deer. | 12 | 18 |
| B28e In B28 family | The Moon as the Creator of the World. | The Moon (alone or together with the Sun) transforms the original "incorrect" world into the one in which people now live. | 14 | 21 |
| B29 | Eschatological festival. | People turn into animals, birds or stones, living beings acquire their current characteristics at a general meeting, festival, after a festival, after performing a ritual or after defeating a common enemy. | 58 | 77 |
| B30a In B30 family | The slain person turns into a fish. | A fish emerges from the remains of a killed person or creature. At first, it is concentrated in one place, then spreads throughout the water. | 6 | 16 |
| B30b In B30 family | The slain turn into animals. | Animals arise from the remains of a killed person. | 11 | 13 |
| B31 | Women turn into aquatic mammals. | A woman (usually after coming into conflict with a man or being left alone), or a man and a woman (spouses, lovers, brother and sister) turn into aquatic mammals. | 42 | 55 |
| B32 | Women turn into fish. | As a result of conflict with their husbands, women turn into fish. | 6 | 10 |
| B32a In B32 family | Pursuers turn into aquatic mammals. | The enemies of a hero sailing the sea turn into seals or dolphins. | 2 | 3 |
| B33 | Woman-wind. | There is a female character who embodies the wind or is considered the mother or mistress of the winds. | 48 | 74 |
| B33a In B33 family | Frozen in spring. | Deciding that it has become (or will soon become) warm, the character believes that winter is over (most often an old woman goes to graze cattle), but dies from the cold or the cattle driven out to pasture perish. Cf. motif I84A ("The frozen son of God"). | 40 | 80 |
| B33a1 In B33 family | Insulted March. | A person (animal, bird) teases or insults March or another calendar month and is punished as a result. | 27 | 48 |
| B33b In B33 family | March bird. | At the border between winter and spring, a bird (usually a thrush) flies away prematurely into the cold and dies, or raises chicks and they die or suffer from the cold. | 9 | 14 |
| B33c In B33 family | Borrowed days. | The month on the border between winter and spring (usually March) takes (rarely: buys, steals) a few days from its neighbour. | 29 | 61 |
| B33d In B33 family | The Old Woman of Winter. | An elderly woman embodies winter, is associated with snow, and/or at the border between winter and spring (autumn) there are several very cold days associated with a certain old woman. | 35 | 53 |
| B33d1 In B33 family | Days of the week – (demonic) characters. | In narrative folklore, the days of the week (most often Friday and Wednesday) are special (female) characters with a more or less pronounced demonic nature. | 14 | 30 |
| B33e In B33 family | If February were like January. | The last cold month regrets that it did not come earlier or that it is too short. In that case, it would have frozen everyone. | 7 | 6 |
| B33e1 In B33 family | Freezing in the womb. | It is said that the cold, which is stronger than anything else, can freeze boiling water, a foetus in the womb, etc. | 11 | 10 |
| b33e2 In b33 family | March breaks the bull's horns. | The severity of the cold in early spring is said to break the horns of large hoofed animals. | 6 | 5 |
| B33f In B33 family | The old woman-night unravels the yarn. | A certain character performs actions that determine the change from dark to light times of day. It always involves yarn, thread, rope, or fabric, which the character unravels or winds up, or with which the hero binds the entity responsible for the daily cycle. | 21 | 21 |
| B33f1 In B33 family | Mistress of night and day. | By performing certain actions, the (old) woman determines the daily cycle. | 15 | 14 |
| B33f2 In B33 family | Following the fire, the hero ties up an old woman. | At night, the fire goes out. The young man goes to look for fire and on the way ties up an old woman or an old man (usually a character responsible for the length of night and day). | 11 | 10 |
| B33g In B33 family | Three horsemen (sun, moon, night). | Horsemen or horses represent celestial bodies or different periods of the day. | 8 | 12 |
| B33h In B33 family | Mother of the Sun. | The sun has a mother who lives with him (less often with her) in the same house. Cf. motif K27x6b ("The character goes to the mother of the sun") | 41 | 51 |
| B34 | Caught by the first night. | After the vessel of night is opened, a person caught by the onset of darkness turns into a bird or animal. | 9 | 16 |
| B35 | The club-footed bear. | The bear hastily puts his left moccasin on his right foot and vice versa, which is why he is club-footed. | 8 | 8 |
| B35a In B35 family | The tree turns into a bear. | The tree asks not to be cut down and fulfils the man's wishes. When they go beyond what is reasonable, the tree turns the man into a bear. | 12 | 14 |
| B36 | Living beings acquire their appearance. | Birds, fish, and four-legged animals deliberately or accidentally smear themselves with colouring substances or divide parts of another's body among themselves, thereby acquiring their current appearance. | 48 | 94 |
| B36a In B36 family | Two adorn each other. | Two zoomorphic characters adorn each other, after which one is satisfied with the result and the other is not. | 59 | 89 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.