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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B53 | Creatures and objects made from severed genitals. | The character's enormous genitals are cut off (usually cut into pieces), thrown away, and transformed into snakes or other creatures or objects. | 22 | 23 |
| B56A In B56 family | Crocodile without a tongue. | The reptile's tongue is cut off or mutilated (no association with fire). See motif B56. | 24 | 33 |
| B59 | Dancers turn into the Pleiades, A773. | A group of people (usually children, brothers or sisters) play, dance, rise to the sky and turn into the Pleiades or another small constellation. | 15 | 20 |
| B71 | Dancing flashes. | The northern lights are people who play, dance, sit by the fire, fight or run with torches. | 43 | 50 |
| 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 |
| B124a In B124 family | Dent on the back. | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's back, a dent has remained along the length of the spine. | 2 | 2 |
| 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 |
| B44e In B44 family | Dialogue of the first ancestors. | First ancestors (usually birds or animals) argue with each other about the length of time periods in the calendar or daily cycle, or about the desirability of the dominance of cold and dark or warm and light times. See motif B44. | 11 | 12 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B44 | Dispute about time, A1150, A1172. | The first ancestors (usually human-animals) argue about how long the year, winter, night, or other periods of time should last, and whether cold and darkness should be replaced by warmth and light. | 90 | 153 |
| B69a In B69 family | Dispute about time, Chipmunk participant. | A chipmunk or a similar small animal (weasel, shrew) argues with another animal character (bear, moose, puma, snake) about whether there should be light and warmth or darkness and cold. | 13 | 14 |
| B117 | Dog rights, ATU 200. | A document issued to animals (usually dogs) is lost through the fault of a cat (swallowed by a cat, burned, gnawed by mice). Since then, dogs and cats (usually also cats and mice) have been at enmity. | 30 | 29 |
| B81 | Dog with a gun. | The creator and his opponent consider whether to give the dog the ability to shoot (with a bow or a gun). | 20 | 22 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B115 | Evergreen trees. | Conifers and some other trees and shrubs (small shrubs) became evergreen after the elixir of immortality was accidentally spilled on them. Cf. motif H6b. | 20 | 31 |
| 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 |
| B91a In B91 family | Eyes: took and did not return. | A blind character asks another to lend him his eyes or to swap eyes, keeping his own eyes. | 16 | 27 |
| B36c In B36 family | Fat animals. | Animals receive meat and fat rendered from a certain creature or obtained in some other way. Some received a lot, others remained thin. | 21 | 23 |
| B44b In B44 family | Fingers, claws, hair, feathers. | The number and/or nature of the alternation of fingers, claws, feathers, hairs, and stripes on animal skins determines the number of time intervals in the calendar or daily cycle. See motif B44. | 29 | 8 |
| 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 |
| B4a In B4 family | Fish break off islands. | Fish beat against the ground, breaking off islands from the mainland. | 4 | 3 |
| B92 | Flint turns into flints. | A character whose body is hard and has broken into small pieces, or (rarely) a small object, turns into flint or other hard stones (the origin of flint). | 27 | 35 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B76 | Frozen waves. | The sea waves instantly petrified, forming land with mountains on it. | 9 | 10 |
| B68 | Giant hazel grouse. | The giant hazel grouse became small – it was usually torn into pieces, which turned into the current hazel grouse. | 23 | 42 |
| 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 |
| B70 | Hare ears. | A man beats defenseless hares, foxes, and other small animals (one or many) that are usually locked in his house. The story explains the colouring of the tips of the ears and tails of these animals. Cf. motif M45A. | 29 | 38 |
| B87b In B87 family | Harnessed wolf. | The Great Bear – a cart harnessed by a wolf or bear. Usually, the shape of the handle of the dipper is explained by the fact that a wolf or bear attacked an ox harnessed to the cart and took its place. In this case, it is associated with Alcor or the last star of the handle of the dipper – η. | 10 | 14 |
| B49a In B49 family | How many offspring per year. | Powerful animals could have many cubs, but now they give birth to only one every few years. | 6 | 7 |
| B42b In B42 family | Hunting hoofed animals. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the objects of pursuit are hoofed animals (elk, deer, mountain sheep). See motif B42. | 47 | 58 |
| B42e In B42 family | Hunting the rhea. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is the rhea (Rhea americana, a large flightless bird). See motif B42. | 7 | 3 |
| B42d In B42 family | Hunting the tapir. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is a bear. See motif B42. | 4 | 1 |
| 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 |
| B73b In B73 family | In search of a family member. | Two teenagers or young people are looking for each other, calling out to each other (or one of them is calling the other): a girl is looking for her missing (deceased) brother or brother's wife; a brother is looking for his sister or brother; young parents are looking for their child; one or both of those calling out turn into birds with a characteristic call. | 29 | 45 |
| B73a In B73 family | In search of a horse. | A girl (a young man, a girl with her brother; two little brothers) searches for a lost horse, cow, sheep and, as a result (alone or with her brother; both brothers), turns into a bird (usually a cuckoo) with a characteristic call. | 10 | 17 |
| B124 | Indentation on the foot. | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's foot, a hollow has formed between the toe and the heel. | 9 | 8 |
| B122 | Infants and birds. | Birds (cranes/storks, geese or crows) carry children away to another world or bring them back from there. See motif H6c3, "The Immortal Stork". | 5 | 12 |
| 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 |
| B65 | Intestines turn into vines. | A mischievous character imitates other animal-people. As a result, his belly is torn open and his spilled intestines turn into vines. | 9 | 10 |
| B88 | Job. | A man's children all die. He turns to God with a request to explain why he is suffering so much. | 6 | 7 |
| B42m1 In B42 family | Ket, Selkup and Evenk. | The three main stars of the Big Dipper's handle are associated with people of three different nationalities. | 9 | 13 |
| 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 |
| B115a In B115 family | Knots in wood, ATU 774H. | Angry at the carpenters, the character (St. Peter) asks another (Christ) to make the knots in the wood or branches iron. The latter only makes them very hard. | 8 | 9 |
| B116a In B116 family | Knowledge is stored in the stomach. | A person or animal eats a sacred book or its remains. During the ritual, this knowledge is actualised in oral speech, in the sounds of a musical instrument made from part of an animal's body, or in parts of an animal's body used for divination. | 17 | 23 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.