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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B77b2 In B77 family | The sky was touched with a broom. | The sky moved away and/or the connection between people and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck with a broom. | 4 | 4 |
| 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 |
| B115B In B115 family | The slain person turns into a viburnum. | One brother kills another, or one sister kills another, or a brother kills a sister. A viburnum or other shrub with red berries grows in this place. | 7 | 12 |
| B30b In B30 family | The slain turn into animals. | Animals arise from the remains of a killed person. | 11 | 13 |
| B51a In B51 family | The snake is the enemy of the swallow. | The snake is the enemy of the swallow (usually because the swallow prevents the snake from destroying people – the snake sends a mosquito or other blood-sucking insect to find out whose blood tastes better; the mosquito returns to report that it is human blood; the swallow bites off its tongue, and the snake plucks the feathers from the swallow's tail). | 49 | 58 |
| B42U In B42 family | The stars of the ladle handle – three people. | The stars of the handle of the Big Dipper – three people, and the four stars of the dipper – animals or objects (one or more). | 29 | 45 |
| B41 | The talking dog. | Because the dog spread certain information, argued with its owners, and spoke at inappropriate times, it lost the gift of speech. | 62 | 61 |
| B86 | The Tower of Babel. | To reach the sky (the moon, stars, sun), people build a ladder or tower consisting of separate modules (logs, poles, bricks, etc.), but the structure collapses. | 87 | 121 |
| B105 | The transformation of a shy daughter-in-law. | The father-in-law or mother-in-law catches the daughter-in-law in a situation she is ashamed of (with her hair down, bathing, etc.). Out of shame, she turns into a bird (usually a hoopoe) or a turtle. | 9 | 13 |
| B63 | The transformation of lazy children. | Children lie to their mother, pretending to work in the fields. When the deception is revealed, they are left without a harvest and are transformed into atmospheric phenomena or celestial objects. | 4 | 8 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B67 | The tree turns into stones. | A fallen tree and/or its stump turns into a mountain (mountain range) or rocks. (Usually, the branches of this tree bear the fruits and shoots of various cultivated plants, see motif G5). | 9 | 4 |
| B95A In B95 family | The trickster punishes his own backside. | To punish his own backside for misbehaviour, the trickster burns it. | 5 | 4 |
| B52a In B52 family | The vulture creates dry land. | Flying over the world, a bird (usually a vulture) dries the earth after a flood with its wings or otherwise gives it its present appearance. | 18 | 17 |
| B74b In B74 family | The wedding of the owl and the moon. | The owl is forced to part with the moon and now cries out when it sees the moon. Usually, the story tells how the marriage of the owl and the moon fell apart or did not take place. | 5 | 6 |
| B45 | The Wedding of Winter and Summer, A1153. | The arrival of warm (bright, abundant) or cold (hungry, dark) times is associated with the marriage of a certain character who brings cold, warmth, abundance, etc. | 36 | 48 |
| B116b In B116 family | The wet book. | A book containing sacred knowledge falls into the water at a crossing or gets wet in some other way. After that, the book disappears or the text becomes unreadable. Either the book is ruined (damaged) when it is dried. Or it is ruined while left unattended on the shore while the people who kept it are swimming; or it burns, although traces remain. | 18 | 20 |
| 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 |
| B77b In B77 family | They touched the sky with a long object. | The sky moved away and/or the connection between people and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck with a long object (a pestle, a broom, etc.) during work. Cf. motifs B77b1 and B77b2. | 32 | 64 |
| B118 | Those who remain on earth become owls. | A character who was unable to reach the sky or returned from the sky to earth becomes an owl. | 4 | 6 |
| B33g In B33 family | Three horsemen (sun, moon, night). | Horsemen or horses represent celestial bodies or different periods of the day. | 8 | 12 |
| 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 |
| B44c In B44 family | To be warm and light. | The characters argue about whether there should be darkness or light, cold or warmth on earth. See motif B44. | 22 | 23 |
| B27b In B27 family | Transformation into stars. | The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become a celestial object. | 13 | 23 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B94 | Trees lose the gift of speech. | Trees (and animals) used to talk, asking people not to cut them down or kill them. | 15 | 25 |
| 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 |
| B38b In B38 family | Two animals adorn each other. | Two quadrupeds (or a quadruped and another creature) adorn each other themselves or are adorned by someone else. | 21 | 30 |
| B38a In B38 family | Two birds adorn each other. | Two birds agree to paint each other. One of them does not become more beautiful as a result and often becomes uglier. See motif B36A. | 38 | 28 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B44a In B44 family | Units of time. | Characters argue about the number of discrete units of time that determine the duration of a certain period of time (most often winter or night). See motif B44. | 57 | 14 |
| 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 |
| B83 | Unliftable weight. | A character attempts to lift a small object or creature, which turns out to be gigantic and unliftable. Cf. motif I87ab. | 18 | 17 |
| 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 |
| B38 | Unsuccessful colouring. | The character decorates birds or animals, or they decorate each other. Some are dissatisfied with the result. | 81 | 121 |
| B42p In B42 family | Ursa Major – bear. | The Big Dipper is identified with a bear. | 38 | 45 |
| B42q In B42 family | Ursa Major – cart. | Ursa Major – chariot, cart. | 57 | 136 |
| B42f In B42 family | Ursa Major – hoofed animal. | The Big Dipper (as a whole or only the dipper) is identified with a large hoofed animal (elk, deer, mountain sheep). Unless otherwise specified, see motif B42 in the description of cosmic hunting. | 49 | 60 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B7b In B7 family | Water from a vessel. | The sea (flood, river) flows out of a small container. | 39 | 39 |
| 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 |
| B7d In B7 family | Water pours from a bone. | Water pours from a broken bone, flooding the earth. | 5 | 5 |
| 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 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.