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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B77c In B77 family | The serpent pushed back the sky. | A snake-like creature pushes the sky away from the earth. See motif B77. | 6 | 5 |
| 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 |
| B104b In B104 family | A woman turns into a woodpecker. | A woman refuses to share bread with Jesus, who has come to her, and he turns her into a woodpecker. | 7 | 8 |
| B111 | Bees from the body of an animal. | Bees or wasps fly out of the carcass or body of a large animal (lion, bull) (usually the episode explains the origin of bees). | 7 | 8 |
| 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 |
| B25 | Pigs fall from trees. | Characters who climb trees or vines and then fall turn into wild pigs or other game animals. | 7 | 16 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B42o In B42 family | The Hunchback Constellation. | A certain constellation is represented by a person who has been struck or wounded in the back. | 7 | 7 |
| B42o1 In B42 family | The Great Bear – the fisher. | The Big Dipper is identified with the fisher (Mustela pennati). | 7 | 5 |
| B47a In B47 family | The cow's split hoof. 33.34. | A cow steps on the Pleiades stars lying on the ground, which were demonic creatures. Some of the stars slipped through her split hoof. | 7 | 11 |
| B61 | The mole's paw. | The mole had to hold up the fallen sky and sun. Since then, its paw (hand) has remained dislocated backwards. | 7 | 10 |
| B75b1 In B75 family | Sounds of the era of creation: the voice of a wife or mother-in-law. | The character pushes his mother-in-law or wife into a hollow, and she turns into the creaking of trees or an echo. | 7 | 9 |
| B75d In B75 family | Sounds of the creation era: the rustling of leaves. | The sound of leaves or grass rustling in the wind has been heard since the time of creation. | 7 | 7 |
| 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 |
| B123 | A fly instead of a nail, ATU 772*. | A fly lands on the chest of the crucified Jesus. His persecutors, who intended to drive a nail into his heart, do not do so, believing that the nail has already been driven in. | 8 | 11 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B24 | Transformation into wild boars. | People who have entered into conflict or violated a prohibition are transformed into wild boars or peccaries. | 8 | 8 |
| B33g In B33 family | Three horsemen (sun, moon, night). | Horsemen or horses represent celestial bodies or different periods of the day. | 8 | 12 |
| 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 |
| B38d In B38 family | Raven and owl. | The Raven and the Owl paint each other. | 8 | 11 |
| B42h2 In B42 family | Reddish star – arrow. | A large reddish star (Betelgeuse or Aldebaran) is identified with an arrow. | 8 | 13 |
| B45b In B45 family | The bull of cold. | The bull or cow is the embodiment of cold, the reason why winter is cold. | 8 | 15 |
| 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 |
| B104a In B104 family | Meat turns into a toad, ATU 980D. | The son was about to eat some meat (chicken). At that moment, his father came in, and the son hid the meat so as not to share it with him. When his father left and the son took out what he had hidden, the meat turned into a toad (snake) and jumped on his face. | 9 | 5 |
| 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 |
| B113 | Women's backsides and men's knees. | Due to certain events during the time of creation, women have cold backsides (and men have cold knees, or vice versa). | 9 | 9 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B58 | The red neck of the turkey. | After the first ancestors steal the original fire, a forest bird the size of a partridge (Penelope sp.; Anhima cornuta; etc.; jacu, paujil) swallows a hot coal. As a result (except for the Andoc), its neck turns red. | 9 | 11 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| B72c In B72 family | The blood of those who run stains objects. | Children run after their mother, injure themselves, and their blood stains plants, the ground, and the evening sky. | 9 | 13 |
| B74a In B74 family | Red cloths over the eyes. | Red cloths are sewn over the character's eyes (threads, eyelids are painted red) or he does it himself. He sees everything in red or his eyes have turned red forever. | 9 | 10 |
| B76 | Frozen waves. | The sea waves instantly petrified, forming land with mountains on it. | 9 | 10 |
| b87d In b87 family | Alcor - infant. | Alcor (a faint star next to the second star of the Big Dipper's handle) – infant. | 9 | 10 |
| B91 | The sharp-eyed snail. | The snail had (the most keen-eyed) eyes. Another character borrows them and does not return them. | 9 | 14 |
| B104 | The chicken turns into a turtle. | A guest arrived, the host hid the chicken, and when he wanted to eat it, it turned out that it had turned into a turtle. | 10 | 10 |
| B114 | Old men-anteaters. | A woman or a man (usually old people) turn into anteaters (the origin of anteaters). | 10 | 18 |
| 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 |
| B40b In B40 family | The horse changes with the cow. | The horse changes with the cow, gives up its horns and/or gets teeth. | 10 | 10 |
| B42m In B42 family | The second hunter's pot. | The three stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three men (hunters, thieves). The stars of the dipper are the object they seek to obtain (the hunted animal; the bed). Alcor (a faint star near Mizar) is a container, a vessel carried by the second of the three characters. | 10 | 16 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.