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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.
C - Disasters
| Ref | Title ▲ | Summary | Traditions | Narratives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C16 | Products of labour become animals, E161, E168. | Contrary to human desire, processed skins, tools, and (meat) food (again) turn into (those) animals (from whose body parts they were made). Cf. motif M84. | 64 | 83 |
| C33 | Prometheus (the chained strongman). | A strongman-god-fighter is chained to a rock or a pillar for centuries. | 16 | 42 |
| C28 | Rash promise. | A demonic character takes possession of a valuable item without which another character (and people) will perish. The demon is tricked into returning the valuable item. | 12 | 14 |
| C13 | Rebellion of things. | During or before the onset of a global catastrophe (flood, darkness) or (surui) at night, household items and/or stones, trees, domestic animals, and cultivated plants turn into wild birds and animals or come to life. | 36 | 50 |
| C30b In C30 family | Remove traces from the field. | In response to the claims of an animal or spirit, a person offers to remove their traces from the field or to walk without leaving any traces. The spirit is unable to do so. | 4 | 4 |
| C39 | Repairing the sky. | When the sky split or partially collapsed, it was repaired. | 4 | 13 |
| C6f In C6 family | Retrieving a drowned person. | The characters attempt to retrieve a living creature or part of its body that has sunk to the bottom of the water. See motif C6. | 12 | 13 |
| C11 | Revenge of the insulted father. | A father with magical powers destroys people (all or many) who have insulted or harmed his son. | 13 | 16 |
| C5a In C5 family | Scout birds. | A bird, various birds, or people who then turn into birds are sent to explore the earth (whether it exists, whether it has dried up, whether there are any survivors, why smoke is rising from the earth, etc.) or with the task of bringing back a piece of solid substance to create dry land. | 132 | 209 |
| C8c In C8 family | Son and mother give birth to people. | After a global catastrophe, at the beginning of time or when settling a new land, a woman and her son give birth to humans. | 15 | 21 |
| C8a2 In C8 family | Stone lion. | The lion (often stone) helps to survive the flood. | 2 | 4 |
| C40 | Stones fall from the sky. | At first, stones fell from the sky and crushed people. | 3 | 4 |
| C6i In C6 family | Stuck mud turns into earth. | A zoomorphic character returns from the underworld covered in mud. He shakes himself off, or the mud is scraped off him, and earth emerges from it. | 8 | 12 |
| C25c In C25 family | The Big Dipper and the end of the world. | A change in the configuration of a certain constellation (usually the Big Dipper) or its disappearance from the sky will signal a global catastrophe. | 19 | 24 |
| C2b In C2 family | The Burnt Moon. | The Sun and the Moon are caught in a fire. The strong and intelligent Sun escapes, while the weak and foolish Moon is burned or consumed, but the Sun revives it. | 8 | 10 |
| C19a In C19 family | The child is playing with the sun | The character (except Quileut: Raven) turns into a child, asks for and receives heavenly bodies to play, or (Chukchi) comes to play with the little daughter of the owner of the stars. | 23 | 69 |
| C35 | The cosmic marriage will not take place. | It becomes known that if characters representing natural phenomena and parts of the universe marry, it will lead to disaster. The marriage is broken off. | 18 | 32 |
| C6c In C6 family | The Diver – Bird. | The bird dives and brings up the desired object from the bottom. See motif C6. | 68 | 149 |
| C6g In C6 family | The diver – the boar. | The boar brings earth from the bottom and/or scatters it on the water. | 4 | 7 |
| C20 | The drunken cannibal. | A dangerous character is killed, neutralised, and deprived of his (her) values after being cheered up at a party, lured into a trap with music, promises of alcohol, women, etc.; the same method is used to enlist the favour of a powerful helper. | 62 | 75 |
| C6j1 In C6 family | The earth is brought by the antagonist of the deity. | An anthropomorphic deity sends someone to fetch earth from the bottom of his enemy. At first, the enemy or both characters sometimes have the appearance of birds. After the enemy brings the earth, a confrontation begins between the two characters, who now always have anthropomorphic appearances. | 45 | 84 |
| C12a In C12 family | The Flood and the Dog. | The dog warns of an impending global flood or fire and advises what to do. | 7 | 10 |
| C4 | The Flood: Falling Fruit. | During the flood or at the beginning of time, fruits, seeds, or other objects fall into the water one after another. As this happens, the water begins to recede, exposing the earth. | 40 | 65 |
| C9a In C9 family | The Flood: people turn into aquatic animals. | During the flood or when crossing a river, those who drowned or were saved turn into aquatic or amphibious animals. | 8 | 16 |
| C7 | The Flood: The Destroyed Barrier. | Initially or after the flood, an earthen or stone barrier, the body of a character or creature prevents the flow of water. Later, this barrier is removed or destroyed. | 34 | 51 |
| C34 | The Flood: the wounded creature. | The flood begins after people kill (harm, maim) some kind of creature (usually aquatic). | 65 | 91 |
| C10 | The Flood: Wet Tails, A2211.1. | During the flood, some birds or animals escape to a mountain, a tree, a boat, or by clinging to the sky; their tails or other parts of their bodies remain in the water and as a result acquire their current colour or shape. Cf. A2211.7 ("During the flood, birds cling to the sky; their tails acquire their current colour"). | 28 | 42 |
| C35a In C35 family | The good advisor is punished. | A zoomorphic character gives wise advice concerning the state of the Sun. The advice is accepted, but the advisor is punished by the Sun or is henceforth pursued by the Sun. | 8 | 9 |
| C36 | The Last Battle. | The gods and their powerful adversaries clash in a decisive battle that changes the fate of the world. See Bray 2000, especially pp. 360-361. | 10 | 10 |
| C6c3 In C6 family | The loon – a successful diver. | The loon dives and brings back a piece of earth (grass, etc.), which turns into land (it is the only or the only successful diver). | 23 | 40 |
| C25b In C25 family | The Moon Spinner. | In the sky, on the moon (rarely – on the sun), somewhere outside our world, a certain character spins, weaves, knits, embroiders or makes bast fabric. | 54 | 66 |
| C16a In C16 family | The offended mistress of animals. | The offended mistress of animals or fish takes them and food supplies away. See motif H32A. | 9 | 1 |
| C6c2 In C6 family | The punished loon. | Birds must dive to retrieve soil from the bottom, from which land will emerge. The loon cannot reach the bottom, refuses to dive, or tries to hide the soil it has retrieved (usually punished for this). | 9 | 10 |
| C33a In C33 family | The restored chain. | Throughout the year, someone tries to saw through or break the chain or rope that holds him or another character. On a certain day of the year, when the chain has become completely thin, it is restored to its former state, or the pole to which the chain is attached is reinserted into the ground. Cf. motif G8d. | 27 | 41 |
| C39a In C39 family | The sky was patched up with ice. | A hole in the sky or a crack in the ground was plugged with a piece of ice, which is why it is cold in the north (north-west, north-east). | 1 | 8 |
| C37 | The sloth's catastrophe. | The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. | 8 | 8 |
| C3 | The snake plugged the hole in the ark, A1853.1, (ATU 825). | The snake (eel, frog) saved the ship (or the whole world) by plugging the hole from which water was pouring with its body. | 44 | 56 |
| C18a In C18 family | The sun lures out the rooster. | The hidden sun is lured out by the rooster, or people believe that without the rooster's crow, the sun will not rise. | 36 | 54 |
| C22 | The Toad in Search of Thunder. | During a severe drought or global fire, birds and animals are sent to the thunder gods living at the edge of the world to bring rain. The last of those sent achieves the goal. The toad plays an important role in the action. | 4 | 3 |
| C23 | The tree blocks the sun. | The growth or fall of a giant tree determines the state of the sky and the celestial bodies in it (the tree blocks the light of the sun or threatens to destroy the sky, pulls the sun from the sky when it falls, etc.). | 21 | 29 |
| C15 | The walled-up jaguar. | A monstrous jaguar (puma) is locked in a cave or tree trunk. | 8 | 15 |
| C31c In C31 family | The wise bat. | The bat turns out to be smarter and wiser than other living creatures. | 12 | 15 |
| C31 | The wise hedgehog (cosmology). | The hedgehog is wiser or more cunning than all the gods and animals; it possesses knowledge that is vital for human existence. | 23 | 40 |
| C31b In C31 family | The wise owl. | The owl is wiser and more intelligent than other living creatures. | 28 | 31 |
| C2a In C2 family | The Woodpecker's Fire. | Two characters meet a woodpecker and receive an object from it, which causes the ground to catch fire upon contact. The stronger and smarter of the two characters escapes, while the weaker and stupider one is burned or burned to death. | 7 | 12 |
| C24 | The world is in danger of falling. | Someone is gnawing or chopping at the pillar supporting the sky or the earth; certain creatures are trying to destroy the barrier separating their world from the world of humans; if the work is completed, humans will perish. | 12 | 17 |
| C9 | Warning of the flood. | God, an animal, or a certain character warns one of the people about an impending catastrophe (usually a flood) in which most people will perish. | 62 | 112 |
| C41 | Why the sky is blue. | At first, the sky has no specific colour. After a character hangs a cloth on it or performs other actions, the sky acquires its characteristic colour. | 2 | 6 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.