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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.
D - Fire and Laughter
| Ref ▲ | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | Woman-fire. | A woman (usually elderly) is the embodiment of fire – alone or together with her husband, the master of fire. Cf. motif D5 (woman possesses fire). | 77 | 119 |
| D1a In D1 family | Mother-in-law-fire. | A girl marries a man whose mother is fire. | 4 | 6 |
| D1a1 In D1 family | The old woman-fire takes the child away. | Because a woman offended the fire, its mistress takes her child away. | 8 | 11 |
| D1a2 In D1 family | A borrowed object does not burn. | The house of the person who insulted the fire burns down, but the property inside it or the child of another person (or that person himself) who treated the fire with respect is not harmed. | 10 | 9 |
| D1a3 In D1 family | The fire wife. | A man marries a woman who is fire. She is mistreated, or her husband does not like her, and the marriage breaks down. | 4 | 4 |
| D1a4 In D1 family | Conversation between two fires. | Two fires from different dwellings meet and converse. | 13 | 12 |
| D1b In D1 family | Man-fire. | The man is the master or embodiment of fire (alone or alongside the woman-fire). | 94 | 132 |
| D2 | Birth of the sun/fire. | A woman gives birth to a son who is very hot. | 11 | 17 |
| D2a In D2 family | Mother dies giving birth to fire or the sun. | A woman gives birth to a son who is the embodiment of fire or the sun and dies from burns. | 6 | 13 |
| D3 | The invention of fire. | The first fire was obtained by friction or striking; a certain character gives fire or shows how to obtain it, teaches how to cook food on fire; fire was obtained from lightning. {The section is incomplete, there is much more data. A specific plot of the invention of fire hardly exists. Variants involving abduction and invention are often intertwined in the same narrative}. | 74 | 92 |
| D4a In D4 family | Theft of fire, A1415. | Fire is stolen from its original owner, returned to people by the thief, or (the motif of theft is not expressed) brought with difficulty from a distant place. | 294 | 627 |
| D4a1 In D4 family | Luring fire. | A certain character possesses fire or steals it. His attention is attracted or distracted by singing, music, dancing, unusual gifts, indecent or strange behaviour, offers of sex, food and/or alcohol. | 19 | 22 |
| D4aa In D4 family | The butterfly tries to steal fire. | Moths try to steal the fire that humans possess. | 16 | 12 |
| D4b In D4 family | Retribution for fire. | Those who stole or asked for fire and/or those who received fire are punished by the deity. | 7 | 15 |
| D4c In D4 family | Obtaining summer. | Characters obtain the warm season from its original owners. | 24 | 36 |
| D4c1 In D4 family | A floating elk distracts attention. | Animal-people come to steal summer from its owners. One of them, in the guise of an elk or caribou, distracts the owners' attention or floats a log or stump down the river, which the owners of summer mistake for an elk and rush after. | 9 | 13 |
| D4d In D4 family | The opossum obtains fire. | The opossum obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 11 | 14 |
| D4e In D4 family | Coyote or fox obtains fire. | The thief or giver of fire, light or sun is a coyote or fox (indicated in square brackets). See motif 4A. | 43 | 48 |
| D4e1 In D4 family | Dog and fire. | The thief or giver of fire, light or sun is the dog. See motif 4A. | 26 | 22 |
| D4f In D4 family | Beavers or fish allow themselves to be roasted. | Once in the fire, the beaver (in North America) or fish (in South America) scatters and/or carries the fire away from its original owners. See motif D4A. | 3 | 6 |
| D4g In D4 family | The hummingbird obtains fire. | Hummingbird steals, finds or spreads fire. See motif D4A. | 19 | 8 |
| D4h In D4 family | The swallow obtains fire. | The swallow obtains fire for people. See motif D4A. | 11 | 12 |
| D4h1 In D4 family | The robin obtains fire. | A small songbird (redstart, robin, wren) obtains fire for humans. | 6 | 12 |
| D4i In D4 family | The beaver obtains fire. | The beaver obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 13 | 4 |
| D4j In D4 family | The rabbit obtains fire. | The thief, the thief's assistant, or the owner of fire is a rabbit, a hare, or (ofaye) a guinea pig. See motif D4A. | 28 | 11 |
| D4k In D4 family | The deer obtains fire. | The deer obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 3 | 2 |
| D4l In D4 family | Fire from the sky. | The first fire is brought down to earth from the sky; the first ancestors go to the sky and bring back fire or warmth. See motif D4A. | 62 | 71 |
| D4m In D4 family | The owners of fire dance. | The thief comes to the owners of fire or light. They feast or dance. He joins them and steals their valuables when the moment is right. See motif D4A. | 0 | 0 |
| D4n In D4 family | The weeping one demands summer. | A boy or (among the Kutené) a woman cries, demanding the absent elements - summer, fire, rain. See motif D4A (demand for summer). | 15 | 7 |
| D4o In D4 family | Dry by the fire. | In order to steal fire from its owner, the character pretends to be wet and cold, and after receiving permission to dry off, runs away, bringing fire to the people. | 31 | 60 |
| D4p In D4 family | The parrot obtains fire. | The parrot obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. Australian data is not taken into account, as the common origin of the motif in America and Australia is excluded. | 4 | 4 |
| D4q In D4 family | The fly obtains fire. | The fly rubs its legs together and produces fire. | 10 | 23 |
| D4q1 In D4 family | The bat and fire. | The bat participates in obtaining fire. | 7 | 8 |
| D5 | Woman controls fire. | The original owner or inventor (but not the embodiment) of fire is a female character. | 68 | 119 |
| D5a In D5 family | Fire in a woman's genitals. | The first fire is hidden in a woman's genitals or anus. | 10 | 15 |
| D6a In D6 family | Crocodile and fire. | The crocodile/caiman is the temporary or original owner of fire or lightning. | 19 | 40 |
| D6b In D6 family | The burned one becomes a caiman. | The one who is burned turns into a crocodile/caiman. | 7 | 8 |
| D7 | Toad and fire. | The frog or toad possesses the first fire, steals it from its original owner, and tries to extinguish it or save it from dying out. See motif D4. | 41 | 74 |
| D7a In D7 family | Spider and fire. | The spider possesses the first fire or steals it from its original owner (texts in which the spider acts together with other animals and does not play the main role are not included). | 10 | 11 |
| D8 | Predator and fire. | The first fire (or summer) is stolen from a large predator – a lion or leopard in Africa, a tiger in Asia, a bear in northern Asia and North America, and a jaguar in South America. | 28 | 33 |
| D9 | Vultures and fire. | The raven or other large dark-coloured bird of prey is the owner, embodiment, spouse, provider or thief of fire, the sun or daylight. | 66 | 130 |
| D10 | The fire drill is a pair of people. | A couple of people serve as the embodiment of a tool for obtaining fire. | 11 | 12 |
| D11 | Food was heated on the body. | Before fire was known, food was prepared by warming it with the body (usually under the armpit); fire is kept under the character's armpit. | 18 | 32 |
| D12 | Food was heated in the sun. | People in the past or inhabitants of distant lands cooked food in the sun; or the owner of the fire lies, saying that the food was cooked in this way. | 61 | 105 |
| D12a In D12 family | At sunrise, the sun's heat is sufficient to cook food. | People living in the east or west prepare food using the heat of the passing sun. | 4 | 6 |
| D13 | Laughter. | A character loses their values (gives them away) and/or suffers damage/is healed/is transformed if they laugh or hear laughter. | 141 | 214 |
| D13A In D13 family | Obscene dance for the Sun. | To amuse the owner of fire or the Sun, others dance indecently, imitate copulation, display their genitals, or publicly relieve themselves. | 23 | 28 |
| D13B In D13 family | Menstruation passes to women. | Menstruation passes from men to women after women laugh at an old man. | 3 | 3 |
| D13c In D13 family | The trickster makes his brother's wife laugh. | Two companions or brothers live together. The older one has a wife, whom he hides. To discover her, the younger one, left alone in the house, makes her laugh. | 7 | 8 |
| D13d In D13 family | Making the hidden one laugh. | One character tries to make another character, who is hiding somewhere in the house, laugh in order to find them. | 18 | 22 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.