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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.
F - Gender and sex
| Ref | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F22A In F22 family | Names of body parts. | The character repeatedly asks the woman about the names and/or functions of her body parts until he reaches the genitals. | 8 | 11 |
| F24 | Cause of menstruation: bite. | Women lose blood when they are bitten by fish, snakes, etc. | 10 | 11 |
| F28a1 In F28 family | Jumping penis. | The living penis is a dangerous creature that attacks people. | 10 | 11 |
| F43b In F43 family | Women hide underground. | Leaving the men, the women of the community of the first ancestors hide in a hole underground. | 5 | 11 |
| F43c In F43 family | Husbands of women - animals. | The husbands of the first women, Amazons or single women are small animals - usually flying foxes. | 8 | 12 |
| F51c In F51 family | Provocative behaviour after incest. | Upon learning that her unknown lover is her own brother, the girl shows him her genitals or bare breasts, offering him what he so desired. After that, she runs away, and he rushes after her. | 9 | 12 |
| F65c In F65 family | The imaginary dead man: the boy reveals the deception. | A man pretends to be dead (in order to marry his daughter or to be able to eat the meat of hunted animals alone). One of his younger children recognises their (adoptive) father or notices that the supposed dead man is alive (he runs away from the funeral pyre, laughs, etc.). | 22 | 12 |
| F67 | An old woman pretends to be a man. | An old woman lives with her (adopted) daughter, niece or daughter-in-law. She (supposedly) turns into a man, marries a girl or tries to do so. | 11 | 12 |
| F95 | The wife of one of the brothers. | Two companions or brothers live together. One has a wife, whom he hides. The other suspects her existence, destroys her, or tries to get a wife for himself. | 10 | 12 |
| F57 | Persephone picks a flower. | A girl or her father (rarely: mother) picks a plant (usually a flower) and as a result encounters a character with a non-human appearance and/or inhabiting the underworld. The girl becomes the character's wife. In some cases, the picked plant is the character's hair, but more often there is no direct association of this kind. | 8 | 13 |
| F66 | False house. | In order to commit incest with his daughter, grandmother, sister (brother), father, grandson, brother (sister), the man pretends to be a stranger, or the husband takes on the appearance of his wife's brother so that she treats him as a blood relative. To do this, the character secretly moves to another house for a while, where the object of his desire mistakes him for someone else. | 13 | 13 |
| F28a3 In F28 family | Pleasant for girls, dangerous for others. | A girl (woman) possesses an object that is pleasant (useful). Once in the hands of others, it becomes harmful (dangerous). | 14 | 14 |
| f2a In f2 family | Improper birth. | The child deliberately leaves its mother's womb in an unusual way, making a hole in her body and often killing her. This is a sign of its malice and/or supernatural power. | 12 | 14 |
| F46a In F46 family | Woman in a tree. | Men (human-animals) discover a woman at the top of a tree and copulate with her there. | 10 | 14 |
| F70d In F70 family | The disgraced informer. | A girl pretends to be a man or a eunuch, or a girl hides a disability, or a man pretends to be a girl. Someone reveals a secret. At the last moment, the hero or heroine magically gets rid of the disability (acquires male or female nature), the informer is disgraced (executed). | 14 | 14 |
| F87b In F87 family | The snake wife and her children: transformation into trees. | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a bathing girl, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into plants. | 12 | 14 |
| F89 | The sister's cunning. | A sister and brother live alone. The brother refuses to commit incest. The sister resorts to cunning, as a result of which the brother mistakes her for a stranger and marries her. | 9 | 14 |
| F9e In F9 family | Mice in the vagina. | Small mammals with sharp teeth are found in a woman's vagina. | 9 | 14 |
| F13 | The red penis of primates. | The genitals of humans or monkeys acquire their current shape and colour as a result of copulation with a girl who had a toothy womb or no vagina. | 8 | 15 |
| F18d In F18 family | Long clitoris. | Female genitals were enormous in size. | 14 | 15 |
| F55a In F55 family | Placing on the naked body (demon and woman). | A demonic character persuades a woman to expose a certain part of her body, because that is the only place where a certain object should be placed. The demon kills the woman, tearing off that part of her body. Usually, the woman uses or names various locations, and the character rejects each one in turn until he finds the right one. | 8 | 15 |
| F70c In F70 family | The castrated becomes a man (ATU 318). | A young man loses his male organ, but restores it with magic (and marries happily). Cf. ATU 750K. In ATU 318, this episode is described as one of many possible ones related to the theme of the unfaithful wife. | 16 | 15 |
| F73b In F73 family | The bear believes that the vulva is a wound (ATU 153). | The bear (wolf, lion, dragon) believes that the vulva is a wound inflicted on a human being. | 23 | 15 |
| F15 | Character sticks his penis out of the ground, K1315.2.1. | The character sticks his plant-like penis out of the ground (provoking a woman to sit on it). | 14 | 16 |
| F19 | Dangerous relationship with a frog. | After copulating with a frog, a man's penis is crippled (unless otherwise stated: it becomes long, see motif F18A). | 11 | 16 |
| F70f In F70 family | Accidental change of gender. | Finding themselves in a deserted place, people accidentally change their gender. | 11 | 16 |
| F29a In F29 family | The worm is scalded with boiling water. | To kill a woman's lover, who has the appearance of a worm or snake and crawls into her vagina from under the ground, boiling water, resin or hot coals are poured on him. | 12 | 17 |
| F3a In F3 family | Pregnant man. | A man carries a child like a woman. | 17 | 17 |
| F52 | Bird's crest made of pubic hair. | The first ancestor bird puts pubic hair or part of a woman's genitals on its head; since then, birds of this species have had a crest. | 13 | 17 |
| F28b In F28 family | Penis made of wax. | A woman uses a penis made of wax, wood, fruit or root. Usually her husband or male relative smears it with pepper, and the woman is maimed or killed. | 14 | 18 |
| F28c In F28 family | Bear penis in the hands of an old woman. | A woman masturbates with the penis of a large animal that one of the men killed while hunting. | 14 | 18 |
| F28d In F28 family | Children are born from a wooden penis. | By masturbating with an artificial penis, a woman conceives children. | 17 | 18 |
| F54a In F54 family | The invisible scar (the husband turns out to be the son). | In her husband's appearance, the woman discovers signs that are not immediately noticeable, indicating that he has hidden his true nature from her and is not the right marriage partner (he is an animal, or her son, brother or father); or the husband discovers in the same way that his wife is his sister. | 16 | 18 |
| F86a In F86 family | The pet is eaten. | The character cares for a fish, crab or other creature. Others watch the character, kill and eat his pet, or try to do so. | 17 | 18 |
| F31 | Snake egg. | A girl or woman becomes pregnant, without knowing it, by a reptile when she unknowingly touches a dead reptile or when a liquid that has leaked from the reptile gets inside her (usually when the contents of a snake egg accidentally flow between her legs). | 15 | 19 |
| F91 | The worm grower. | A man finds or breeds monstrous worms to eat his wife. | 10 | 19 |
| F9a1 In F9 family | The pike's mouth, ATU 1686A*. | A girl or young woman says (pretends) that she has a predatory mouth in her vagina. {Unlike variants characteristic of the circum-Pacific region, the corresponding texts do not suggest that the female womb is actually dangerous}. | 17 | 19 |
| F64b In F64 family | Incestuous woman. | A woman pretends to be someone else in order to seduce her son, brother, daughter or grandson. See motif F64. | 14 | 20 |
| F70e2 In F70 family | Father tests his daughters or sons. | The father sends his daughters or sons on a difficult task one by one. At the very beginning of the journey, their courage is put to the test. Only the youngest son or daughter passes the test. Usually, the father stands in their way, taking the form of an enemy or a predator, but only the youngest son or daughter bravely enters the fight. | 17 | 20 |
| F79 | Animal wives, B600.1. | The character successively marries various women of non-human nature, but each time (usually, except for the last) he is disappointed. | 14 | 20 |
| F28a In F28 family | A monstrous penis grows out of the ground. | A penis grows out of the ground or out of the water in a lake. Women summon it as needed. | 13 | 21 |
| F42a In F42 family | Men turn into birds. | In the community of the first ancestors, young men or boys turn into birds or bats and fly away. | 9 | 21 |
| F5 | Brides for the first humans. | The character does not want to or cannot give all the suitors his daughters in marriage and turns them into girls of various animals. (Usually after the flood or at the beginning of time, men want to marry the only daughter of a deity or patriarch). | 23 | 21 |
| F9d In F9 family | Scorpions in the genitals. | Small stinging creatures dangerous to the partner are found in the genitals of women or men. | 19 | 21 |
| F11 | Biting penis. | The penis burns, bites, eats food. | 21 | 22 |
| F3 | The husband gives birth after eating what was intended for his wife (ATU 705A). | A man accidentally eats a magical remedy intended for a woman to become pregnant and gives birth to a child. The child comes out of a tumour on the man's leg, or in some other way, but the man remains alive. | 25 | 22 |
| F37 | Calabash on the water. | To summon her lover, the character taps on a calabash placed on the water. | 14 | 22 |
| F40c In F40 family | The patriarch kills the boys. | An authoritative man systematically kills the boys born to his wives or his sister. | 16 | 23 |
| F53a In F53 family | The Bat or Owl hides its face. | The husband hides his face from his wife because she does not know that he is a bat or an owl. | 22 | 23 |
| F81 | The bride in the river. | The character does not recognise his reflection in the water, thinks that a person (usually a woman, with whom he immediately falls in love) is looking at him, and jumps into the water. (Cf. J1793, "Diving for a woman's reflection"; among the Kwinolts, diving for a real reflection of a woman; among the Menominee, diving for a woman in the water). | 19 | 23 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.