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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

Showing 101–150 of 198 · Page 3 of 4

Ref	Title	Summary	Traditions	Narratives ▲
F83a In F83 family	Insult conveyed through children, ATU 36.	One character asks the children of another to convey an insult to their mother or father – usually announcing his intention to make love to their mother. {ATU data is included in the correlation table, but not in the text}.	21	23
F92	A pair of pederasts.	A male character allows himself to be used as a sexual object.	18	23
F41	Husbands kill wives.	Ancestral men kill women who behave contrary to social norms.	14	24
F5a In F5 family	Woman from a tail, ATU 798.	God was going to make Eve from Adam's rib. The rib was stolen by a dog (cat, fox, monkey, devil). God (or an angel sent by him) chased after the thief, grabbed him by the tail and tore it off. God made Eve from this tail. Either God first made a woman from edible material and the dog ate this figure. He had to make a new one from Adam's rib. Or God cut off Adam's tail and made Eve from it.	23	24
F80	First humans without genitals.	The first men and/or women have no genitals, then they acquire them.	25	24
F88	The scent of women.	Female genitals are initially fragrant or odourless, but then acquire an unpleasant odour (they do not acquire a fragrant odour).	21	24
F98	God and the cow.	A heavenly anthropomorphic deity descends to earth and mates with a cow.	11	24
F28	Monstrous penis.	There is a separate penis character with whom the first women, Amazons, or simply some woman copulate.	18	25
F55	What do you want?	Not understanding what her interlocutor of the opposite sex wants, a woman or girl names or shows various objects and body parts. The interlocutor is satisfied when she names or exposes her genitals. Cf. motif f55a.	22	25
F65d In F65 family	The fake dead man: the wife doesn't believe it.	The character pretends to be dying and is left at the burial site. However, his wife (mother, aunt) finds out about the deception and provokes the supposed dead man, forcing him to reveal himself.	10	25
F18c In F18 family	Girls across the river, K1391.	The character sees a girl on the other side of the river and copulates with her in an unusual way (sends his penis across the river; turns it into a bridge for the girl to cross the river; into a dam that blocks the river in front of her; dives, swimming up to the girl underwater; sends an object into the girl's vagina). See motif F18B.	28	26
F59	Man in woman: modelling the figure.	Pretending to be a woman, the trickster transforms part of his body, another character, or some object into a swaddled baby, female genitalia, or a female household item, or disguises an animal or object as a baby born to a new husband.	22	26
F60	The trickster heals the girl.	A girl or woman falls ill. A character comes to heal her. The treatment consists of him copulating with her or attempting to do so.	23	26
F65	The imaginary dead man.	To satisfy their secret desire, which involves breaking social norms (forbidden sex, refusing to share food with relatives), the character pretends to be dying, abandoned at the burial site.	119	26
F87a In F87 family	The snake wife and her children: transformation into birds.	A snake crawls onto the clothes of a girl bathing, 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 birds.	12	26
F23	Cause of menstruation: sexual intercourse.	Blood spilled during sexual intercourse or artificial defloration at the time of creation is the reason why menstruation occurs to this day.	23	27
F30a In F30 family	Child-worm.	A woman nurses a worm (caterpillar, reptile, fish) instead of a child; people kill the monster.	18	27
F96	Becoming handsome.	A girl or wife rejects an unattractive man. He becomes handsome (usually after encountering a supernatural being), and those who treated him badly are punished.	17	27
F9b In F9 family	Piranha in the vagina.	A biting piranha in a woman's genitals.	17	27
F43a In F43 family	Women kill men.	In the community of the first ancestors, women kill, attempt to kill, or transform men.	19	28
F54e In F54 family	Unintentional killing of a father.	Not knowing who is in front of him, a young man kills his father.	45	28
F61	A woman carries a trickster.	A male character pretends to be sick, weak, unconscious; a woman carries him on her back, he copulates or tries to copulate with her on the go.	25	28
F45b In F45 family	Conception by the sun.	A woman gives birth to a son conceived by (the rays or light of) the sun.	27	30
F46	One for all.	At the beginning of time, two or more men (human-animals) had only one woman.	23	30
F74	The naked man pretends to be dead.	Upon seeing a dangerous character, a man or woman undresses and pretends to be dead (or the character undresses the woman). Examining and sniffing the supposed corpse, the character finds what he takes to be a wound or signs of decay and leaves.	32	30
F83b In F83 family	Rape of a woman in distress, ATU 36.	A strong female animal chases a weak male, but gets stuck between trees, rocks, etc. The fugitive mocks his pursuer, usually raping her. {In ATU, motifs f83a and f83b are described as one plot type, ATU 36. The degree of their plot connection can only be determined by having the original texts}.	26	31
F42	Men leave.	Feeling wronged, men leave their wives or sisters.	20	32
F51b In F51 family	Finds by the thread.	To find out the nature or location of a character's locus, another person secretly attaches a long thread to it and follows it.	23	32
F53	The ugly husband.	An unattractive man marries, but hides his face. When he is seen, the marriage is dissolved.	26	32
F6	Hollowed-out vagina.	(The first) woman does not have a vagina at first. Usually, it is made for her by a bird, animal, fish, etc.	23	32
F14	Son of a man and a stone.	The hero is born as a result of the union of a man with a stone or rock.	13	33
F34a In F34 family	The common husband of the first women.	All women of the community of the first ancestors or all Amazons have a common lover of non-human nature or simultaneously mate with animals of a certain species, summoning them with a conventional signal.	18	33
F80a In F80 family	Removable genitals.	Genitals exist independently of people; they can be left behind, attached to the body, etc.	33	33
F90	Tragic incest.	A brother and sister marry. When the children born of this union learn of their origins, the marriage breaks down (the children kill their parents, the father kills or attempts to kill the children, the parents commit suicide, the wife/sister commits suicide after the death of her husband/brother, the wife/sister leaves her husband/brother).	24	33
F4	Child in a vessel, T561.	In the days of the first ancestors, children were conceived not through sexual intercourse, but in vessels, piles of earth, lumps of clay, etc.	23	34
F83	News precedes the hero.	The character does something forbidden and indecent in a place hidden from prying eyes, and then asks people what's new. They reply that there is no news – except that so-and-so (the character) did such-and-such.	28	34
F9c In F9 family	Snake in the vagina.	Snake (in Oceania – moray eel) in the vagina; vagina – snake's mouth; snake crawls out of a woman's mouth and bites off a man's penis during intercourse; woman with a toothy womb is associated with a snake.	30	34
F36	Children against the lover.	(Adopted) children of a woman or man kill the lover (or spouse of non-human nature) of their father or (adoptive) mother.	41	35
F70e In F70 family	Girl turns into a man, ATU 514.	A girl pretends to be a man, magically acquires male nature and lives with his wife. Cf. motif K137 (in Uther 2004, plot 514 mistakenly includes a Karakalpak text with our motif K137).	45	35
F76	Animals teach love.	People learn how to make love by watching birds, fish or animals mating; animals teach people how to make love or arouse desire in them.	26	36
F82	Incest with mother-in-law, T417.	The son-in-law resorts to trickery to sleep with his mother-in-law, or the mother-in-law with her son-in-law. Usually, the son-in-law insists that his mother-in-law, rather than his wife, accompany him on a hunt.	35	36
F56	Temptation and incest.	Upon seeing the vagina of his mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, niece, or mother-in-law, a man or boy thinks about incest or commits it.	29	37
F25	The reason for menstruation: someone else's blood.	Women have been stained with someone else's or their own blood, or with blood-like paint, ever since women began menstruating.	28	38
F18b In F18 family	Long penis after forbidden sex.	After intercourse with a forbidden partner (incest, intercourse with an animal or spirit), a man's penis becomes so long that he is forced to carry it in a basket, etc.	32	39
F29	A girl sits on the ground.	A girl (woman) sits on the ground and copulates with a snake, worm or eel that crawls out of the ground towards her. This usually happens when she is busy with housework (cooking, weaving, etc.).	24	39
F54	Oedipus, ATU 931, 933.	Unaware of this, the son and mother (Konkani: daughter and father) engage in sexual relations and later learn of the incest they have committed. Cf. motifs c8c, f54e.	54	39
F97	Forbidden fruit: people become sexually mature, C621.	After eating certain foods, people become sexually mature and/or lose their body hair or skin. Cf. motif H56 (people become mortal).	41	39
F14A In F14 family	Birth from stone.	An anthropomorphic character emerges from stone.	18	40
F20	Lovers stuck together.	After copulation, the man and woman are unable to break their embrace.	40	40
F5b In F5 family	Artificial bride.	The character (listed in square brackets in the list of ethnic groups) offers another woman. Not having one or not wanting to give her away, he makes a bride out of wood, snow, etc., turns an animal into a girl, sends a servant instead of his daughter, turns himself into a woman, or confesses to the lie when the trouble is over. See motif E8.	26	40

Showing 101–150 of 198 · Page 3 of 4

Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.