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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
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
F92	A pair of pederasts.	A male character allows himself to be used as a sexual object.	18	23
F43a In F43 family	Women kill men.	In the community of the first ancestors, women kill, attempt to kill, or transform men.	19	28
F45a In F45 family	Intentional conception by the wind.	A woman or female animal conceives by deliberately exposing her genitals to the wind.	19	41
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
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
F42	Men leave.	Feeling wronged, men leave their wives or sisters.	20	32
F11	Biting penis.	The penis burns, bites, eats food.	21	22
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
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
F47	People made of pieces of flesh.	Pieces of a creature cut into many parts or a lump of living flesh are scattered or dispersed. After that, people emerge from them. Cf. motifs E38A and K98.	22	54
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
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
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
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
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
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
F46	One for all.	At the beginning of time, two or more men (human-animals) had only one woman.	23	30
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
F80	First humans without genitals.	The first men and/or women have no genitals, then they acquire them.	25	24
F53	The ugly husband.	An unattractive man marries, but hides his face. When he is seen, the marriage is dissolved.	26	32
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
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
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
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
F49C In F49 family	The first humans do not know how to give birth.	In the beginning of time, women do not know how to give birth. See motif F49.	27	7
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
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
F43	Disappearance of women.	The women of the community of the first ancestors kill or abandon the men.	28	46
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
F87	Children transformed by a snake woman, ATU 425M.	The snake forces the girl to promise to marry him and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to a son (or two sons) and a daughter. Together with her children, she returns to visit her relatives. They learn what words she must use to summon her husband from the water, summon him, and kill him. Seeing the bloody water, the snake's wife (rarely the snake himself) turns the children and herself into birds or trees.	28	50
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
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
F32	The snake son gathers fruit.	Small children or a single infant, who temporarily transform into adult men and/or emerge from their mother's womb, or a snake living in a woman's womb, climb a tree and help her gather fruit, bark, tree mushrooms, etc.; or a father discovers his daughter's connection with a snake when he climbs a tree to gather fruit for her.	31	46
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
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
F50	Children born multiple times.	Children have the ability to leave their mother's womb and return to it again.	33	51
F80a In F80 family	Removable genitals.	Genitals exist independently of people; they can be left behind, attached to the body, etc.	33	33
F65b In F65 family	The imaginary dead man: eats alone, K1867.	The character fakes death in order to eat greedily alone.	34	57
F8	Meeting of men and women.	In the beginning (.55.60.67.73.) women and men lived separately from each other, then came together. Cf. motif F45 (Amazons).	35	69
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

Showing 101–150 of 198 · Page 3 of 4

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