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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.
G - Fertility and Agriculture
| Ref ▲ | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | The stolen child. | In order to acquire or regain values (land, soil, cultivated plants, sun, fire, shamanic knowledge, luck), people lure or steal the son or daughter of a certain character. | 22 | 32 |
| G2 | The Return of Persephone. | A character embodying fertility and life, who first disappears and then (periodically) returns. | 70 | 93 |
| G3 | Rock of plenty. | Cultivated plants or fertile soil for their cultivation are hidden inside the rock. Birds or thunder gods pierce a hole in the rock. | 16 | 34 |
| G3A In G3 family | Burnt grains. | The first cereal grains were exposed to fire, burning to varying degrees. This resulted in different varieties of corn or rice with different colours. | 1 | 1 |
| G4 | Mountain of abundance. | Cultivated plants found on or inside a mountain. | 12 | 7 |
| G5 | Tree of abundance. | The fruits and shoots of various cultivated plants or the fruits of various wild plants grow on the branches of a single tree or on a single vine; the cultivated plant has a tree-like form that is not characteristic of it in nature. | 53 | 109 |
| G6 | The first tree. | One of the trees is the main, original tree, which is very different from the others (it was the first to appear; the progenitor of trees; the progenitor of wild or cultivated plants; the sea and rivers within it; the world axis; higher than the others; obscuring the sky). | 148 | 279 |
| G6a In G6 family | Tree of the year. | The year is described as a tree, the number of branches, twigs, and leaves of which corresponds to the number of seasons, months, days, etc. (or the year is a column with a certain number of objects on it; a building with a certain number of rooms). | 47 | 96 |
| G7 | Blunt axes. | The first ancestors need to cut down a giant tree or (rarely) a rock. Their axes become blunt or break, and/or they obtain a special axe suitable for such work. If not otherwise: a tree with cultivated plants at the top, see motif G5A. | 16 | 31 |
| G8 | Overgrown clearing, D1565.1+, E30.1. | People or animals cut or gnaw at a tree, mountain, or pillar of the sky. The damage disappears as soon as the workers are distracted from their task (usually when they take a break) or periodically (at certain times). | 51 | 35 |
| G8a In G8 family | Cutting down a tree to make a boat. | A man cuts down a tree to make a boat or something else from the trunk (Yap: a board for building a house; one of the texts from Ulithi: a wooden bird), goes away to rest, and upon returning finds the tree intact again. Usually, the character who restored the tree in the man's absence then cuts down the tree himself and makes what the hero needs. | 21 | 32 |
| G8b In G8 family | They cut down a tree to get the one who climbed it. | A person hides in a tree or (Kazakhs) hides behind walls. Another tries to cut down the tree (break down the walls) to get the person, but the cut tree grows back (or the already felled tree rises, the wall is restored). | 48 | 65 |
| G8c In G8 family | They cut down a tree to get valuables. | The first ancestors try to cut down a tree (less often a high rock) to get useful plants hanging on the branches (at the top) or water or fish in the trunk. The damage disappears as soon as the workers are distracted from their work, or periodically. | 22 | 37 |
| G8d In G8 family | The fall or growth of a tree threatens the world. | A tree (pillar, mountain) is cut down (gnawed, ground down) or prevented from being cut down in order to save the world (or the gods, the king, etc.) from danger. | 28 | 36 |
| G8e In G8 family | Cutting down a tree on the moon. | A character unsuccessfully cuts down a tree growing on the moon. | 6 | 9 |
| G8f In G8 family | Burnt wood chips. | Characters cut down a tree, but the trunk grows back. They manage to finish the job after the splinters are carried away or burned. | 13 | 15 |
| G8g In G8 family | The Great Oak and Its Inhabitants. | There is a unique tree that must be bent or felled. Different creatures inhabit its separate parts and/or objects of special importance are made from its wood. | 6 | 7 |
| G9 | The felled forest is reborn, D1602.1+. | The forest cut down during clearing is reborn by morning. | 28 | 53 |
| G9a In G9 family | The field turns into virgin soil. | The field that was cultivated the day before turns back into virgin soil by morning. | 12 | 18 |
| G9B In G9 family | Stop working – there will be a flood. | A man clears a plot of land of vegetation, but by morning it has grown back. At night, a certain character orders the trees and grass to rise up, turning the cultivated field back into virgin soil. He explains that there will be a flood, that there is no point in working, and advises people to prepare a means of transportation. | 12 | 27 |
| G10 | The tree is suspended from the sky. | A tree whose trunk has been cut down remains hanging because it is held up from above. | 32 | 48 |
| G11 | The squirrel-woodcutter. | The squirrel plays an important role in cutting down a giant tree (usually chopping or trying to chop the vine that holds it, see motif G10). | 19 | 1 |
| G12 | Tree – human. | A huge tree bearing various fruits and/or containing water in its trunk grows out of a human body or is a transformed human being. | 5 | 11 |
| G12a In G12 family | Plants from drops of blood. | Cultivated plants arise from drops of blood or flow like blood from cuts on the body of a human or animal. | 10 | 14 |
| G12b In G12 family | Cultivated plants – a gift from the stars. | Cultivated plants – a gift from a male star or female star. | 15 | 27 |
| G12c In G12 family | The fox brings plants from the sky. | The fox or coyote ascends to the sky and, upon returning, spreads plants across the earth that previously only existed in the sky. | 8 | 11 |
| G13 | People ate rotten wood. | Before the advent of cultivated plants, people ate rotten or soft wood (ceiba – Ceiba L., balsa – Ochroma (Bombax) Sw.); some people eat rotten wood. | 22 | 29 |
| G13a In G13 family | People ate earth. | Before the advent of cultivated plants (fire, hunting skills), people ate earth, clay, and stones. | 21 | 27 |
| G13b In G13 family | Mushrooms as inferior food. | Before the advent of cultivated plants, people ate mushrooms. Creatures of a non-human nature feed on mushrooms. Mushrooms are imaginary, inferior food. | 20 | 24 |
| G13c In G13 family | What to eat before the advent of agriculture. | Before the advent of cultivated or edible wild plants, people ate what is now considered unfit for consumption: (rotten) wood, bark, earth, stones, mushrooms. | 30 | 54 |
| G14 | The swallowed one brings plants. | A man swallowed by a water monster is carried away to an underwater or overseas world, obtains plants, and returns to people. | 5 | 5 |
| G15 | Corn girls. | In another world or in the past, products or materials used by humans look or looked like people. | 26 | 46 |
| G16 | Ants find cultivated plants. | Ants are the first to find cultivated plants that are unknown to others and concentrated in one place. | 13 | 25 |
| G17 | The gift of the reptile. | Cultural or important food crops, partially cultivated plant species owe their origin to snakes, moray eels or crocodiles/caimans. | 30 | 48 |
| G18 | A person wishes to be sacrificed. | A boy, woman, or, less commonly, a man asks others to leave him/her in the forest, burn him/her, scatter his/her remains, or drag his/her body to the site of a future vegetable garden. Cultivated plants grow in this place. | 35 | 56 |
| G19 | Burnt men bring plants. | After a conflict in the community of the first ancestors, a group of men or young people (pareisi: boy and girl) burn in a bonfire (jump over it, etc.). As a result, people acquire cultivated plants, mainly corn. | 6 | 7 |
| G20 | A woman turns into plants. | Edible (cultivated or wild) plants emerge from the body of an old woman, a young woman or a girl. | 61 | 84 |
| G21 | Coconut head. | A coconut palm grows out of the character's head. | 35 | 51 |
| G22 | Frog/toad and cultivated plants. | The frog/toad is associated with humans acquiring cultivated plants. | 9 | 13 |
| G23 | Multiple objects from a single creature. | The origin of various (more than two) creatures or objects is explained by the metamorphosis of a living creature or part of its body. {Only texts of an aetiological nature are taken into account. For statistical purposes, all texts with motifs G23A and G23B are also included in motif G23}. | 134 | 219 |
| G23a In G23 family | Plants from body parts. | Parts of the body and organs of living beings are transformed into various plants (teeth into corn, testicles into yams, etc.). | 78 | 129 |
| G23b In G23 family | Ethnic groups from body parts. | People from different ethnic groups arise from parts of the creature's body, or people from different groups receive their names (and characteristics) depending on which parts of the creature's body they have received. | 24 | 39 |
| G24 | Food from the sky. | The first seeds (shoots, tubers) of cultivated or important wild food plants and/or agronomic knowledge were brought from the sky (received from the gods). | 99 | 154 |
| G24a In G24 family | Seeds hidden on the body. | The character steals cultivated plants for people, hiding the seeds on/in his own body. | 13 | 15 |
| G25 | Grains scattered over the world. | Cereal seeds are scattered across the world, fell to the ground, now people grow bread. | 8 | 9 |
| G26 | Swallowed food: obtained for people. | After swallowing or hiding food in their mouth, the character brings it to earth (passes it on to people). | 14 | 19 |
| G27 | Harvest from urine. | Cultivated plants appear together with urine or in the place where the hero urinated. | 6 | 10 |
| G28 | Tree with fish. | The tree contains a fish in its trunk. | 19 | 28 |
| G29 | Demon from artefacts. | The character consists of various artefacts of domestic and industrial use or transforms into them. | 40 | 51 |
| G30 | The penis turns into plants. | A long penis is cut into pieces, which turn into many edible plants or different types of trees. Cf. motif B53. | 7 | 7 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.