Folklore Database · Browse
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.
H - Paradise Lost
| Ref | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H33a In H33 family | Throwing children over the roof. | God wanted to throw a newborn baby (over a fence, house, etc.) so that it would immediately stand up and start walking, but the woman was frightened and did not allow it. Therefore, children do not walk from birth. See motif H33. | 14 | 16 |
| H36aa In H36 family | False news: incorrect instructions. | The messenger must tell people what they should do if they want to avoid death, but he distorts the instructions and people become mortal. In Mesoamerican variants, it is not about people in general, but about a specific character. | 9 | 16 |
| H36g1 In H36 family | The bull distorts the message. | When a bull (ox, cow) is ordered to convey certain instructions to people, he confuses them or deliberately distorts them. | 11 | 16 |
| H7b2 In H7 family | Immortal poverty. | A man named Poverty makes Death swear that it will never come to him. Therefore, poverty is inevitable in the world. | 10 | 16 |
| H24c In H24 family | Death in a vessel. | People open a vessel (a bundle, a basket, etc.) containing death (or old age, illness), and therefore they are mortal. | 14 | 17 |
| H49b In H49 family | The debtor gives his dog as collateral, Th B221.2.2; ATU 178B. | A man gives his dog to another man. The dog is of great use to him (it finds stolen goods and drives away thieves). The man who received the dog sends it back with a letter of thanks. The owner thinks that the dog has run away, kills it, and only then finds the letter. | 17 | 18 |
| H6c3 In H6 family | The stork and the otherworld. | Large birds that fly in wedge formations (storks, cranes, swans, geese – German: Zugvögel) are associated with the otherworld (they bring children from there, carry children away to the non-human world, control living and dead water, etc.). | 11 | 18 |
| H9b In H9 family | Children as plant shoots. | People have become like plants, which, although mortal, live on in their descendants (shoots). | 11 | 18 |
| H24f In H24 family | Meat in a bag. | The character has the ability to put a large amount of meat or fish into a bag or container that is easy to carry. | 13 | 19 |
| H36f In H36 family | The raven – an unsuccessful messenger. | The raven is sent to deliver an important item or message. He distorts the message or loses what has been entrusted to him. | 15 | 19 |
| H39 | Snakes become poisonous (spilled poison). | Creatures that are now dangerous (snakes, insects) swallow an uncontrolled substance and as a result become poisonous or immortal; creatures acquire their nature (usually becoming poisonous) by drinking or licking a special potion. | 16 | 19 |
| H49d In H49 family | The Innocently Slain Parrot, ATU 916(4). | A character (usually a bird) brings a healing (rejuvenating) fruit (seed, branch). Accidentally or maliciously, poison gets into the fruit. The person whom the fruit-bearer wanted to help kills or is about to kill his benefactor, and then learns of his mistake. | 14 | 19 |
| H50 | The sky god and the mistress of the dead. | A pair of deities or first ancestors diverge. The man remains on earth or goes to heaven (remains in heaven), the woman becomes the mistress of the world of the dead, the earth, the underworld, usually associated with disease and poisonous animals. | 13 | 19 |
| H52a In H52 family | Death provokes touching the ground. | Returning from the land of immortality, a person must not touch the ground. However, he dismounts from his horse to help an old man (old woman). Death, who has taken the form of an old man, immediately kills him. Rarely: at the last moment, the hero decides not to perform actions that are fatal for him. | 11 | 19 |
| H7c1 In H7 family | The trickster enters paradise. | The trickster first deceives Death (the devil), and then, also by deception, enters paradise. | 16 | 19 |
| H31 | Death: man and the heavenly bodies. | God summons several characters, including man and the heavenly bodies, and makes man mortal and the heavenly bodies immortal. | 12 | 20 |
| H34d1 In H34 family | Edible sky. | The sky or celestial objects were edible, but then this source of food became inaccessible or is now only used by inhabitants of a country beyond the human world. | 17 | 20 |
| H6d In H6 family | Stolen immortality. | Having obtained a means of ensuring immortality, the character falls asleep or leaves the means unattended. At this time, another character steals the means. | 13 | 20 |
| H25 | Choose life or death. | People are offered a choice between two objects, one of which represents death and the other life, or they are asked whether they want to be reborn or die forever. Death is chosen. | 15 | 21 |
| H7d In H7 family | Death and a bundle of firewood, ATU 845. | A man calls Death, and when it comes, asks it to help him lift a bundle of firewood or pull a cart with firewood. | 24 | 21 |
| H7e In H7 family | People knew when they would die, ATU 934H(4). | In the past, people knew when they would die, so before their death they stopped doing their work or performed their duties half-heartedly. | 21 | 21 |
| H15 | Yawning and whispering. | The dead or spirits cannot hear cries when the living call them, but they can hear whispers, yawns, gurgles, etc. See motif H12. | 12 | 22 |
| H21 | Game or fish kills a boy. | The character controls animals or fish; a boy, young man or girl knows his secret or serves as bait themselves; another character forces the boy (girl) to reveal the secret and/or help him in the same way that he or she helped the first character, or leads the boy to go fishing but kills him, or the boy himself starts hunting, breaking the rules; as a result, the boy or girl is killed or carried away by animals or fish. See motif H18. | 15 | 22 |
| H22 | Sense of smell in animals. | Large game animals did not have a sense of smell. They acquired it and began to flee from hunters after someone created olfactory organs for them or gave them a strong smell to smell. Cf. motif H22A. | 14 | 22 |
| H7g In H7 family | Life as a candle. | A person sees many burning candles or lamps. When one of them burns out, someone dies. | 19 | 22 |
| H1d In H1 family | The one who returned to the people was rejected. | The deceased returns, but people send him back, dissatisfied with his appearance, refusing to accept him or burying him again. From then on, death is final. | 21 | 23 |
| H44a In H44 family | Heaven and Earth divide children. | Two characters, one associated with the sky or water, and the other with the earth or the world of spirits and humans, divide the child they have given birth to or the people they have created. Usually, the sky (water, spirit) takes the imperishable part, and the earth (human) takes the perishable part. | 7 | 23 |
| H7c In H7 family | Unfinished prayer, ATU 1199. | Death promises to take a man after he finishes his prayer or song (formerly ATU 1199B). The man breaks off his prayer (song) in the middle, and Death cannot take him. | 33 | 23 |
| H34e In H34 family | Edible snow. | The snow was edible. | 24 | 25 |
| H36d In H36 family | The hare betrays man. | The hare distorts God's command and/or is responsible for the fact that humans are mortal. See motif H36. | 9 | 25 |
| H24d In H24 family | Still gathering what has been released. | An animal character who released the contents (darkness, insects, reptiles) from a vessel is still trying to gather everything back (etiology of the behaviour of a certain species of animal). | 15 | 26 |
| H7g1 In H7 family | Death is more just and richer than God. | A man (usually looking for a godfather for his newborn son) rejects God (the saints) and the devil, but praises Death: it treats everyone without prejudice (or is richer than everyone else). | 22 | 26 |
| H17 | Ring of defenders around the leader. | The first ancestors surround the deceased or sick person in a ring, seeking to protect him. The antagonist manages to find a loophole and causes irreparable harm to people. | 13 | 27 |
| H27a1 In H27 family | Diseases and reptiles from holes in the ground. | Reptiles and insects crawl out of holes in the ground, bringing disease. | 19 | 27 |
| H30 | Wrong choice. | When meeting two women (together or one after the other), the hero must or may choose one. Usually, he chooses either the less beautiful or the dangerous one, bringing trouble or misfortune upon himself or upon people in general. | 22 | 27 |
| H8 | Those who did not pass the test. | Unable to bring themselves to touch something unclean, poisonous, dangerous or hot, people lost their immortality (var.: did not receive the blessings that came to Europeans). | 21 | 27 |
| H21a In H21 family | Do not touch the big fish. | The fish are concentrated in a small container, from which the owner takes as many as he needs. Another character opens the container, breaking the rules, and the fish escape. | 13 | 28 |
| H49c In H49 family | The Innocently Slain Falcon, Th B221.2.2; ATU 178C. | A tame bird (rarely: a domestic animal) shows visible aggression towards its owner (usually a falcon knocks a bowl out of the hands of a thirsty man). The man kills the bird (animal) and then discovers that they saved him from death. | 22 | 28 |
| H53 | The wolf – lord of the dead. | The wolf participates in the creation of the earth or is the brother of the creator and/or conqueror of the demons of the underworld. He dies and/or is considered the first to die and/or becomes the lord of the land of the dead. | 13 | 28 |
| H27a In H27 family | A hole in the ground where a stake was driven. | When creating the earth, a negative character asks a positive character for as much earth as is necessary to prop up a staff, stake. | 21 | 29 |
| H35 | Decaying teeth. | Human teeth are made of fragile material. Usually, the motif explains the aetiology of toothache. | 24 | 29 |
| H43a In H43 family | Broken figures. | Having created the human body, the creator leaves. At this time, another character tries to break the figure, which has not yet come to life. | 21 | 29 |
| H34b In H34 family | The river flows in both directions. | Somewhere there is or was a river that flowed or, according to the plan, was supposed to flow in two directions at once. | 25 | 30 |
| H6bb In H6 family | Lost objects. | A character is sent to deliver a certain object or substance to people, the possession of which is essential to them. The messenger loses these objects or brings others. Usually, this refers to the ability to be reborn after death. Traditions not related to the explanation of human mortality are marked with an asterisk*. | 23 | 30 |
| H16 | Rivers of tears. | In another world, there are rivers of tears. Tears shed on earth fill large containers there. Cf. motifs K33F, N34, N35. | 29 | 31 |
| H36c In H36 family | The lizard betrays man. | The lizard is to blame for the fact that man is mortal. See motif H36. | 37 | 31 |
| H36g In H36 family | False news: how many times to dine. | God sends a messenger to the people to tell them to eat infrequently (once a day, once every three days, etc.). The messenger says that one should eat often – at least two or three times a day. | 22 | 31 |
| H52 | The Land of Immortality, ATU 470B. | A man finds a land where there is no death. Having decided to visit his native places, he never returns to it. | 29 | 31 |
| H36hh In H36 family | The frog betrays the man. | The frog or toad is to blame for the fact that humans are mortal. | 25 | 32 |
| H56 | The forbidden fruit: people become mortal, C621. | After eating certain food, the first humans become mortal or lose their human nature. Cf. motif F97 (humans become sexually mature). | 30 | 32 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.