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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.
H - Paradise Lost
| Ref ▲ | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 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 |
| H16a In H16 family | Rivers of blood, A671.2.2. | The narratives (in various contexts) mention rivers (lakes) of blood (as well as water used to wash the dead, pus, bones, sweat). Cf. motifs H16, K33F, N34. | 73 | 80 |
| H16b In H16 family | Milk pond. | The narratives (in various contexts) mention a milk pond (river, lake, wave in the sea) existing on earth (but not among the stars). Cf. motifs H16, K33F, N34. | 53 | 79 |
| 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 |
| H18 | Released animals, A1421. | Hunted animals were concentrated in one place. A certain character creates them there or allows them to scatter. | 130 | 168 |
| H18a In H18 family | The puppy releases the animals. | The owner of the hunting animals hides them underground; one of the first ancestors turns into a puppy, which is picked up by the owner's children, and releases the animals. See motif H18. | 0 | 0 |
| H18b In H18 family | Cattle return to the water. | Having received livestock from supernatural characters, a person (usually due to violating a prohibition on looking, shouting, etc.) immediately loses all or most of the animals (they go into the water, into the sky, scatter, etc.). | 23 | 36 |
| H19 | The raven interferes with hunting. | The raven hides game animals in a pen or cave or scares them away from hunters. See motif H18. | 29 | 40 |
| H20 | Released fish. | All the fish or (rarely) molluscs were concentrated in one place. A certain character allows them to escape or deliberately releases them into rivers or the sea. {In some cases, the theme of the spread of fish concentrated in a small container is difficult to separate from the theme of the spread of water. In any case, neither of these exist in Africa}. | 57 | 130 |
| H20a In H20 family | The mistress of the fish loses it. | A woman or several women keep fish or water in some kind of container; a man releases all the fish into rivers or the sea, releases the water. See motif H20. | 24 | 9 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| H22a In H22 family | Animals were struck on the nose. | Large game animals were concentrated in one place and were not afraid of people. They scattered after someone touched them, hit them lightly (often on the nose), or smeared them with something. Cf. motif H22. | 15 | 13 |
| H23 | Fatty horns. | This hard and now inedible object originally consisted of fat. | 13 | 14 |
| H24 | A vessel opened too early. | A vessel or other small container with valuables or living beings (creatures) is opened (prematurely). Its contents get out of control or disappear. | 202 | 343 |
| H24a In H24 family | Bag of stars. | Opening the bag, the character releases stars that rush chaotically into the sky. | 8 | 12 |
| H24b In H24 family | Souls fly out of the vessel. | The character must open the vessel containing the soul of the deceased when he reaches the place or after a certain time has passed; if he opens it before the time is up, the soul flies away. See motif H24. | 22 | 12 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| H24e In H24 family | Scattered seeds. | Having brought the seeds of humanity into our world, the character drops or prematurely opens what he has brought. (Sometimes this explains the inequality of people and disorder in society). | 8 | 16 |
| 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 |
| H24g In H24 family | Woman in a vessel. | A woman returned from the other world or obtained there disappears when a man opens the vessel in which she is kept prematurely. | 6 | 8 |
| 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 |
| H26 | Mosquitoes had to be drowned. | A vessel containing stinging insects or reptiles should be thrown into a river or the sea, or buried in a remote place. See motif H24B. | 33 | 63 |
| H27 | Released mosquitoes. | Before spreading throughout the world, stinging or blood-sucking insects or reptiles, diseases or evil spirits were kept in a vessel, bag or other small container. See motif H24. | 84 | 120 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| H28 | Creature turns into reptiles, A2034. | A creature that has been killed and destroyed (often burned) (usually a cannibal, a ferocious animal, or a powerful shaman) turns into stinging insects or other harmful, unpleasant, or dangerous creatures. | 157 | 286 |
| H28a In H28 family | The ashes of the burned turn into gnus. | When a character is burned, the smoke and sparks turn into mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects that scatter throughout the world. | 40 | 85 |
| H28b In H28 family | Mosquitoes made from animal wool. | Shorn hairs on animal skins or ash and smoke from burnt skins covered with wool turn into blood-sucking insects. | 5 | 6 |
| H28c In H28 family | Mosquitoes bring back wives. | The character creates blood-sucking insects to influence the behaviour of a mating partner. | 3 | 4 |
| H29 | Progenitor of foreign tribes. | A woman mates with an animal. The people of a hostile tribe originate from or derive their culture from the descendants of this union, from the relatives of the animal or from the children of the woman's brothers. | 27 | 42 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| H32a In H32 family | Lost abundance: the wronged wife. | A young woman is the embodiment of fertility; she comes to live with people, and food becomes readily available. The woman is wronged, she leaves, and the superabundance ends. | 32 | 39 |
| H32b In H32 family | Lost abundance: the offended child. | A girl and/or boy, who are the children of a deity, come to live with humans, leading to an abundance of food/resources. Due to the hurt they have caused, the children return to their own world, and human life becomes difficult or meagre. | 8 | 2 |
| H32C In H32 family | Lost abundance: the wronged spouse. | The woman's husband has a non-human nature and possesses magical knowledge and values. He is wronged, he leaves, and his knowledge and abilities can no longer be used by humans. | 1 | 1 |
| H33 | Children walk from birth. | At first, children walked, had to walk, or could walk immediately after birth. | 36 | 35 |
| 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 |
| H34 | In the past, there was no need to work. | Work did not require effort. Some people do not believe that this is possible, or do not consider it to be right, or do not fulfil the necessary conditions, which is why people have to work. See motifs H34A – H34H; H34 contains only texts that are not classified in more detail. | 96 | 151 |
| H34a In H34 family | The dispute over the fate of people. | The character believes that people should live easily (without labour and suffering) and makes appropriate suggestions. The interlocutor rejects them. This dialogue forever determines the conditions of people's lives. Those traditions in which the dialogue is conducted by two anthropomorphic brothers or companions are highlighted in bold in the list. | 87 | 218 |
| 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 |
| H34c In H34 family | Flying rice. | Rice flew (came) from the field to the house. | 11 | 15 |
| H34d In H34 family | A piece bitten off the sky. | A zoomorphic character climbs or attempts to climb up to the sky or the moon to bite off a piece of them. | 6 | 8 |
| 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 |
| H34e In H34 family | Edible snow. | The snow was edible. | 24 | 25 |
| H34f In H34 family | Baskets carried heavy loads themselves. | Baskets or clay vessels carried heavy loads themselves. | 11 | 11 |
| H34g In H34 family | Porridge from a grain. | One grain was enough to prepare a meal. | 41 | 85 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.