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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.
I - Supernatural objects and creatures
| Ref | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I42g3 In I42 family | Edible house | In the forest person comes across a house that is made, completely or partly, of edible matter | 0 | 0 |
| I100b In I100 family | Pleiades - people. | The Pleiades - a group of people of any gender and age. See motifs i99 - i100A, aggregate data. | 1 | 1 |
| I79 | Kirtimukha. | The monster is beheaded or deprived of its body. Its head is depicted on temples and vessels (narrative texts and/or iconography). | 1 | 1 |
| I13F In I13 family | Wintering with a bear. | In autumn, a man falls asleep in a bear's den. When he wakes up, he thinks that the night has passed, but it is already spring. Usually, the bear gives him advice before parting. | 2 | 2 |
| I14a In I14 family | Ejecting food through the mouth. | People without anuses regurgitate what they have eaten through their mouths or other (marked) orifices. See motif I14. | 2 | 2 |
| I15a1 In I15 family | Vertical slit eyes. | The demonic character has vertical slits for eyes. | 2 | 2 |
| I93A In I93 family | The Milky Way – the heavenly tail. | The Milky Way is the tail of a creature that is being pulled by its tail. | 2 | 2 |
| I140 | Moses' rod. | The staff thrown to the ground turns into a living snake. | 3 | 3 |
| I27d In I27 family | The mouth of a black dog. | There is a certain black or red dog that (is associated with objects in the night sky and) negatively affects people's lives. | 3 | 3 |
| I28a In I28 family | Animals cause earthquakes. | Large animals that are hunted go underground and cause earthquakes. | 3 | 3 |
| I35b1 In I35 family | Icy sky. | The sky is made of ice. | 5 | 3 |
| I4F In I4 family | Thunder – two combatants. | The hero and his opponent engage in single combat and are still fighting in the sky. This is thunder. | 2 | 3 |
| i50a1 In i50 family | The dog's severed legs. | The character sequentially tears off the dog's legs, but the dog continues to do what it considers necessary. | 3 | 3 |
| I50c In I50 family | Sharabha (animal with legs on its back). | Describes a hoofed animal with a second set of legs on its back that runs either normally or upside down. This makes it tireless. | 4 | 3 |
| I55b In I55 family | The Sun Deer. | The hero chases a deer or elk carrying the sun. | 2 | 3 |
| I82j In I82 family | Venus – husband of the Moon. | Venus-man or another star is the husband of the Moon-woman. See motif I82a. | 3 | 3 |
| I100c In I100 family | The Pleiades and the Cuckoo. | God turned the husband into a cuckoo, and the wife and children into the Pleiades. | 3 | 4 |
| I109 | The Milky Way – the road of the heavenly bodies. | The Milky Way – the road along which the Sun and Moon travel. | 4 | 4 |
| I129 | The Heron Constellation. | The rainy season is associated with the appearance of the Heron constellation in the sky. | 4 | 4 |
| I4d1 In I4 family | The stolen tendons of Grom, ATU 1148B. | An enemy steals the tendons (heart and eyes) of a thunder god, who returns them and prevails over his enemy. Cf. motif L57A, "The hero's companion returns his organ." | 2 | 4 |
| I5b In I5 family | Thunder Jaguar. | The flying jaguar causes storms, rain, and thunderstorms. | 3 | 4 |
| I60a In I60 family | Milky Way – a stripe on the belly. | The Milky Way – a stripe associated with a longitudinal stripe on an animal's body. | 4 | 4 |
| I132a In I132 family | Girl on the swings of the sun. | A girl sits on a swing and it lifts her up to the sky. | 5 | 5 |
| I132b In I132 family | Metamorphosis of the Sun's bride. | A girl comes to the Sun to become his wife, but at the last moment undergoes a metamorphosis (usually turning into a bird). | 6 | 5 |
| I137 | The Lapti Constellation. | One of the constellations is associated with footwear, usually with (worn-out) bast shoes. | 4 | 5 |
| I15a In I15 family | Vertical incision of the mouth. | Due to ignorance or haste, the mouth of anthropomorphic creatures is first cut vertically. | 5 | 5 |
| I22g1 In I22 family | Colliding stones. | In another world, the hero sees many strange things, including colliding stones (but they do not block his path). | 5 | 5 |
| I27b In I27 family | The dog-ferryman. | A dog carries a person across a river to another world. See motif I27. | 3 | 5 |
| I37d1 In I37 family | St. Peter spits out mushrooms, ATU 774L. | St. Peter secretly eats bread, and when Christ asks him what he is doing, he chokes, spits out the crumbs, and they turn into mushrooms. | 10 | 5 |
| I37e In I37 family | Mushrooms cry out. | Tree mushrooms cry out like people. | 3 | 5 |
| I7b In I7 family | Lightning – a crack in the sky. | Lightning – a crack in the sky through which the heavens are visible for a moment. | 6 | 5 |
| I25b1 In I25 family | Hair instead of rope. | This refers to women who pull buckets of water out of a well using their own hair instead of a rope. | 3 | 6 |
| I37d In I37 family | Mushrooms - excrement. | Mushrooms are the excrement of a mythological character. See motif I37. | 8 | 6 |
| I37g In I37 family | Mushrooms - a step, a platform, an obstacle. | A tree mushroom is a step, a platform; an object that helps or hinders movement; provides shelter or refuge. See motif I37. | 1 | 6 |
| I4d In I4 family | The stolen weapon of Grom, ATU 1148B. | An enemy steals a weapon (usually a musical instrument) used by the thunder god to summon a storm. The thunder god or his assistant comes unrecognised to the thief, takes possession of his weapon and kills his enemies. | 14 | 6 |
| I81a1 In I81 family | Crab and snake. | The struggle between the crab and the snake (eel) determines the features of the relief of a particular area or has cosmic proportions. | 5 | 6 |
| I100d In I100 family | Stars – kids. | Stars are associated with kids. | 8 | 7 |
| I13e In I13 family | The devoted snake. | The snake agrees to let the man go on condition that he does not tell anyone about their meeting. Under threat of death, the man breaks his promise. The snake teaches him to drink a broth made from its flesh and takes revenge not on the man, but on those who forced him to break his word. | 10 | 7 |
| I46d In I46 family | Rainbow loop. | Rainbow – a hunting loop, a trap. | 7 | 7 |
| I55a In I55 family | Stars – lakes. | Stars – lakes on one of the heavenly tiers. | 5 | 7 |
| I6a In I6 family | Male and female: different types of precipitation. | The male and female of a huge bird carry different types of precipitation (for example, the eagle carries snow, and the eagle carries rain). Or (Buryats of Mongolia) the same bird carries different types of precipitation depending on whether it is angry or not. See motif i6. Traditions associated with Na-Dene languages are highlighted in italics in the list. | 32 | 7 |
| I82c1 In I82 family | The Moon's two wives. | The Moon has two wives (usually the Morning Star and the Evening Star). With the caring one, he grows fat, with the other, he starves and grows thin. | 8 | 7 |
| I87e In I87 family | Dwarves after humans. | After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. | 7 | 7 |
| I87f In I87 family | Suicide of the Narts. | Before modern humans, there lived others who differed in strength, height, nobility, or other qualities. They disappeared after committing suicide. | 9 | 7 |
| i41b2 In i41 family | Rainbow from the mouth of an animal. | A rainbow emerges from the mouth of a reptile, amphibian or invertebrate animal. | 8 | 8 |
| I50b In I50 family | Many-legged beast (predator). | Describes or depicts a predatory animal with six or more legs. | 7 | 8 |
| I80b In I80 family | The forgotten wind, ATU 752B. | Man is allowed to control the weather in his own interests. He sends rain at the right time, but cannot take all factors into account (he usually forgets about the wind). The bread will not grow or will be unpalatable. | 23 | 8 |
| I82e In I82 family | The star that sold its mother. | It is said that Venus or another star sold her mother or father in order to adorn herself luxuriously and dress up. | 3 | 8 |
| I87c1 In I87 family | Mouse in a boat. | A mouse makes itself a boat out of a small object. | 8 | 8 |
| I8h In I8 family | Man and woman hold up the earth. | The earth is supported by a man and a woman in the underworld. | 6 | 8 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.