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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I51b In I51 family | Earth – animal. | The earth or sky is perceived as a large mammal or created from parts of its body. | 31 | 41 |
| I35a1a In I35 family | Insulting a deity. | The character considers himself equal to the deity, imitating him, mocking him or trying to kill him. | 23 | 42 |
| I56a In I56 family | Man is an evil spirit in the world of spirits. | When a person who has entered another world touches the local inhabitants, they become ill or die. | 29 | 42 |
| I32 | The tree of infants. | There was or is a tree on which babies grow; the souls of unborn babies; whose leaves have turned into people; whose trunk is covered with many female nipples or flowers from which babies suck milk or juice. | 27 | 44 |
| I37A In I37 family | Mushrooms - an inferior object. | A mushroom is a substitute for a real object: 1) inferior, imaginary food (people ate mushrooms before the advent of hunting and agriculture; a character offers mushrooms instead of real food; real food appears as a result of the metamorphosis of mushrooms); 2) a preparation for creating or imitating a complete object (fish, birds, animals arise as a result of the metamorphosis of mushrooms; a copy of a lost or non-existent object is made from mushrooms); 3) characters of low status (lice, turtles) are engaged in mushroom picking; 4) the appearance of mushrooms is associated with a violation of the rules of interpersonal relations. See motif I37. | 56 | 44 |
| I4a In I4 family | Thunder in trouble: falls to the ground. | Thunder falls to earth and cannot rise. Usually, a person helps it return to the sky. | 30 | 44 |
| I95 | The Pleiades – a sieve for grain. | The Pleiades are a sieve or riddle for sifting agricultural products. See motif I95. | 29 | 45 |
| I103 | Dog Star. | Sirius is associated with a dog or a wolf. | 29 | 47 |
| I118 | The spider-advisor. | A female spider (less commonly, an old spider) protects the hero or heroine, who live with her, and the hero marries her daughter. (Texts in which the spider only lifts the hero up to the sky or lowers him to the ground are not included; see motif I117). | 20 | 47 |
| I11a In I11 family | The earth is supported on the back of a turtle (frog). | Describes how, in the process of creation, the earth is placed on the back of a turtle or frog, which becomes its support. | 26 | 47 |
| I16 | Physical abnormalities of the first humans. | Early humans have no mouth, anus, or genitals, and their women are unable to give birth. | 51 | 47 |
| I22c In I22 family | Board from the stern of the Argo. | The character safely slips, sails or flies through the opening, which then slams shut, but the edge of the stern of the boat, the tail of an animal or bird, the body of a riding animal, the hero's companion or his own heel is crushed, torn off, etc. | 47 | 47 |
| I85c1 In I85 family | Heavenly vessel for rain, A1131.4, A1131.4.1. | In the sky there is a vessel, a box or an indescribable container for storing rain (rain clouds). | 38 | 47 |
| I50a In I50 family | Severed legs of an animal helper. | A demon sequentially tears off the legs of an animal that helps the hero (usually the horse on which the hero rides). | 34 | 49 |
| I115a In I115 family | Orion and the Pleiades – men and women. | In the same narrative or ritual context, Orion and the Pleiades are contrasted with each other as a man or men and a woman or women. (Orion is usually associated with the masculine principle, and the Pleiades with the feminine; among the Mentawai, d'Antracast, and Toba peoples, the opposite is true (due to regional influences? In Indonesia and eastern South America, the Pleiades are usually a group of young men). | 36 | 50 |
| I13b In I13 family | Horned snake, B91.3. | A small snake, the snake has horns on its head. | 41 | 50 |
| I15 | Creatures without mouths. | Creatures without mouths. Usually, their mouths are cut open later. | 44 | 50 |
| I76a In I76 family | The snake becomes a dragon. | After a certain period of time, a snake or fish transforms into another creature, usually a dragon. | 35 | 50 |
| I87aa In I87 family | The Great Bull, ATU 1960A. | Describes a giant bull (rarely: horse): head in one field, body in another; a bathhouse on its tail, a lake on its back; people standing at its head and tail have to walk a long way to meet each other; etc. Usually the bull is killed and eaten (by people in Baltic-Finnish traditions and in Olonets antiquity; by birds in most southern traditions). | 28 | 50 |
| I87b In I87 family | The braggart meets the strongest, ATU 650B. | When a character boasts of his strength, his wife or mother says that there is someone stronger than him. He sets off in search and meets a character who is much stronger than him. {ATU gives a definition of the plot (or rather, the first half of it) similar to ours, but some of the references given refer to our motif i87a, not i87b}. | 32 | 50 |
| I80 | The thunderbolt's apprentice. | A character who finds himself in the locus of a deity responsible for atmospheric phenomena violates certain prohibitions or instructions, thereby causing excessively strong thunderstorms, rain, snowfall or wind. | 36 | 51 |
| I36 | Thunder and lightning – relatives or in-laws. | Thunder and lightning (two thunders, two lightnings) – characters related by kinship, marriage or property. | 39 | 52 |
| I46a In I46 family | The Old Woman's Rainbow. | The rainbow is associated with a woman, usually an elderly one. | 38 | 52 |
| I59b1 In I59 family | The Milky Way – the road to a distant city. | The Milky Way – the road to a distant city, usually with religious significance (Rome, Jerusalem, etc.). | 29 | 52 |
| I94 | Pleiades – holes. | The Pleiades are something holey. | 40 | 52 |
| I120 | Cornucopia. | Food and clothing can be obtained from the horns of domestic animals (oxen, cows, goats). | 45 | 53 |
| I110a In I110 family | Star Plough. | Orion (rarely - another constellation) - plough. | 45 | 56 |
| I19 | They feed on the smell of food. | Anthropomorphic creatures satisfy their hunger with the vapours of food being prepared. See motifs I14 (people without anuses), I15 (people without mouths). | 57 | 56 |
| I92 | The rainbow changes gender. | A person who has come into contact with a rainbow in a certain way (walked under it, drunk water where the rainbow drinks, etc.) changes their gender. | 41 | 56 |
| I22f In I22 family | Talking trees. | The character must pass small objects (trees, logs, blades) that constantly collide and diverge, fall and rise. | 41 | 60 |
| I42 | Rainbow – a pair of creatures. | The rainbow is a pair of creatures, usually a man and a woman, male and female. | 40 | 60 |
| I64 | Animal tracks on the Milky Way. | The Milky Way – traces of animals that walked or ran. | 45 | 61 |
| I110b In I110 family | Orion – reapers. | Orion – people or agricultural tools associated with harvesting or haymaking. | 29 | 62 |
| I138 | Glass Mountain. | The glass mountain (tower, bridge) is mentioned as an unusual (inaccessible) locus. | 36 | 62 |
| I20c1 In I20 family | Dwarves – inhabitants of rocks and hills. | Dwarves do not live deep underground, but inside hills, in rocks, in mines, etc., and usually come out from there onto the ground. | 22 | 62 |
| I35c In I35 family | Craftsman god. | One of the mythological characters who, using his craft skills, first makes (usually forges) tools and natural objects; he is the patron of craftsmen (usually blacksmiths). | 36 | 62 |
| I45a In I45 family | Do not look at the moon or stars. | Pointing at or staring at the moon or stars will cause illness (death) or the pointing finger to rot or wither. | 49 | 62 |
| I87a2 In I87 family | What are two? Dialogue, ATU (812*), 2010, H602.1.1., †H602.1.1. | The antagonist names numbers from one to 7, 12, etc., the hero answers what each number corresponds to, and the antagonist is unable to refute him. | 53 | 62 |
| I8i In I8 family | At first, the earth swayed. | Initially, the earth rocks, unstable, and must be specially secured. | 45 | 62 |
| I56 | Spirits cannot see the living. | Moving between worlds, the same living person is visible to some and invisible to others. | 42 | 63 |
| I87a In I87 family | One creature is larger than another. | A character of gigantic size turns out to be small in comparison with a character of even greater size, or the same character turns out to be small in some episodes and gigantic in others. | 43 | 63 |
| I20c In I20 family | Dwarves – inhabitants of the underworld. | Dwarves live in an underground world that partly resembles the earthly world. If dwarves and humans meet, it happens underground. | 43 | 64 |
| I4 | Thunder rides across the sky. | When a vehicle moves across the sky, thunder rumbles. | 43 | 65 |
| I104 | Stars - fragments. | Stars are formed from particles of the body, fragments of a larger celestial body (usually the moon); stars (usually also the sun and moon) are formed from the body of a single being. | 43 | 66 |
| I43b In I43 family | The Milky Way – snake, fish. | The Milky Way is a reptile, fish or chain of fish. | 37 | 67 |
| I68b In I68 family | The night of fulfilled wishes. | On a certain night of the year, any wish that is expressed or conceived will come true. Cf. motif M13. | 39 | 67 |
| I75 | Previous worlds. | Before the emergence of the present world or present humans, there were others (at least two worlds or races). | 31 | 68 |
| I84 | The Milky Way – a ski trail. | The Milky Way – ski tracks. | 31 | 68 |
| I22a In I22 family | The sky beats against the earth, F791. | The sky constantly beats against the earth like the lid of a boiling cauldron. | 54 | 69 |
| I25a In I25 family | Bones for cows. | The character gives herbivorous animals food intended for carnivores, and carnivores food intended for herbivores; the character sees that the animals have food that is inedible for them and corrects the situation. | 50 | 71 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.