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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I15a1 In I15 family | Vertical slit eyes. | The demonic character has vertical slits for eyes. | 2 | 2 |
| 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 |
| I17 | Physical abnormalities of inhabitants of the other world. | Creatures without mouths, anuses, or genitals, unable to give birth, live underground, in the sky, across the sea, or in certain areas. (Traditions describing women unable to give birth are marked with an asterisk*). | 85 | 95 |
| I17a In I17 family | Dwarfs without bodily orifices. | Creatures without an anal opening or mouth - dwarves. | 13 | 16 |
| I18 | Wife or husband without a mouth or anus. | Visiting the world of people without an anus or mouth (the underworld, if not otherwise), the hero or heroine enters or attempts to enter into sexual relations with the local inhabitants. See motif I14. | 22 | 15 |
| 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 |
| I20 | Underground dwarves, F451. | The inhabitants of the underworld or the land on the horizon where the sky meets the earth are dwarves. See motif I14A. | 76 | 131 |
| I20a In I20 family | Heavenly giants. | Anthropomorphic inhabitants of the upper world – giants. | 9 | 11 |
| I20b In I20 family | Girding under the armpits. | People in the upper world are different from those on earth and gird themselves below or above the waist. | 9 | 12 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| I20c2 In I20 family | Dwarves in the land on the horizon. | The inhabitants of the land on the horizon (where the sky meets the earth) are dwarves. | 20 | 27 |
| I21 | Sunburnt. | The inhabitants of the underworld or the land of the rising sun have red (yellow) hair and/or red or black skin and/or suffer from the heat of the sun, which passes them by at a short distance. See motif I20. | 27 | 35 |
| I22 | Moving objects, D931.3, D1553. | There are objects that, while remaining in place, move constantly or periodically (collide and diverge, fall and rise, open and close, rotate). | 195 | 352 |
| 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 |
| I22b In I22 family | Birds on their way to another world. | Migratory birds (or shamans in the form of birds) fly from our world to another; the path lies through a narrow opening between jutting rocks, or the sky strikes the earth, crushing those who fly through; and/or at the passage to the other world there is a character who feeds on birds; and/or in the world on the other side of the pulsating barrier there is the mistress of the birds. | 32 | 32 |
| I22b1 In I22 family | Birds perish at the border of our world. | Some migratory birds (shamans in the form of birds) die on the border of our world. | 25 | 26 |
| 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 |
| I22d In I22 family | Living water behind the tumultuous rocks. | To obtain a miraculous life-giving (healing) remedy, one must penetrate the space behind the shifting rocks. | 13 | 18 |
| I22e In I22 family | Moving objects on the path of the dead. | The deceased, travelling to the afterlife, must pass by colliding rocks or other moving obstacles. | 13 | 22 |
| 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 |
| I22g In I22 family | Colliding rocks. | Mountains (rocks) are mentioned that constantly collide and diverge, or a crevice or gap in a vertical rock that opens and closes. Cf. motif I22g1, Colliding rocks. | 116 | 188 |
| 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 |
| I22h In I22 family | Pulsating Abyss. | The character must jump over a gap (abyss) beneath his feet, which alternately widens and narrows, or a river whose banks converge and diverge. | 9 | 10 |
| I23 | Slamming door, K736. | The door of the house opens and slams shut by itself, crushing those entering or leaving. See motif I22. | 20 | 26 |
| I24 | Snake bridge. | A snake (or fish) forms a bridge across a river. | 32 | 33 |
| I24A In I24 family | The snake bridge to another world. | The body of water over which the snake bridge is thrown separates our world from another. | 11 | 12 |
| I25 | Bribed guards, B325.1, B567.1. | The path to the house or the entrance to the character's house is guarded by dangerous creatures. The hero appeases them with gifts or words, they let him pass back and forth, sometimes punished for this by the owner. | 110 | 174 |
| 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 |
| I25b In I25 family | Wiping the stove with hair. | This refers to women who work without the simplest tools, using parts of their bodies instead. | 10 | 12 |
| 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 |
| I25C In I25 family | Calling blood wine. | On the way to their goal, the character expresses imaginary pleasure when encountering repulsive and dangerous objects and creatures, thereby ensuring their loyalty (on the way back). | 24 | 33 |
| I25D In I25 family | Lubricate the gate with grease. | On the way to a dangerous character, a person greases the gate (door hinges) with grease or oil. On the way back, the grateful gate refuses to hold him back. | 14 | 22 |
| I26 | Dangers on the path of souls. | On its way to the other world, the soul must distract its guardians with gifts or defend itself from attack. | 21 | 20 |
| I27 | The dog of the land of the dead. | The dog and/or (rarely) the domestic cat is the master, guardian of the land of the dead, guide on the way there; dogs live on the way to the land of the dead. (For indirect evidence and similar beliefs, see also Benson 1991). | 63 | 129 |
| I27a In I27 family | Settlements and dog trails. | The souls of dead dogs go to a special place in the afterlife and/or go to the afterlife along a special path. | 26 | 24 |
| I27b In I27 family | The dog-ferryman. | A dog carries a person across a river to another world. See motif I27. | 3 | 5 |
| I27c In I27 family | Four-eyed dog. | Dogs with two spots above their eyes stand out and are usually called two- or four-eyed. | 37 | 35 |
| 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 |
| I28 | Animals underground, F127. | Wild or domestic animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underground world, or once came out of there into our world; often animals take on human form underground and have an owner. See motif H18. | 39 | 168 |
| I28a In I28 family | Animals cause earthquakes. | Large animals that are hunted go underground and cause earthquakes. | 3 | 3 |
| I29 | To the underworld through an animal's burrow. | A character climbs into an animal's burrow and finds himself in the underworld, or digs a deep hole and finds himself in a world inhabited by burrowing animals. | 33 | 37 |
| I30 | The lord of the dead meets women. | In the world of the dead, its master or mistress copulates with all new arrivals. | 4 | 13 |
| I31 | The master and mistress of the dead. | In the afterlife, the souls of the dead are met by a pair of mythological characters – a man and a woman, or the master of the dead appears to women in female form and to men in male form. | 10 | 11 |
| 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 |
| I32a In I32 family | The tree of destiny. | When a leaf or fruit from a certain tree falls, one of the people on earth dies. | 18 | 17 |
| I33 | The Tree of the Dead. | The soul on its journey to the afterlife stops at a certain tree. | 29 | 31 |
| I34 | Dangerous tree. | It is necessary to approach a tree that is surrounded by fire, spews fire, throws sharp splinters, etc. | 10 | 10 |
| I35 | Thunder - animal skin. | Thunder is produced by a (tanned) animal skin or (rarely) a person being dragged, or clothing being dragged behind or shaken out. | 33 | 41 |
| I35a In I35 family | Thunder – an old woman. | Thunder is produced by an old woman in the sky. | 14 | 18 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.