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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 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 |
| I50 | Many-legged beast (hoofed animal), B15.6.3. | Describes or depicts a hoofed animal with six or more legs. | 53 | 94 |
| I50b In I50 family | Many-legged beast (predator). | Describes or depicts a predatory animal with six or more legs. | 7 | 8 |
| 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 |
| I61 | Milk on the Milky Way, A778.5. | The Milky Way is a trail of spilled milk. | 23 | 34 |
| I62 | Milky Way - river, A778.3. | The Milky Way is a heavenly river, a body of water, a chain of creatures floating in the water. | 110 | 181 |
| 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 |
| I112 | Monster boat. | The boat is a living creature with a mouth, a fish. | 15 | 20 |
| I82d In I82 family | Morning and Evening Stars – Man and Woman. | The Morning and Evening Stars are contrasted as man and woman. See motifs I82a, I82b. | 32 | 29 |
| I140 | Moses' rod. | The staff thrown to the ground turns into a living snake. | 3 | 3 |
| I87c1 In I87 family | Mouse in a boat. | A mouse makes itself a boat out of a small object. | 8 | 8 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| I37f In I37 family | Mushrooms - ears. | Mushrooms are called "ears". | 54 | 75 |
| I37d In I37 family | Mushrooms - excrement. | Mushrooms are the excrement of a mythological character. See motif I37. | 8 | 6 |
| I37B In I37 family | Mushrooms are associated with the world of the dead. | Mushrooms are associated with the dead, the afterlife, evil spirits, and disease. See motif I37. | 6 | 29 |
| I37e In I37 family | Mushrooms cry out. | Tree mushrooms cry out like people. | 3 | 5 |
| I37 | Mushrooms. | Mushrooms are mentioned in a mythological context. | 109 | 175 |
| I37C In I37 family | Mushrooms: erotic associations. | Mushrooms have erotic associations. See motif I37. | 12 | 9 |
| 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 |
| I87ab In I87 family | Only a child can move it. | Strong men or a crowd of people cannot move the body of a dead animal or the leg of a motionless person, but a child or a woman can do it easily. Cf. motif B83. | 15 | 24 |
| I68 | Opening of the sky. | At a certain moment, a crack or window opens in the sky (rain pours through it, it is possible to see what is happening in heaven, perhaps communication with the celestials). | 49 | 81 |
| 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 |
| I115 | Orion and the Pleiades. | Orion and the Pleiades appear in the same story. | 62 | 73 |
| I110b In I110 family | Orion – reapers. | Orion – people or agricultural tools associated with harvesting or haymaking. | 29 | 62 |
| I95a In I95 family | Orion – scales. | Orion (probably always Orion's Belt) is Libra. | 19 | 21 |
| I95c In I95 family | Orion – staff. | Orion's belt – staff, stick, three sticks, rod, crutch, etc. | 24 | 21 |
| I95b In I95 family | Orion – the balance beam. | Orion is a yoke. | 15 | 18 |
| I121 | Paired constellations. | Constellations (usually Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) are considered as two similar, paired objects. (For Africa, Eurasia and Alaska – paired names; for most of America – semantic association, but the names are not paired). | 70 | 88 |
| I87d In I87 family | People in the time of giants, ATU 701. | In the past, giants inhabited the earth. One of them finds a tiny human being and brings him to his father or mother. They usually say that such people will replace the current giants. | 25 | 35 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| I8A In I8 family | Pillars of the world: anthropomorphic characters. | The world, earth or sky are supported by anthropomorphic beings. | 80 | 121 |
| I8f In I8 family | Pillars of the world: one object. | The sky, the world rests on a single object (a pillar or tree). | 70 | 83 |
| I8D In I8 family | Pillars of the world: pillars, mountains. | The earth or sky is supported by mountains, pillars, nails, trees. | 146 | 185 |
| I8B In I8 family | Pillars of the world: zoomorphic creatures. | The earth or sky is supported by zoomorphic creatures. | 96 | 127 |
| 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 |
| I98C In I98 family | Pleiades – a flock of birds. | The Pleiades - a flock of (flying) birds. | 11 | 10 |
| I100a In I100 family | Pleiades – family. | The Pleiades – a woman or man with children, members of the same family. | 25 | 33 |
| I100 | Pleiades – girls, young women, women. | Pleiades – a group of girls or women (with children). | 96 | 127 |
| I94 | Pleiades – holes. | The Pleiades are something holey. | 40 | 52 |
| I75 | Previous worlds. | Before the emergence of the present world or present humans, there were others (at least two worlds or races). | 31 | 68 |
| I45c In I45 family | Prohibition on counting stars. | Those who count stars are destined for misfortune and illness. | 19 | 23 |
| 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 |
| I64a In I64 family | Race on the Milky Way. | Two different hoofed animals race across the sky. Usually, the Milky Way is the dusty trail they leave behind. | 11 | 13 |
| I7c In I7 family | Rain or dew – urine. | When a character in the upper world urinates, it rains (dew falls) on earth. | 20 | 23 |
| I46 | Rainbow belt. | Rainbow – an ornamented part of clothing, bright fabric, decoration, belt. | 96 | 141 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.