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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| I46e In I46 family | Rainbow sword. | Rainbow - sword, cutting weapon. | 8 | 10 |
| 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 |
| I87c1 In I87 family | Mouse in a boat. | A mouse makes itself a boat out of a small object. | 8 | 8 |
| I134 | Long neck on the Milky Way. | Along the axis of the Milky Way, a creature with a long neck (llama, emu, rhea) can be seen. | 9 | 18 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| I46c In I46 family | Rainbow rope. | The rainbow is a rope to which cattle are tied. | 9 | 11 |
| I74a In I74 family | Stars – fireflies. | Stars – fireflies. | 9 | 9 |
| 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 |
| I92a In I92 family | Jumping over the rainbow. | A person who jumps or steps over a rainbow changes their gender. | 9 | 10 |
| I10b In I10 family | Coloured tiers of the earth. | Individual layers or categories of earth differ in colour (and other characteristics). | 10 | 20 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| I34 | Dangerous tree. | It is necessary to approach a tree that is surrounded by fire, spews fire, throws sharp splinters, etc. | 10 | 10 |
| 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 |
| I47a In I47 family | Rainbow – fox wedding. | The rainbow is associated with the wedding of a fox or jackal. | 10 | 16 |
| I59b4 In I59 family | The Milky Way – snow, hoarfrost. | The Milky Way is associated with snow, hoarfrost, and cold. | 10 | 10 |
| I5a In I5 family | Thunder tapir. | The tapir is associated with the upper world (thunder, sky, moon). | 10 | 14 |
| I84a In I84 family | The frozen son of a god. | Contrary to the warning of his father or mother, a young man or woman sets off on a journey in winter and freezes to death. Cf. motif B33A ("Frozen in Spring"). | 10 | 16 |
| I98b In I98 family | The Pleiades – a duck's nest. | The Pleiades – ducks, nest or wild duck egg. | 10 | 16 |
| I111 | Reptilian Earth. | The earth as a whole or a mountain range is the body of a crocodile, dragon, or snake (eel). | 11 | 16 |
| I114 | The Golden Fleece. | Describes a ram or sheep with golden wool or the skin of such a ram. | 11 | 17 |
| I117a In I117 family | The bat helps to descend. | The bat helps the hero descend to the ground from a high cliff. | 11 | 13 |
| I120a In I120 family | Entering the ear of an animal. | Entering the ear of an animal (usually a horse or a cow) and coming back out, the character becomes beautiful (well-fed, well-dressed). | 11 | 23 |
| I122 | The Pleiades – a beehive. | The Pleiades – a beehive, a nest, a cluster of bees or wasps. | 11 | 10 |
| 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 |
| I38a In I38 family | Dogs – husbands of women. | The husbands of human women are dogs or dog-headed creatures. | 11 | 17 |
| 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 |
| I87ad In I87 family | Hidden in a tooth cavity. | A giant hides a persecuted person in his mouth – usually (perhaps always) in a tooth cavity; or the person remains alive in the giant's mouth, hiding in a tooth cavity. Cf. motif M21a. | 11 | 10 |
| I98C In I98 family | Pleiades – a flock of birds. | The Pleiades - a flock of (flying) birds. | 11 | 10 |
| I102 | The Milky Way – a tree. | The Milky Way – a tree, the trace of a tree. | 12 | 14 |
| I107 | Stars – nails. | Stars are nails or stakes driven into the sky, or stars are nailed down. | 12 | 14 |
| I119a In I119 family | Earthquake – are there any survivors? | Creatures shake the earth, either upon learning that there are no longer any inhabitants on it, or to check whether they are still alive, or to show that they themselves are still there. | 12 | 11 |
| I37C In I37 family | Mushrooms: erotic associations. | Mushrooms have erotic associations. See motif I37. | 12 | 9 |
| I4c In I4 family | Thunder in captivity. | The enemy of the thunderer temporarily defeats and captures him. | 12 | 17 |
| I67 | Emu and nandu in the Milky Way. | The giant figure of an emu (in Australia) or a rhea (in South America) is visible in the Milky Way. | 12 | 31 |
| I68a In I68 family | The night of magical water. | Once a year, water briefly acquires unusual properties. | 12 | 14 |
| I80a In I80 family | Junior Thunder. | Upon meeting the Thunders, a person becomes one of them. | 12 | 14 |
| I136 | The demonic wheel. | The rolling wheel (and the character riding on it) is a creature or weapon hostile to the hero (people) that he uses. | 13 | 18 |
| I17a In I17 family | Dwarfs without bodily orifices. | Creatures without an anal opening or mouth - dwarves. | 13 | 16 |
| 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 |
| I60 | The Milky Way – the heavenly seam. | The Milky Way - a seam, a crack between the two halves of the sky. | 13 | 18 |
| I76b In I76 family | A mouse becomes a bat. | After a certain amount of time or after performing certain actions, an ordinary mouse turns into a bat. | 13 | 13 |
| I7a In I7 family | Lightning snake. | Lightning is associated with a snake. | 13 | 10 |
| I82f In I82 family | Venus – Wolf Star. | (Evening) Venus is associated with a predatory beast, usually a she-wolf. | 13 | 18 |
| I88 | The multi-tailed beast. | Describes a creature with several tails. | 13 | 16 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.