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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.
J - Avenger heroes
| Ref | Title ▲ | Summary | Traditions | Narratives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| J59a In J59 family | Flight after the arrow, D1092, D1526.1. | After shooting an arrow (rarely: throwing a ball), a person flies on it, behind it or in front of it, or sends another person on the flying arrow. Cf. motif J59. | 42 | 40 |
| J59 | Following the arrow to the sky. | To reach the sky, one must shoot an arrow that will pierce the vault of heaven. See motif J58; see motif J59A: a man flies after or on an arrow (without the motif of an arrow piercing the vault of heaven). | 83 | 29 |
| J41 | Foxes mock the abandoned. | The hero leaves for a long time. When he returns, his relative does not immediately believe that it is really him. All this time, someone has been mocking him or her, imitating the voice of the departed, saying that he has returned and/or throwing ashes in his or her face. | 14 | 14 |
| J17 | Frogs in the hair. | Instead of lice in the character's hair, there are other creatures, or he pretends that such creatures live in his hair. | 58 | 73 |
| J12 | Girls in search of a husband. | A girl or two sisters wander, usually in search of a suitable groom or husband who has left or lives far away. Along the way or upon reaching their destination, they encounter false suitors. (Traditions in which two heroines travel rather than one are highlighted in bold (motif j13). | 117 | 205 |
| J47a1 In J47 family | Goats – owners of food. | The character enters a house where goats live. He secretly eats the food he finds there, but is eventually discovered. | 7 | 8 |
| J34 | Grandchildren scare their grandmother. | After killing a dangerous enemy, the heroes make a scarecrow out of him to frighten the household. | 11 | 14 |
| J53c1 In J53 family | Grizzly bear and black bear. | Two women live together, both have children. One of them kills and (then) eats the other. The killer is associated with a grizzly bear, and the victim with a smaller species of bear. | 11 | 17 |
| J24 | Ground into flour. | The hero, ground into powder, is reborn. | 9 | 11 |
| J52b In J52 family | Heroes – female hares or baby hares. | A girl, young woman or children associated with hares (rabbits) are heroes-victors or successful tricksters. | 26 | 50 |
| j1d In j1 family | Heroic avengers - Like J1D, but the role of potential heroes is reduced to a minimum: a woman with a baby is saved from the antagonist and receives help from <i>the patron </i>. | Heroic avengers - Like J1D, but the role of potential heroes is reduced to a minimum: a woman with a baby is saved from the antagonist and receives help from the patron . | 13 | 19 |
| j1b In j1 family | Heroic avengers - with a missing or altered plot start: it is unclear whether the characters with whom the heroes live are their real or adoptive parents; the hero's mother herself tries to destroy him in infancy. | Heroic avengers - with a missing or altered plot start: it is unclear whether the characters with whom the heroes live are their real or adoptive parents; the hero's mother herself tries to destroy him in infancy. | 11 | 20 |
| J12b In J12 family | Honey groom. | A honey groom or a skilled honey gatherer is attractive to a girl. | 7 | 18 |
| J28b In J28 family | Hot flatbread. | Upon learning that a woman (usually the hero's mother) is hiding the truth about his father, mother, brothers, or bride, a young man (rarely a young woman) causes her pain, forcing her to tell the truth (usually by pressing hot bread into her palm or sticking her fingers into hot food). | 44 | 69 |
| J26 | Infants from the river. | The character or that from which he arises is found in a river, lake, sea, or on the riverbank. The future hero emerges from the body of water into which he was thrown. | 208 | 291 |
| J25 | Infants hide and return. | Heroes (one, two or one of two), while still infants or embryos, disappear or are thrown away (often into water). To bring them back to the world of humans, they are lured, persuaded or (with difficulty) caught. | 92 | 131 |
| J64 | Into the sky on a pillar of smoke. | Without touching the fire or burning, the character rises into the sky or crosses the river on clouds of smoke. | 37 | 46 |
| J53a In J53 family | Inviting to play, kills. | A character invites another to play. The latter follows the rules, but the initiator of the game does not and kills the other. | 18 | 27 |
| J12d In J12 family | Kills a rival. | After a girl marries a worthy suitor, the rejected suitor or his relatives kill the rival. See motif J12. | 32 | 27 |
| J51a In J51 family | Ladder made of bones. | To climb a rock or tower, one must stick bones into it and climb them like a ladder. | 13 | 33 |
| J23 | Late children defeat the monster, ATU 312D. | People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises a boy or twins from infancy. Sometimes, left alone, she miraculously conceives a son or finds a baby. He defeats the antagonists, usually reviving or freeing the missing ones. | 121 | 154 |
| J23D In J23 family | Late twins defeat the monster. | People in general or older brothers (siblings, older sister) disappear one after another. A woman raises two twins (or several children) from infancy. They defeat their antagonists, usually reviving or freeing those who have disappeared. | 16 | 24 |
| J22e In J22 family | Man from the afterbirth, T541.12. | The second character emerges from the afterbirth of the first. | 17 | 15 |
| J53a1 In J53 family | Method of revenge: lure into smoke and fire. | The children of the murdered man kill the murderer's children, luring them to a place where they perish from heat or smoke. | 24 | 42 |
| J18a In J18 family | Mother eaten, children flee. | A cannibal eats a woman and enters her house. The woman's children (daughter and son, or daughter only) run away, climb a tree or climb a rope to the sky. The cannibal pursues them and perishes. | 15 | 27 |
| J6a In J6 family | Mother eaten, daughter saved. | A pregnant woman with a young daughter fall into the hands of cannibals. The cannibals find and eat the woman, but her daughter and the baby in her womb are saved. | 3 | 3 |
| J54b In J54 family | Mother's enemy and brother's ally. | The antagonist's son and the hero are half-brothers or full brothers (uncle and nephew; sworn brothers). When the antagonist tries to destroy the hero, the antagonist's son takes the hero's side. | 26 | 23 |
| J69 | Murders in jest and in earnest. | A person is killed (with a cold weapon, dead water) and then revived. Another person asks for the same thing to be done to him, but is not revived. | 11 | 13 |
| J32a1 In J32 family | Nocturnal pests – horses. | But at night someone tramples the field, steals hay, etc. The hero learns that it is horses doing this. | 24 | 30 |
| J53c In J53 family | One friend kills another. | Two women live together, both have children. One of them leaves the house with the other, kills her and (later) eats her. The children of the murdered woman escape. See motif J52. | 26 | 45 |
| J12H In J12 family | Opossum. | The false groom - the opossum. | 14 | 25 |
| J12F In J12 family | Owl. | False groom - eagle owl/owl. See motif J12. | 0 | 0 |
| J42 | Parting waters. | The character creates a dry passage across the bottom of the water body, and after passing through, the waters close again. | 117 | 170 |
| J12a In J12 family | Penis in a vessel. | A girl or two sisters come to an old woman who invites them to marry her son. In reality, he is a worm, a snake or a penis, which his mother hides in a vessel during the day. The girl (sisters) do not allow him to approach them and run away. See motif J12. | 7 | 2 |
| J62 | Petrified people. | The character turns those who come to him into inanimate objects (usually stones). (In variants of the ATU 303 plot, the motif is often absent; original texts are needed). | 102 | 187 |
| J19a In J19 family | Placing food on the stomach. | When a woman is left alone, a demonic character comes to her. He says that in order to perform certain actions, she must give him a certain part of her body, even though this contradicts logic and custom. After that, the character kills her (cuts open her stomach; tears out her tongue). | 10 | 17 |
| J16 | Refuses to eat insects. | The character perishes because, being forced to look for insects in the head of another, he refuses to chew insects, spits them out in disgust, or is suspected of doing so. | 15 | 21 |
| J30 | Remains of parents. | Before the heroes defeat their antagonists or flee from them, they find or receive the remains or property of the victim. | 78 | 108 |
| J4a In J4 family | Revenge for the death of a mother. | A woman is killed. Her son or sons (rarely: grandsons, nephews) avenge her. | 142 | 274 |
| J4 | Revenge for the death of male relatives. | The heroes avenge the death (enslavement) of their father, uncle, grandfather, or mother and father, or in general their descendants, with the loss of men being the most painful. | 197 | 428 |
| J59d In J59 family | Reviving the dead by stepping over their bones. | The character steps or jumps over the remains of the slain, and the latter comes back to life. | 5 | 6 |
| J59c In J59 family | Reviving the dead with a whip. | A character strikes the remains of the deceased with a whip or a lash, and the deceased comes back to life. | 7 | 8 |
| J33 | Scarecrow. | A boy, a young man, or two children live in the house of an older character. In order to elicit a certain reaction from him, they kill a person or a large animal, stuff the scarecrow with insects, worms, ashes, grass, or inflate it. | 17 | 27 |
| J12E In J12 family | Skunk. | The false bridegroom - skunk. See motif J12. | 0 | 0 |
| J23a In J23 family | Snot turns into a boy. | A woman cries, and the discharge from her nose (her tears) turns into a boy, who grows up and defeats strong opponents. | 9 | 13 |
| J25a In J25 family | Son of the grave. | The mother dies or is killed. The child in her womb or the newborn baby is buried with her. He comes out of the grave, meets people, returns to the grave, or is found in the entrails of his dead mother. In the end, the child stays with the people. See motif J25. | 26 | 33 |
| J57 | Son of the Sun. | Conceived by the Sun, a woman gives birth to sons or a son; when they come of age, they visit their father. See motif J56. | 32 | 48 |
| J41a In J41 family | Son turns mother into a bird. | The son returns and finds his mother, who has been humiliated and tortured in his absence. The son turns his mother (and usually himself as well) into a bird of a certain species. | 10 | 6 |
| J50a In J50 family | Sons embrace their mother. | The mother dies when her sons push or embrace her. | 7 | 9 |
| J60 | Sons of two fathers. | A woman conceives twins from two different fathers. | 17 | 23 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.