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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| J50b In J50 family | The father remains half-dead. | The father (alone or with his brother) is only partially resurrected and is unable to live among people (he cannot be a warrior). The hero leaves him (in another world) or allows him to die completely. | 10 | 8 |
| J58c In J58 family | Bridge of arrows. | A chain of arrows forms a bridge across a water barrier. | 10 | 10 |
| J15b In J15 family | Woman at the toad's house. | While travelling, a woman finds herself in the house of a frog or toad. See motif J15. | 11 | 12 |
| 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 |
| J22b In J22 family | Two women from one. | A woman is cut or torn in half, and two new ones appear. | 11 | 19 |
| J22d In J22 family | Animals cut in half. | Foreigners or animals of two different species emerge from a single person or animal cut in half. | 11 | 15 |
| 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 |
| J59b In J59 family | The arrow falls, the dead person comes back to life. | To revive the dead, the character shoots an arrow into the sky or throws an object. It is assumed that the dead, fearing the falling object, will come back to life and run away. | 11 | 15 |
| 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 |
| J7a In J7 family | Bringing lunch to father. | A girl (less often a boy) brings lunch to her father or brothers who are working in the field (in the forest), but encounters a demonic character. | 11 | 12 |
| J12I In J12 family | Spitting beads. | A desirable marriage partner secretes beads instead of saliva or excrement. See motifs J12 and M57. | 12 | 2 |
| J2 | Tree husband. | Husband or lover – tree (temporarily transformed into a human). | 12 | 17 |
| J35 | The frog kills its pursuer. | A tree frog kills or neutralises a demon or beast pursuing the heroes. | 12 | 12 |
| j1c In j1 family | Avenging heroes - with a missing or distorted final part of the plot (revenge is not described). | Avenging heroes - with a missing or distorted final part of the plot (revenge is not described). | 13 | 15 |
| 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 |
| J29 | The shadow of the father. | Murdered parents themselves inform their children about the circumstances of their death. | 13 | 13 |
| J32c In J32 family | The demon comes to harm the deceased. | At night, a demonic character comes to the grave of the deceased, intending to harm him. | 13 | 14 |
| J47b In J47 family | Two ropes. | When a character runs away from a pursuer, a strong rope (chain, etc.) is lowered (thrown) to him. A rotten rope is lowered to the pursuer, it breaks, and the pursuer crashes (drowns). | 13 | 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 |
| J10 | Wasp sting. | A woman loses her way after being stung by a wasp (or bee, ant, snake). She slaps her stomach (either to kill the insect or to punish her unborn sons, because of whom she went to pick a flower and was stung; see motif J11). The offended sons fall silent, ceasing to show the way. See motif J9. | 14 | 17 |
| J12H In J12 family | Opossum. | The false groom - the opossum. | 14 | 25 |
| J20 | The sinister guest: the broken taboo. | While the husband or brother is hunting, an evil spirit comes to his wife or sister; he kills or maims her or her brother after she breaks the taboo of opening the door to the guest, looking at him or talking to him. See motif J19. | 14 | 1 |
| J26a In J26 family | Boys and puppies. | Among children of a woman or two women living together, there is a boy and a puppy, or a puppy was placed with a woman, and her son was thrown out. The puppy lives with the woman and helps her. | 14 | 14 |
| 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 |
| J12G In J12 family | Waterfowl or marsh bird. | The false bridegroom is a bird that lives on or near water. See motif J12. | 15 | 9 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| J51a1 In J51 family | The helper girl: dismembered and reassembled. | To retrieve an object from a hard-to-reach place, the girl orders it to be dismembered (or just have its fingers cut off) and then reassembled, after which it comes back to life. | 15 | 45 |
| 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 |
| J27b In J27 family | Water Father. | An infant is thrown into a lake or river and occasionally comes ashore. In addition to his earthly parents, he has a father (and mother) in the underwater world. He does not want to part with them, nor do they want to let him go. | 16 | 14 |
| J63 | The son saves, the daughter betrays. | Enemies arrive and tie up the husband. The wife agrees to live with the new man, while the former lies bound. One character (usually the daughter) refuses to free him, while another (usually the son) frees him. The husband kills the enemies and usually brutally executes (the daughter and) his wife. | 16 | 19 |
| J14 | The flute player. | To find the man of her dreams, a woman follows the sounds of music or singing; she usually distinguishes imposters by listening to their clumsy performance. See motif J12. | 17 | 7 |
| J22e In J22 family | Man from the afterbirth, T541.12. | The second character emerges from the afterbirth of the first. | 17 | 15 |
| 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 |
| J41d In J41 family | Throwing a stick, he exposes his forehead. | The strongman orders an iron club (sword, etc.) of monstrous size to be made, but breaks it and demands a new one, even heavier (often throwing it into the air and exposing his forehead, etc. – the club breaks). | 17 | 24 |
| J53b In J53 family | The breasts of a murdered mother. | Two women live together, both have children. One of them leaves the house with the other, kills her, brings her meat home and starts cooking it. The children of the deceased notice their mother's breasts (in California – eyes or liver), or the mother's breasts themselves turn to her children. | 17 | 24 |
| J60 | Sons of two fathers. | A woman conceives twins from two different fathers. | 17 | 23 |
| J62a In J62 family | Turned into trees. | The character turns those who come to him into plants (trees, flowers). The hero (heroine) remains alive and breaks the spell on those who have been transformed. | 17 | 13 |
| J12j In J12 family | The false suitor turns out to be a jester. | A girl or sisters end up with a false groom who plays the role of a jester in the chief's house. See motif J12. | 18 | 1 |
| J15a In J15 family | Woman among the Jaguars. | Setting off on a journey (usually in search of a fiancé, husband, or relatives), a woman finds herself in the lair or settlement of large dangerous predators - pumas or jaguars. See motif J15. | 18 | 16 |
| J32e In J32 family | Stolen Foals. | Every time a mare foals, the foal is stolen. The hero finds out who is doing this. | 18 | 20 |
| 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 |
| J54a In J54 family | The Calf and the Tiger Cub, ATU 131. | Two women, both or one of whom are animal characters, live together and have children. One of them kills and eats the other or is about to do so. The son of the murderer kills his mother for this, remains the sworn brother of the son of the murdered woman, or the children of the murderer and the victim run away together. Cf. motif J54B. | 18 | 24 |
| J11 | Asks to pick flowers. | The son in his mother's womb asks her to pick flowers or fruit for him (usually when a woman picks flowers, she is bitten by an insect). See motif J9. | 19 | 18 |
| J39 | Who killed the rabbit? | The antagonist makes the woman his slave. Other characters secretly come to her and kill a small animal or bird for her. The antagonist suspects that the woman could not have caught the game herself, but she insists that she did. | 20 | 16 |
| J9 | Children from their mother's womb show her the way. | Even before they are born, children speak from their mother's womb, showing her the way. | 20 | 39 |
| J28a In J28 family | The truth about the father. | When asking how one of his parents died, the hero receives a series of false answers. He often exposes himself to the same dangers, but remains alive, proving the falsity of the proposed versions. | 21 | 31 |
| J8 | Feathers at the crossroads. | A woman or girl sets out in search of a husband (fiancé, etc.). Bird feathers left on the trail, at a crossroads or near a dwelling mark the right or wrong path. See motif J7. | 21 | 14 |
| J40A In J40 family | Avenged captives. | Returning after a long absence, the hero finds his parents or other close relatives in humiliating slavery, orders them to demonstratively show disobedience, and punishes those who humiliated them. | 22 | 12 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.