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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.
K - Adventures: Acts of heroes
| Ref | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K57c In K57 family | The ring in the pie. | The prince puts a ring on the finger of a beautiful girl, not knowing that she is the very girl who works in his kitchen. The girl slips the ring into the prince's food, and he recognises it. | 26 | 35 |
| K67 | Burnt moccasins, K1615. | At night, one person intends to throw another person's shoes or clothes into the fire, but ends up burning his own shoes or clothes. Usually, the father-in-law throws his son-in-law's shoes into the fire at night in order to freeze him out, but the son-in-law has already switched shoes, so the father-in-law burns his own. | 25 | 35 |
| K8c3 In K8 family | Not through the mouth, but through the side. | One (zoomorphic) character refuses to use any part of another's body except the one he uses to kill him. | 25 | 35 |
| K100f2 In K100 family | The thirst-quenched breaks his chains. | A captured supernatural character breaks his chains and escapes to freedom after being given water (or wine, etc.) to drink. | 30 | 36 |
| K102a3 In K102 family | Dead tooth. | Someone (usually a woman) places a poisonous tooth (bone, nail, etc.) in the hero's bed. The young man dies, but is then revived. | 22 | 36 |
| K107d1 In K107 family | The magical wife cannot wake the young man. | Waiting for his magical wife, the young man falls asleep. The wife cannot wake him up and leaves (this episode is often repeated). | 26 | 36 |
| K173 | It is better to suffer when young (Placidas), ATU 938. | A powerful and wealthy man loses everything, is separated from his wife and children, and they are separated from each other. The man regains his power and wealth, and the family is reunited. | 54 | 36 |
| K1i In K1 family | Tree for descending from a cliff. | Near the cliff, at the bottom of the pit, or in the underworld, a tree, reed, or vine grows, which the character uses to descend or climb to the ground. | 19 | 36 |
| K27o1 In K27 family | Ball – human head. | Severed human heads are compared to balls. Either a character plays with a severed human head or skull as a ball. | 25 | 36 |
| K33d1 In K33 family | Hidden in a lantern, ATU 510B*. | The young man does not know that a beautiful girl is hiding inside the object brought to his house. | 25 | 36 |
| K53 | Animal skins – a means of transformation. | A character temporarily transforms into an animal or bird of a certain species by putting on its skin, or skins taken along with them come to life and serve the hero. | 24 | 36 |
| K58 | Canal builder. | To win the hand of his beloved, the character builds a canal or aqueduct or digs a well. Usually, the woman does not end up marrying the person who completed the work, and either she herself or the suitor perishes. | 14 | 36 |
| K61d In K61 family | From work became a beetle, ATU 501. | A young woman accidentally gives her fiancé, husband or mother-in-law the impression that she works a lot. To prevent the deception from being revealed, she or someone else makes others believe that women's work makes them ugly or turns them into animals. The husband forbids his wife to work. | 41 | 36 |
| K8c1 In K8 family | Swallowed by a herbivore, then by a wolf. | A tiny man is first accidentally swallowed by a large herbivore, then carried off by a wolf that began to eat the carcass of this animal. | 28 | 36 |
| K126 | The wolf pays for the horse it ate. | A predatory beast or demon eats the hero's horse, but in return is forced or voluntarily helps him. | 31 | 37 |
| K168 | Imaginary life in an instant, ATU 664*, 681. | A person experiences an eventful long period of life. Everything turns out to be an illusion, and he finds himself back in the same place and at the same moment in time from which the story began. | 30 | 37 |
| K24b In K24 family | Dancing in magical clothes. | A magical wife deceives her naive mother-in-law into giving her wonderful clothes or some other item that enables her to leave the human world. | 31 | 37 |
| K3 | A tree or rock grows. | The hero climbs a tree or rock to get bird eggs, chicks, fruit, honey, etc. He cannot climb down because another character makes the tree (rock) very tall or makes the tree trunk thick. See motif K1A. | 67 | 37 |
| K33a1 In K33 family | Born in a well, T581.2.0. | A woman is thrown into a well (pond, pit, etc.) or becomes a water bird. In the water, she gives birth to a child (twins, triplets) or is thrown into the water with her baby. She is rescued along with her children. | 32 | 37 |
| K61a In K61 family | Learn the secret, ATU 500*. | In order to find out the exact number, a specific object in a certain set, the name of a specific character, or the reason for a certain phenomenon, the character tries to surprise (or unintentionally surprises) the owner of such knowledge. The latter begins to talk to himself, involuntarily revealing the necessary information to the hero standing nearby. | 29 | 37 |
| K69 | Pilgrims to the deity. | Several men walk towards the horizon to ascend to the sky and visit the Sun or another supreme deity. Usually, one or more of them perish along the way, while others reach their destination. They return by a shorter route than they came. | 22 | 37 |
| K101a In K101 family | The girl rising from the coffin, ATU 307. | A man spends several nights next to a dead girl who has become a dangerous demonic creature. As a result, the girl is exorcised. | 41 | 38 |
| K25d In K25 family | The forbidden tuber in the heavens. | After digging up the root, a person pierces the sky or the earth, sees the world below, and descends there. Usually, the hole is made by a woman who has fallen into the sky; her husband, a sky dweller, or his relatives forbid her to dig up a certain root; breaking the ban, the woman sees the earth below and decides to descend. See motif K19B. | 31 | 38 |
| K27y In K27 family | Obtaining material for arrows. | The hero is sent or, knowing the danger, goes himself to obtain various (at least two) materials for making a bow and arrows (shafts, feathers, bowstring, flint for arrowheads, paint for colouring arrows, resin and fibres for attaching the arrowhead or feather to the shaft, etc.). See motif K27. | 35 | 38 |
| K27z6 In K27 family | The Stone of Patience, ATU 894. | Having fallen victim to injustice and endured suffering, a young woman tells her story to certain inanimate objects (often a "stone of patience"), or her husband tells the story after learning of his wife's fate. The woman is saved, justice is restored. | 36 | 38 |
| K32g1 In K32 family | Forty horses or forty knives? | The guilty party is offered a choice of items of utilitarian value (often forty, seven, three, etc. horses or the same number of knives). The person usually does not understand that these are methods of execution. | 27 | 38 |
| K32j In K32 family | The brother of the changeling is accused of deception (ATU 403). | Upon learning from a young man that he has a beautiful sister, the ruler wants to marry her. The bride is replaced by an ugly woman. Usually, the ruler accuses her brother of deception and throws him into prison. The deception is revealed. | 22 | 38 |
| K35c1 In K35 family | Better the one you love (ATU 677). | The young man is not killed, but rewarded, because he answered correctly (evasively) the question of a powerful character – which of the two women he should marry, which is more beautiful, which object or material is more valuable, etc. | 31 | 38 |
| K89d In K89 family | Hides, turning into a needle. | Left alone in the house or finding herself in a stranger's house, a girl (less often a male character) hides by turning into a needle (a pin) or another tool for sewing or spinning. | 33 | 38 |
| K97 | Tested fear, ATU 537. | A man prepares to kill a large bird, but does not kill it. When the bird later carries him, it pretends to leave him on a rock or throw him down. In doing so, it makes it clear how frightened it was. Either the bird first drops and catches the man, and later he makes her experience fear herself (the Volyn variant is slightly different). | 36 | 38 |
| K24a In K24 family | A supernatural man hides a woman's clothes. | A man, usually of non-human nature, hides the clothes or sits on the clothes of an ordinary earthly girl. To get her clothes back, she is forced to enter into a romantic relationship with him. Traditions in which the character is a snake or dragon (ATU 425M) are marked with an asterisk*. | 36 | 39 |
| K27x1 In K27 family | The invisible servant ("Bring me that, I don't know what"), (ATU 465A). | Having received a difficult task (usually: to bring an object or creature that has no specific characteristics, such as "something, I don't know what," "a strange wonder," etc.), the hero meets an invisible man who serves others; he is kind to him, and the man becomes his assistant. (This motif is certainly present in some texts of the ATU 465A plot, but it is not specifically highlighted in the definition). (Cf. motif K131B). | 28 | 39 |
| k27z2a2 In k27 family | The unrecognised wife visits her husband, ATU 891. | The husband leaves his wife without agreeing with her. The wife visits her husband incognito, and in the end he realises who is with him. Usually, the wife spends the night with her husband, gives birth to a son (three children), and the husband is convinced that the son is his. | 42 | 39 |
| K56f In K56 family | The division of the rooster, ATU 1533. | A man divides a roasted rooster (goose) according to the social ranks of those present (the head to the host, the wings to the daughters, etc.), usually taking the least prestigious but meatiest part for himself. | 33 | 39 |
| K59 | Osiris's chest. | One person places another in a box and closes the lid, or ties the other to a board, a boat, etc., and throws them into the water. The coffin (box, board) is nailed to a distant land, where the captive is freed. Usually, he returns and takes revenge on his enemy. | 30 | 39 |
| K66a In K66 family | The flying ship as a condition of marriage, ATU 513B. | The princess (inheritance) is given to the one who builds (obtains) a ship capable of moving on land (flying through the air). | 40 | 39 |
| K73a1 In K73 family | The child is replaced by an inanimate object. | After hiding or discarding a newborn baby, the woman's rivals replace it with an inanimate object and/or inform the father that his wife has given birth to a stone, a broom, etc. See motifs k73a2, k73a2a, k73a3. | 26 | 39 |
| K77b2 In K77 family | Weapons of the goat. | The goat (goat, ram, etc.) responds to the predator's questions in the sense that parts of its body are weapons and other objects designed to kill the questioner, or that the goat is actually armed. | 26 | 39 |
| K57a In K57 family | The Beauty from the Land of Soap, (ATU 510B). | A noble young man, who treated a lowly servant girl rudely and contemptuously, does not recognise her in the guise of a magnificent beauty and does not understand her hints about the relevant episodes. Or the younger brother responds to the hints of his older brothers after they first beat him and then fail to recognise him in the guise of a handsome hero. | 20 | 40 |
| K8c5 In K8 family | The bear dies after swallowing a mouse. | A zoomorphic character no larger than a fox allows itself to be swallowed by a bear and kills it by tearing it apart from the inside. | 33 | 40 |
| K100f In K100 family | The young man releases the fish. | A man catches an unusual fish (rarely: a bird or some kind of aquatic creature). His son (a worker) releases it. For this, the father (king) drives him away, or the one who released the fish leaves on his own. The rescued fish helps him. | 32 | 41 |
| K100f1 In K100 family | The Wild Man, ATU 502. | A man (king) catches a strange (anthropomorphic) creature. His son releases the wondrous captive (after which he flees from his father's wrath or is banished). The freed captive helps him. Cf. motif K161. | 45 | 41 |
| K115 | Spider web at the entrance, B523.1, ATU 967. | When a character hides in a shelter, a spider immediately weaves a web at the entrance. Enemies decide that no one has entered the cave or room for a long time and leave. | 50 | 41 |
| K11a In K11 family | Feathers turn into birds and people. | Plucked feathers of a (huge) bird turn into actual birds (or their plumage) or humans emerge from them. | 35 | 41 |
| K33f In K33 family | Stream of honey and stream of oil. | Sources of at least two valuable liquid edible products (honey, oil, etc.) are available or imagined. Cf. motif N34. | 24 | 41 |
| K43a In K43 family | A kind person leaves the fire. | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and depart. Someone sympathises with those who have been abandoned and secretly hides fire for them. | 40 | 41 |
| K107b In K107 family | Prohibition on lighting candles. | One spouse forbids the other from seeing them. When the other willingly or unwillingly breaks the prohibition, the first disappears (gets into trouble). (In the Tuscan version, the prohibition is broken by the woman's mother). | 29 | 42 |
| K147 | The horse brings the hero's remains, and he is revived. | The enemy dismembers the hero's body. The remains are tied to the horse's saddle, or the horse itself picks them up and brings them to friendly characters. They revive the hero. | 31 | 42 |
| k33c3 In k33 family | The girl in the orange. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside an orange or other citrus fruit. | 26 | 42 |
| K65f In K65 family | Which eye do you see with? (ATU 476**) | Once in the locus of demons, a person sees them in their true form. Upon returning, the person sees the demon again, which ordinary people are incapable of doing. The demon blinds him. | 30 | 42 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.