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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K65 | Spirits of loci. | Having been cast out, discarded, or born of the first ancestors, creatures of a certain category acquire individuality, transforming into spirits who are the masters of various loci. | 40 | 61 |
| K99a1 In K99 family | The condemned riddle-solver is freed. | A man thrown into prison is released and exalted because he alone manages to solve the riddles set by the king or save the princess (king, prince, etc.). | 45 | 61 |
| K32d In K32 family | The replaced one grazes cattle. | As a result of the antagonist's intrigues, a noble girl (young woman) or boy (young man) is turned into a servant or servant, sent to graze cattle or chase birds in the field. Everything is revealed – usually after people hear a song in which the hero or heroine tells about the substitution. Most often, the hero or heroine goes to relatives or (less often) to the groom. The deceiver accompanies her or him and is accepted as a relative or bride. The deceiver is executed. Comoros: the deceiver becomes the mistress, turning the girl's parents into peacocks. | 44 | 62 |
| K65e In K65 family | Midwife in the demonic world, ATU 476**, (ATU 156B*). | A woman is invited into the non-human world, where she delivers a child for one of the creatures (or serves as a nanny for a certain period of time, baptises the child). Then she returns to the human world. | 40 | 63 |
| K107d In K107 family | Trying to wake up a wonderful spouse. | After overcoming difficulties, a girl (rarely a boy) finds a magical spouse, but at first cannot wake him (her) up. | 34 | 64 |
| K120a3 In K120 family | Dress in a nut. | The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. | 38 | 64 |
| K123a In K123 family | The broken jug. | A boy or young man accidentally, or more often out of mischief, breaks or overturns a vessel belonging to a woman or girl. This episode forms the basis of the rest of the story. | 41 | 64 |
| K131b In K131 family | Magical objects exchanged and returned, ATU 569. | Having received and then lost a magical object, the hero returns it with the help of a new one (a club, a box with an army, etc.), received in exchange for the first or obtained by the hero's brother. The episode may be repeated several times. | 54 | 64 |
| K13a In K13 family | Severed leg: a person ascends to the sky. | The character's leg (rarely: both legs) is cut off, bitten off, torn off, or damaged. The character ascends to the sky: to the moon; becomes the moon; turns into a star or constellation; becomes the sun; blood flowing from the leg colours the sky. | 30 | 64 |
| K14c In K14 family | Son mistaken for lover, ATU 910B. | Returning after a long absence and seeing signs that there is another man in the house, a man thinks that his wife has a lover, but does not rush to act and convinces himself that it is his own son or his wife's relative. | 61 | 64 |
| K1e In K1 family | Abandoned on an island, K1616. | The character is abandoned on an island or on the other side of a river or sea. See motif K1A. | 89 | 64 |
| K73b1 In K73 family | Mother and child in a barrel. | A woman with her newborn son (pregnant with a boy) or a girl with a young man are placed in a barrel (box; rarely: in a boat) and lowered into the sea (river). | 37 | 64 |
| K101 | Night dances of girls, ATU 306. | A girl or boy disappears at night. Usually, the girl's clothes or shoes are worn out overnight, or the boy looks sick and tired in the morning. The girl or boy is followed and seen spending the night in another world. | 57 | 65 |
| K27z1 In K27 family | Don't take the cage, don't take the bridle! ATU 550. | The assistant teaches how to steal the desired object, but not to take anything else (take the bird, but not the cage, the horse, but not the bridle, etc.). The character takes what he should not, is caught, released on the promise to deliver another object, then the girl. In the end, the hero keeps both the girl and everything he stole. {ATU 550 includes a much wider range of texts; in particular, the Indian, Burmese and Persian variants mentioned in Uther 2004 do not correspond to our definition}. | 70 | 65 |
| K77b1 In K77 family | Wolf's Head, ATU 125. | When they see predators, domestic animals consciously or accidentally behave in such a way that the predators flee in fear. | 59 | 65 |
| K157 | Robbers killed one by one, ATU 304. | The character lures his opponents out one by one and cuts off each one's head as soon as they appear. Less commonly, a multi-headed opponent sticks out its heads one by one, and the hero cuts them off. | 56 | 66 |
| K66d In K66 family | Bear fosterling. | A boy who grew up (was conceived) in a bear's den (lion's cave) becomes a bogatyr. | 57 | 66 |
| K120a In K120 family | Prevented incest (sister and brother), (ATU 313E). | A man is going to marry his sister (often it turns out that she is the only one who meets the requirements for a bride). Usually, the girl manages to avoid such a marriage. | 62 | 67 |
| K2 | The discarded ladder. | The hero climbs or descends a ladder, rope, pole, etc. The rope, etc. breaks or is cut. Usually, another character deliberately throws away the ladder, cuts the rope, or breaks off the lower branches of the tree, making return impossible. See motif K1A. {Statistical calculations for this motif also include all texts from motif K2A, except for Koreans}. | 102 | 67 |
| K44 | The false mother is rejected. | The character kidnaps the boy or hides him from his mother or father, pretending to be his mother or father. The kidnapped boy learns the truth and leaves the kidnapper. | 35 | 67 |
| K80b In K80 family | Mother killed, father ate, ATU 720. | The mother or stepmother kills the boy (rarely a girl) and usually feeds her husband, i.e. the child's father, his flesh. The boy is reborn, usually (at first) in the form of a bird that tells the story of what happened. Cf. motif K80A. Traditions in which the boy is killed by his own mother are highlighted in bold. | 59 | 67 |
| K103d In K103 family | Enter the horse's ear and take it out of the cow's ear. | An animal (rarely a demonic creature) orders the hero or heroine to retrieve necessary items from its ear or to enter its ear in order to transform, fall asleep, etc. | 40 | 68 |
| K17 | Ornithomorphic groom. | A male character in the form of a winged creature approaches a girl and either magically or unnoticed by her impregnates her. See motif K16: taking the form of an animal or bird, he enters the girl's house. | 76 | 68 |
| K27g4 In K27 family | Sow, reap and bake bread in one day. | The character must complete all field work in an unimaginably short time and present the products of the new harvest. | 47 | 68 |
| K27x9 In K27 family | Retrieving an object from the bottom of the sea. | The hero must retrieve a small object (often a ring or signet ring) thrown into deep water (often the sea). Cf. motif C6 ("The Diver"). | 47 | 68 |
| K117 | Nesmeyana (bride, young man), ATU 559, (571). | A woman will marry the man who makes her laugh; a man promises a reward to anyone who makes his daughter, mother or son laugh. | 51 | 69 |
| K27x7 In K27 family | The lord of the animals summons them and questions them. | On the way to their destination, people meet characters who have power over animals (birds, fish) or demons. They summon the animals (demons) and ask if anyone knows the way to a certain place. Only one person knows, usually the last to appear. | 43 | 69 |
| K62 | War of animals, Th B260-B263. | Animals, birds, etc. fight or play with each other, divided into two hostile camps. The stakes are high, often life itself. {Data incomplete}. ATU 222. B261, war between birds and animals. ATU 222A. B261.1, the bat joins first one side, then the other. K2323.1, the raised tail of a fox serves as a signal. | 55 | 69 |
| K93a In K93 family | Sword on the marriage bed, T351. | When lying down with a woman, a man places a sharp or pointed object between her and himself as a sign that he will abstain from sex during the night (sometimes the woman places the sword herself). | 52 | 69 |
| K37a In K37 family | Recognising a man. | The character must identify his son or husband among many identical people or animals. See motif K37. | 56 | 70 |
| K27p1 In K27 family | The enemy father-in-law takes the form of an animal. | The father-in-law (less often the mother-in-law) orders the hero to kill or tame a dangerous animal or not to kill a certain animal while hunting. This animal is himself or his daughter (wife). | 51 | 71 |
| K27z In K27 family | Gambling for life and death. | A character gains power over another by winning a game of chance or an intellectual game (not a sporting competition). The motif includes all texts with motif K27z4. | 67 | 71 |
| K32a In K32 family | A man leaves on a journey. | A man is carrying his wife or daughter. Another woman or demonic character replaces her when the man leaves on a journey (rarely: falls asleep). | 54 | 71 |
| K67a In K67 family | The Drowned Wife, ATU 1120. | A character of low status annoys characters of high status. Learning of the intention of the characters of high status to drown him or his property (rarely: to strangle him), he arranges for one of them or their property to be drowned instead. | 67 | 71 |
| K100c In K100 family | The snake bites the girl's suitors, ATU 507 (main part, variant 2). | A woman (rarely a young man) does not know that inside her (him) there is something dangerous for her (his) marriage partner (usually a snake), or that on her wedding night she will turn into a snake, or that a snake will crawl in on her wedding night. The hero or his companion eliminates the danger. {Motif K100C is similar to F9f1, but the latter belongs to the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while K100C is adventurous}. | 48 | 72 |
| K122 | The queen of the other world finds the hero (ATU 551). | Having penetrated the world of a powerful woman, unattainable without the support of supernatural helpers, the man returns. The deceiver tries to take credit for the feat. The woman whom the hero met in her world finds him and punishes (rejects) the deceiver. | 45 | 72 |
| K38c In K38 family | A bird carries a hero. | After the hero helps the bird (usually by doing good to its chicks), it takes him to the place he desires, or instructs its chicks to do so. (This does not involve movement between levels of the universe; in the Sumerian version, the bird gives the hero the ability to move with lightning speed and directs him to his goal). | 60 | 72 |
| K98 | The slain man turns into a camp. | An animal or (less commonly) a woman who gave birth to a hero or helped him turns into a house and property. | 55 | 72 |
| K27u In K27 family | Hide, ATU 329. | Task: to hide (the hero finds the antagonist, and/or the antagonist cannot find the hero). See motif K27. | 80 | 73 |
| K32M In K32 family | The heroine is transformed into an animal (not drowned). | To take the heroine's place, her rival turns her into an animal or bird without pushing her into the water. Cf. motif k33. | 44 | 73 |
| K56a4 In K56 family | The messenger dog. | When a kind girl returns home, an animal or bird (usually a dog) announces that she is well, but when an unkind girl returns or when her dead body is brought back, the dog (rooster, crow) announces that something is wrong with her. | 40 | 74 |
| K77b In K77 family | Bremen Town Musicians, ATU 130. | Having left their owners, domestic animals find an empty house or build a house. Robbers or predatory animals come there. Domestic animals attack or simply scare them away. Predators do not understand who they are facing and flee. | 75 | 74 |
| K16 | The bird becomes a young man. | Taking the form of a bird, bat, insect, small animal, or fish, the man enters the young woman's home (her father's house). | 59 | 75 |
| K27r In K27 family | Passing away. | The person giving the task requires an item or message to be brought from the world. | 65 | 75 |
| K65c In K65 family | Eve's Unwashed Children, ATU 758. | A woman (rarely a man) hides some of her children (less often, all of them) or some of her domestic animals from God. According to God, the hidden children become either poor people or creatures of a non-human nature, and the hidden domestic animals become wild. | 47 | 75 |
| K118a In K118 family | Portrait of an unknown beauty. | Upon seeing the portrait of a beauty, a man strives to meet her. | 53 | 76 |
| K107a1 In K107 family | The head of the household brings the promised gifts, (ATU 425C). | When the head of the household leaves on business, those left behind ask him to bring them gifts. The elders ask for something of obvious value (usually clothing and jewellery), while the youngest ask for something unusual and, at first glance, of little value (a flower, a bird, etc.). As a result, it is the youngest who, having overcome trials, achieves success in life. | 50 | 77 |
| K151 | The Golden Fish, ATU 555. | A magical helper grants a poor man's simple wish. The poor man or his wife ask for more and more. In the end, the helper punishes the beggar (usually by taking away everything that was given). {Many references to texts outside Europe in Uther 2004 are not related to the plot of ATU 555 and do not contain the K151 motif. This applies in particular to the Arabic and Ossetian variants}. | 69 | 77 |
| K60a In K60 family | Are the bonds strong? | Unaware of the danger, the character allows himself to be tightly bound. | 65 | 77 |
| K93b3 In K93 family | Boys, foals, puppies: born together. | To have a child, a woman eats fish, an apple or something else. Part of it (often the peel, broth, skin, etc.) is eaten by a mare, dog or other animals. The woman gives birth to a son (twins), the mare to a foal (foals), the dog to a puppy (puppies). | 53 | 77 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.