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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K103a1 In K103 family | The tree follows its mistress. | A tree that suddenly grows allows only the heroine to enjoy its fruits and follows her when she moves to a new place. | 6 | 11 |
| K11 | The eyes of a monstrous bird: metamorphosis. | Brothers (brother and sister) kill a monstrous bird. Its eyes turn into heavenly bodies (among the Oaxacan Indians) or something else (among the present-day Condors of the Yokuts). | 8 | 11 |
| K143 | The bird catcher hero. | The protagonist of the narrative is a bird catcher or bird hunter, or the son of a bird catcher (hunter). | 11 | 11 |
| K145a In K145 family | The image kills. | A person is predicted to die at the hands of an animal. He is killed (or attempted to be killed) by a living image of an animal or a statue in the form of an animal that falls on him. | 12 | 11 |
| K19e In K19 family | Wolverine under a tree. | Returning from the sky to earth, a woman or two sisters encounter a male wolverine who tries to capture them. Usually, the women who have descended first find themselves in a tree. Some animals cannot or will not help them descend to the ground. The wolverine descends to take the sisters as wives; they run away from him. See motif K19B. | 14 | 11 |
| K23a In K23 family | Feathers – birds' weapons. | Birds use their feathers as arrows, or falling feathers cover the mouths of their victims. | 9 | 11 |
| K27d In K27 family | House with dangerous creatures. | The test: to stay alive in a room full of predatory, poisonous and other dangerous creatures. See motif K27. | 13 | 11 |
| K27g2 In K27 family | Roof made of feathers. | The character must build a house out of bird feathers or cover the roof, bridge, etc. with feathers. | 7 | 11 |
| K27n3c2 In K27 family | The enemy – the father-in-law bear. | The hero's father-in-law, the bear, sets him difficult tasks and trials. | 7 | 11 |
| K27v3 In K27 family | Shooting an arrow through a ring. | The character must hit a small ring with an arrow or shoot it through several rings. (The main materials were identified by Y.V. Vasilkov and presented in Vasilkov 2018). | 11 | 11 |
| K2a3 In K2 family | The hero is left on the mountain. | The hero's companions leave him on the mountain, destroying the rope (chain) by which he climbed up or which he lowered down. | 9 | 11 |
| K32b1 In K32 family | Mother replaces daughter. | The man's mother-in-law takes on the appearance of her daughter to take her place. See motif K32. | 17 | 11 |
| k33c4 In k33 family | Girl in a pumpkin. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a pumpkin, eggplant or cucumber. | 9 | 11 |
| K35a6 In K35 family | Glowing feather. | The character illuminates the room with a light-emitting object (usually a feather) that he has found. | 9 | 11 |
| K38b2 In K38 family | A bird carries away the hero, the hero kills the snake. | A character (almost always a giant bird) brings the hero to its nest, after which the hero accidentally or at the bird's request kills the monster that was devouring the character's children (usually chicks). | 8 | 11 |
| K56a3 In K56 family | Do not tie shoelaces. | A wandering girl or young girl should not tie her shoelaces or the laces on her shoes or clothing. If she does so, she will get into trouble. | 12 | 11 |
| K76g In K76 family | The crab son. | The son or foster son of a married couple – a crab. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. | 8 | 11 |
| K85c In K85 family | Four legs are faster than three. | A three-legged horse is strong and fast, but its four-legged brother is faster. | 12 | 11 |
| K90a In K90 family | Aimed at the black one, hit the white one. | Seeing two snakes of contrasting colours fighting, a man tries to strike one, but accidentally hits the other. The relatives of this snake gather to punish him, but upon learning what happened, they reward him. | 11 | 11 |
| K10b In K10 family | The Carried Away Cage. | A huge bird carries away to its nest a cage, bag or other container in which people are located. See motif 10A. | 11 | 12 |
| k117c1 In k117 family | To play before death. | A man sentenced to death asks to be given something from his possessions, usually a musical instrument. Once he has it, he gains power over those gathered and is saved. | 12 | 12 |
| K137a In K137 family | A girl disguised as a young man finds a wife for her brother. | The brother is killed. The sister, dressed in his clothes, finds a woman. The brother comes back to life, the sister puts on women's clothes again, and the woman believes that the girl's brother was the one who married her. | 11 | 12 |
| K140 | Demonstratively ungrateful. | Travelling with his sister or brother, the young man regularly kills his saviours and helpers, exposing himself to ever new dangers. | 9 | 12 |
| K168a In K168 family | Food turns into severed body parts, ATU 664*. | A person thinks that they are holding something intended for food (a calf's head, a melon, bread, etc.), but these objects turn into human heads or limbs. Cf. motif K80c1. | 15 | 12 |
| K27o2 In K27 family | Playing with a dangerous ball. | To destroy the hero, his opponents play ball with him, throwing a heavy dangerous object (a ball made of ice, bone, stone, iron, a walrus head, a biting skull, etc.). | 7 | 12 |
| K27z2d In K27 family | The sparrow's quarrel with her husband. | A conflict arises between a pair of birds (sparrows, pigeons, etc.), in which the male is more likely (and more often clearly) to be at fault. This episode serves as the starting point for a story about the relationships between people of noble origin. | 12 | 12 |
| k33c2 In k33 family | Girl in a pomegranate. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a pomegranate. | 10 | 12 |
| K37d In K37 family | Recognised by teeth marks. | The character recognises the presence of another by noticing traces of their teeth or nails on fruit or leaves. | 11 | 12 |
| K56a5a In K56 family | Skinning oneself to rejuvenate (ATU 877). | To become a young beauty, an old or unattractive woman asks to have her skin stripped off. Cf. motif H4. | 10 | 12 |
| K56ab In K56 family | The girl takes off her shirts, the snake takes off its skin (ATU 433B). | A girl marries a monster. On their wedding night, he orders her to take off her shirt, and she orders him to take off his skin. The girl survives, and the monster becomes handsome – usually because she has more shirts (or skins worn in advance) than he does. | 12 | 12 |
| k57e In k57 family | Daughter is persuaded to kill her mother. | Due to her naivety or by accident, a young girl causes her mother's death. | 11 | 12 |
| K73a2 In K73 family | The child is replaced with a broom. | The ill-wishers of the new mother replace the baby with a broom (they tell the father that his wife has given birth to a broom). | 8 | 12 |
| K76d In K76 family | The Hedgehog Son, ATU 441. | The son or foster child of a married couple is a hedgehog. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. | 13 | 12 |
| K136b In K136 family | Rubies from the river, (ATU 467). | A character finds precious stones or unusual flowers (usually in a river) and learns where they come from. | 10 | 13 |
| K138 | Body swap (king and vizier), ATU 678. | A person gains the ability to revive the dead by incarnating in their body. While they remain in it, their own body is dead. Another person takes the body of the first, leaving them with the body of an animal. | 12 | 13 |
| K171 | The weaver creates an army. | The heroes fight, but the number of enemies does not decrease, because someone is constantly weaving (forging) new warriors. | 12 | 13 |
| K182 | The deceived protector. | A supernatural defender comes to the rescue upon hearing the alarm, but stops doing so after the alarm has been raised in vain. | 5 | 13 |
| k185 | Father fights son. | Not recognising his son, the father fights him and kills him. {In this formulation, the motif is rare, and in more general ones it has no clear boundaries}. | 14 | 13 |
| K25c In K25 family | The boy under the onion. | While digging roots, gathering shellfish, etc., a woman finds a baby. He grows up and enters into a struggle with dangerous characters. | 10 | 13 |
| K27a In K27 family | Night in the cold. | Test: spend the night in the cold (the antagonist tries to destroy the hero in this way). See motif K27. Compare motif M35: two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will sit out the night in the cold. | 13 | 13 |
| K27t In K27 family | Competition: climbing a pole. | Competition: climbing a pole. See motif K27. | 17 | 13 |
| k32g3 In k32 family | What does the perpetrator deserve? . | The villain is asked what punishment he deserves for committing the crime in question. Not knowing that they are talking about him, he decides for himself how he should be executed. | 8 | 13 |
| K43c In K43 family | The dog unties the children. | The bound children (a young man and his sister) are left alone in an empty camp, and the animal frees them. | 9 | 13 |
| K56d1 In K56 family | Treasures in a pumpkin. | A pumpkin or watermelon (grown from gifted seeds) given to a person turns out to contain treasures. | 12 | 13 |
| K61a1 In K61 family | Two heads in a sack. | A dangerous character mistakes two people sleeping (hiding) in a sack or two people lying with their feet towards each other for a single creature. | 13 | 13 |
| K65c3 In K65 family | Eve is ashamed of her large family. | A woman (alone or with her husband) hides some of her children from God because she is ashamed of having given birth to so many offspring. | 11 | 13 |
| K76h In K76 family | The magical groom threatens disaster. | A young man, temporarily having a strange or monstrous appearance (freak, animal, etc.), woos a princess, but is rejected. Then he causes natural disasters or creates personal troubles for the king, who is forced to give up his daughter. | 10 | 13 |
| K13b In K13 family | A caiman bites off a leg. | A man crosses a body of water on the back of a caiman. The caiman bites off his leg. The cripple undergoes a metamorphosis, turning into a constellation or an animal. | 9 | 14 |
| K178 | The enchanted husband drives away and finds his wife again, ATU 425E, 425L. | A girl descends into the underworld to her magical husband, and when she breaks the ban, he drives her away (sends her away with a task). She comes to live with other people, she has a child from her magical husband. Her husband finds her, the spouses are reunited, the spell is broken. {Motif in the work} | 17 | 14 |
| K1d In K1 family | The hero's wife's brothers abandon him. | The hero's wife's brothers try to kill him by leaving him on an island. | 8 | 14 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.