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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K33a7 In K33 family | The widower, his daughter (son) and the teacher. | After the death of a woman, her daughter or son advises her father to marry a neighbour, teacher, etc., who usually persuades the teenager to give such advice. After marrying the widower, the new wife begins to tyrannise her stepdaughter or stepson. | 24 | 30 |
| K33h1 In K33 family | Replace the old ring with a new one. | The hero's wife (mother, servant) is unaware of the magical properties of an object kept in the house and exchanges it for something more attractive, but in reality incomparable in value. | 35 | 30 |
| K38f6 In K38 family | Fire creature. | A creature consisting of fire is mentioned. | 26 | 30 |
| K6 | Rope made from bodily secretions. | A vine or rope emerges from tears, snot, urine, saliva, and chewed substance. See motif K1A. | 21 | 30 |
| K62a1 In K62 family | A man nurses a wounded eagle. | A man saves (spares) and nurses a wounded bird. Having regained its strength, the bird puts him on its back and carries him to a distant land or to the sky. | 30 | 30 |
| K82a In K82 family | Pregnancy from snake eggs. | A malevolent woman forces a woman to swallow a snake egg (snake, something else) so that a man will think that the woman is pregnant out of wedlock (rarely: so that snakes will suck the juices out of her). Cf. motif L89. | 22 | 30 |
| K133 | The exhausted horse. | A man notices that his horse (donkey) looks tired and learns that an animal or demonic creature is riding it. Cf. motif M182a. | 22 | 31 |
| K156a In K156 family | Trials: girl or boy? | People suspect that the young man is a girl in disguise. Tests are proposed to determine this, but the girl manages to avoid exposure (for a long time). | 28 | 31 |
| K159 | Peas underfoot. | When two characters are fighting, someone nearby wants one of them to slip (while the other remains firmly on their feet) and throws something under their feet for this purpose. | 30 | 31 |
| K1B In K1 family | Trap: abandoned woman. | A woman is lured onto a tree, rock or island and left there. | 23 | 31 |
| K27z5 In K27 family | Agreement to marry children, (926C*). | Two men agree to marry their children if one has a son and the other has a daughter. The girl's parents do not fulfil the agreement. The boy grows up and finds his betrothed. | 26 | 31 |
| K33a6 In K33 family | Knives are sharpened, cauldrons are boiling. | A kid (lamb, gazelle, etc.) runs up to a pond into which its owner has pushed it and says that knives are being sharpened and water is being boiled to slaughter and cook it. | 21 | 31 |
| K52c In K52 family | Flooding in the home. | Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion and that those present also see animals (waterfowl, fish or marine mammals). | 23 | 31 |
| K56a2 In K56 family | Asks to do worse. | A character (usually a girl) comes to another (usually an old woman). The latter asks the visitor to perform absurd and harmful actions (to mess up the house, bring dirty water, etc.). The visitor does the opposite of what is asked (cleans the house, brings clean water) and is rewarded. The other character does everything literally and is punished. | 34 | 31 |
| K61c1 In K61 family | Overheard secret of a demon, (ATU 500, ATU 1091A). | A person will die if they cannot find the answer to the demon's question. A person or their acquaintance accidentally learns the answer by overhearing the demon talking to himself or to another demon. See motif C29. | 25 | 31 |
| K75b In K75 family | Three melons from three daughters. | Wanting to show that it is time for them to marry, daughters of different ages send their father fruits of varying degrees of ripeness (bread baked in different ways). | 26 | 31 |
| K85b In K85 family | Three-legged horse. | The three-legged horse is distinguished by its strength and speed, and is ridden by a rider of non-human nature. | 21 | 31 |
| K89 | The girl and the witch: gifts from relatives. | After getting married, the heroine and her rival (witch, frog) must bring gifts from their relatives. The heroine finds her brother, brothers or sister who went missing at the beginning of the story and receives rich gifts from them, while the gifts brought by her rival are worthless. | 20 | 31 |
| K114 | Brothers leave after the birth of their sister (ATU 451). | Several brothers leave home immediately after or shortly before their mother gives birth to a girl (usually they want a brother and wait for news about who their mother has given birth to, but accidentally or maliciously a signal is given that a boy has been born). The girl grows up and goes in search of her brothers. | 27 | 32 |
| K154a In K154 family | Men in the harem. | By solving a riddle, a boy or young man (rarely a girl) exposes the daughter, wife or assistants of an authoritative character: the daughter or wife has a lover; the assistant is plotting a conspiracy. | 24 | 32 |
| K181 | The horse from the dungeon. | The hero finds a suitable horse in the dungeon (in the basement, in an empty castle, in deep mud, etc.), where it has stood for many years. | 19 | 32 |
| K42 | Bird woman kills men. | A young bird woman energetically searches among a group of men for one she likes, takes him by force and makes him her husband; she turns into a monster, pursues and kills men, but is ultimately killed herself. | 15 | 32 |
| K56a8 In K56 family | An animal mistakenly taken for a groom. | A girl marries an animal (brings it with her), and it turns into a handsome man. Another girl tries to do the same, but dies or suffers harm. | 22 | 32 |
| K72a In K72 family | Prohibition on lighting fires. | The king notices that his prohibition on lighting fires at night has been violated. | 21 | 32 |
| K11a1 In K11 family | Birds arise from a monster bird. | Pieces of flesh or feathers from a monstrous/unusual bird turn into present-day birds (or their plumage). | 26 | 33 |
| K12b In K12 family | The sorceress's husband breaks the ban, ATU 400(1). | The hero enters a world beyond the human world and marries there. His wife allows him to visit his former world, but on certain conditions. The hero breaks these conditions, which leads to (irreparable) misfortune. Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his fairy wife in her world); K25a6 (the hero visits his world together with his fairy wife). | 28 | 33 |
| K134 | Found treasures. | A guest is planted with treasure in order to accuse him of theft. | 26 | 33 |
| K165 | Seeking to experience fear, ATU 326. | The young man has never experienced fear and wants to know what it is like. Robbers and evil spirits do not frighten him. | 39 | 33 |
| K27r1 In K27 family | The supposed burnt. | The antagonist believes that the hero was burned, but returned safely from the afterlife, so he orders himself or his representative to be burned. | 30 | 33 |
| K29d In K29 family | Drunken elephants. | To catch an animal or supernatural character, the water in a reservoir is replaced with wine, honey, etc., or containers with alcohol are left in plain sight. The creature, having lost control of itself, is captured. | 23 | 33 |
| K32h In K32 family | Buried alive. | The antagonist is executed by being buried alive. | 23 | 33 |
| K67e In K67 family | Before the First Cuckoo, ATU 1029. | Someone promises to fulfil their duties until they hear a bird singing at a certain moment in a temporal cycle (annual or daily). Another character imitates the bird. The first recognises the deception. | 50 | 33 |
| K73a7 In K73 family | Miraculous children: a sister with two brothers. | A woman gives birth to three (not two or many) miraculous children – two boys and a girl. They grow up and triumph over their enemies. | 26 | 33 |
| K75a3 In K75 family | Groom. | Appearing incognito to an authoritative character, the hero works for him as a groom. | 27 | 33 |
| K80c2 In K80 family | Those who find treasure kill each other, ATU 763. | Two (or more) people find (steal) valuables. Unwilling to share, one kills the other, but dies himself, poisoned by the poison that the victim manages to slip into his food. | 53 | 33 |
| K120a4 In K120 family | Fill the vessel with tears. | The character must fill a vessel with tears (pour them on the floor). | 30 | 34 |
| K120a5 In K120 family | Luring a woman onto a ship. | To obtain a woman, a man lures her onto a ship (boat, flying machine, etc.) and takes her away. | 28 | 34 |
| K146 | The hero is revived by the remedy he was sent to fetch. | The hero is sent to fetch a remedy that can cure the sick or revive the dead. On the way back, a woman who is friendly to the hero keeps part of the remedy (or all of it, replacing it with a fake) and, when the hero is treacherously killed, revives him. | 27 | 34 |
| K14d In K14 family | Imaginary crime, (ATU 910A). | Testing his wife (household member, acquaintance), a man pretends to have committed a crime or performs incomprehensible actions that could be interpreted as a crime. Usually, his wife (friend) betrays him, and he presents evidence of his innocence. | 37 | 34 |
| K27z2b In K27 family | The Murdered Doll, ATU 879. | The complicated relationship between a simple girl and a prince leads to the prince intending to kill his bride on their wedding night. The girl substitutes a doll for herself, the prince stabs the doll with his sword, mistakes the spurting juice (syrup, honey) for blood, and repents of the murder. The real girl appears, and the young couple are happy. | 41 | 34 |
| K27z8 In K27 family | Riddles that cannot be solved, ATU 851, 927. | A person poses a riddle that can only be solved by knowing the circumstances in which he found himself. | 47 | 34 |
| K27zz In K27 family | The Cannibal and the Blinded Wives, ATU 462. | A man does not suspect that his (new) wife (less often his mother) is a cannibal/witch/treacherous woman; she persecutes (former) wives (his wife) and/or blinds them or throws them into a pit, or her husband does so at her instigation. Contrary to the cannibal's plans, the son of one of the wives survives, kills the cannibal, and rescues his mother and sisters. | 28 | 34 |
| K76a In K76 family | The frog son and the frog husband. | A frog or toad marries a beautiful woman, or a handsome young man marries a frog. | 25 | 34 |
| K91 | The invisible battle. | Dogs, the hero's horse, or the hero himself fight the enemy in the underworld. Those watching from a distance judge the course of the battle by the colour of the water or foam rising to the surface, the colour of the first animal to emerge, etc. | 37 | 34 |
| K119b In K119 family | Animals as gifts to the king. | After tricking wild animals, the fox brings them to the king as a gift from her rich master. | 27 | 35 |
| K19c In K19 family | Mistress in a handbag. | A man brings home a small creature with which he makes love at night. The man's mother, sister or wife finds the creature in his bed or purse. | 18 | 35 |
| K27x6a In K27 family | The character encounters the mother of the sun. | The character comes to the mother of the Sun when the Sun itself is not there. Cf. motif b33h ("Mother of the Sun"). | 32 | 35 |
| K27z3 In K27 family | The Cat with the Lamp, ATU 217. | The character taught the cat (monkey, dog) to hold a candle (lamp) or to extinguish it on command. Seeing a mouse (rat), the cat rushes after it and as a result drops (does not extinguish) the candle. | 50 | 35 |
| K38f5 In K38 family | Fire-breathing horse, B15.5.1. | Flames burst from the horse's mouth and/or nostrils, or the entire horse is engulfed in fire. | 25 | 35 |
| K57b In K57 family | The stuck-on shoe. | To stop a beautiful woman from running away, a man in love with her smears resin or glue on the threshold (porch). The shoe sticks, and all the girls try it on to find its owner. | 24 | 35 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.