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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K56b1 In K56 family | The Old Man with Golden Coals, ATU 751B*. | A poor man goes in search of fire. An old man by the fire gives him coals. At home, they turn into gold. An envious neighbour (brother) deliberately extinguishes the fire in his house and asks the old man for coals. His house burns down. | 9 | 5 |
| K56b2 In K56 family | Clenched jaws. | A supernatural creature (object) bestows wealth upon a modest person. A greedy person, trying to take more than their fair share, is caught and cannot free themselves (for a long time). Usually, the creature pinches the outstretched hand. | 5 | 6 |
| K56b3 In K56 family | Stench instead of fragrance. | A man's intestinal gases become fragrant. An envious person tries to achieve the same result, but the outcome is the opposite. | 2 | 2 |
| K56c In K56 family | The Golden Axe, ATU 729. | A man loses his axe. A spirit or chief offers him a golden one, but the man says that the axe is not his and for this he receives axes of gold and silver as a reward. Another man deliberately loses his ordinary axe, seeking to obtain a golden one, but suffers a fiasco. | 39 | 25 |
| K56d In K56 family | Broken leg. | One man treats a bird, which brings a seed, and something valuable grows. Another deliberately cripples a bird, then treats it, and it brings a seed, and something harmful and terrible grows. | 17 | 14 |
| 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 |
| K56e In K56 family | Two Hunchbacks, ATU 503. | Two people have the same physical defect (a bump, a hump). The first one finds himself in a place where spirits gather, and they rid him of his defect. The second comes to the spirits, and they double his defect, giving him what they took from the first person. (Uther 2004 mentions Kasevich, Osipov 1976, No. 171; the Karen text is published there and does not correspond to the definition of the motif). | 51 | 58 |
| K56e1 In K56 family | Song mentioning the days of the week. | A man sees dwarves (spirits, witches) having fun. Their song mentions the names of the days of the week. The man sings along, naming the days that the dwarves like. He is rewarded. (Usually, someone else tries to get the same reward, but names the wrong days of the week and is punished). | 17 | 26 |
| 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 |
| K56f1 In K56 family | The division of roosters, (ATU 1533.2). | Five chickens (geese, etc.) must be divided among six eaters (other numbers are possible). The solution is to give each pair of participants one chicken and take two for oneself (two chickens and one person – three, two people and one chicken – also three). | 24 | 23 |
| K56f2 In K56 family | Woman, two men, five eggs, ATU 1663. | In order to divide a certain number (often five) of eggs equally among people of different sexes, a cunning woman takes into account that each of the men already has two eggs. | 9 | 7 |
| K57 | Cinderella, ATU 510A. | A girl hides her beauty and/or lives in poverty, a man of high status sees her in her true form/in luxurious attire and takes her as his wife, recognising her by an item he gave her or she lost, usually a slipper or shoe, or by seeing her change her clothes. {All texts with this motif are also considered to contain the f62 motif}. | 116 | 230 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K57d In K57 family | Tight shoe, cut-off toes. | The prince marries the girl who fits the shoe. The girl cuts off her toes or heel so that the shoe will fit. | 24 | 26 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K58a In K58 family | Water in exchange for love. | The character brings water for irrigation or a fish river to the place where the girl agrees to meet him, and does not bring water if she refuses. (The parallel between the myths of Peru and Oregon was first noted in Lehmann-Nitsche 1935a; 1936). | 14 | 24 |
| K58b In K58 family | Turn of the watercourse: failure. | The character builds a canal, bridge, or dam. For some reason, the work cannot be completed as planned. | 9 | 3 |
| 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 |
| K60a In K60 family | Are the bonds strong? | Unaware of the danger, the character allows himself to be tightly bound. | 65 | 77 |
| K60b In K60 family | Invitation to the Coffin, ATU 330B, G514.1. | The character is invited to find out whether the box or pit is the right size for him, whether he can crawl through the opening, climb into the bag, etc., after which he is locked in a coffin, box, barrel, buried, etc. Cf. motif M56D. | 87 | 136 |
| K60c In K60 family | Stropiva with the king, patient with the groom. | The stubborn wife of a worthy man goes on a date with a demon or a servant. He beats her, but she patiently endures her lover's beatings. | 21 | 25 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K61b In K61 family | Learning names. | In order to learn the names of strangers, the character finds or creates a situation in which they call each other by name aloud. | 20 | 21 |
| K61c In K61 family | Find out the name, ATU 500. | A demon agrees to help (agrees not to harm) a person on condition that the person guesses his name. At the last moment, the person accidentally learns the demon's name, and the demon disappears or rewards the person. | 50 | 48 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K61e In K61 family | The one who laughs rewards. | Seeing an absurd situation, a powerful (supernatural) character laughs and is thereby usually cured of his ailment. For this, the people involved in the situation are rewarded and saved from danger. | 14 | 16 |
| K61f In K61 family | The Living Doll, ATU 459. | Fearing her husband's wrath, a childless woman pretends to have given birth. Her husband believes that he has a daughter or son, and after some time marries her off (marries him off). During the wedding ceremony, a doll or animal is placed under the veil (in the palanquin), but at the last moment, a supernatural character transforms the supposed bride (groom) into a girl or boy. | 5 | 5 |
| 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 |
| K62a In K62 family | The Quarrel of the Mouse and the Bird, ATU 222B. | A mouse (rat, mole, etc.) and a bird quarrel after failing to divide their winter supplies. (This episode usually serves as the beginning of a story about a war between birds and animals). | 38 | 43 |
| 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 |
| K63 | Fish babies and deer people. | A man comes to people who hunt humans or catch fish-people. For them, these are wild animals or fish. | 19 | 21 |
| K64 | Escape from the cave of the herd owner, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. | Finding himself in the dwelling of the master of the herds or the owner of wild animals, the character fears that the master will kill him. To escape to freedom, he clings to the underside of one of the animals leaving the pen or cave. | 82 | 148 |
| K64a In K64 family | The Blinded Cyclops, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. | A man blinds a sleeping or immobile giant-cannibal and escapes from him. | 75 | 126 |
| K64b In K64 family | Sticky object. | The hero's opponent provokes him to touch an object that turns out to be sticky. The hero sticks to the object (see Miller 1890: 41). See motif K64. | 33 | 43 |
| K64c In K64 family | The blacksmith blinds the cyclops. | The person who gouges out or burns out the cyclops's only (sighted) eye is a blacksmith. | 6 | 10 |
| 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 |
| K65a In K65 family | Spirits fall from the sky. | After being thrown from a height or expelled, various creatures end up in different locations, acquiring corresponding functions and names. | 36 | 54 |
| K65b In K65 family | People and spirits. | Spirits (deities) or unpleasant animals (snakes, frogs, worms, etc.) are generated by the same first anthropomorphic pair or the same pair of first ancestors as humans (deities). | 32 | 58 |
| 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 |
| K65c1 In K65 family | Division into servants and masters, (ATU 758). | A woman gives birth to many children, but hides some of them from God. Those who are hidden become the progenitors of people of low social status, and those who are shown become the progenitors of people of high status. {The definition of plot 758 in Uther 2004 largely coincides with ours, but the references also include traditions in which children hidden from God become spirits rather than people of low status}. | 18 | 20 |
| K65c2 In K65 family | Man and tiger. | A woman or female animal gives birth to several sons, including a human and a tiger. | 4 | 7 |
| 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 |
| K65d In K65 family | Incorrect marriage rites and the birth of spirits. | The first human couple initially only have miscarriages, or their children are spirits or unpleasant and dangerous animals. After performing a formal marriage ceremony or repeating it according to new rules, the woman gives birth to real people or gods. | 7 | 16 |
| 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 |
| K65e1 In K65 family | Midwife to a toad. | A woman delivers a baby (baptises a child) for a creature that in the human world has the appearance of a toad or frog. | 14 | 15 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.