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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K27p In K27 family | The antagonist mourns his assistants. | The antagonist sends the hero to places where he is attacked by dangerous creatures; the hero kills them and brings them to the antagonist. The creatures turn out to be relatives, pupils or helpers of the antagonist, whom he (or his close relatives) mourns or revives. See motif K27. | 0 | 0 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K128a In K128 family | The best apples for the princess, ATU 610. | Each of the three brothers brings the princess (prince) a gift of fruit (less often fish, etc.) and encounters a character who punishes rudeness and rewards politeness. As a result (after additional trials), the youngest brother enters into the desired marriage. | 23 | 21 |
| K168b In K168 family | The bewildered man became a bear. | A person makes another person believe that he has turned into a bear (wolf), found himself in the forest, etc. When he wakes up, the bewitched person finds himself where he was before. | 10 | 9 |
| 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 |
| K43b In K43 family | The bird brings meat. | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are left behind or driven away discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. Those who are abandoned eat their fill, while those who abandon them go hungry. A character (often a bird - a crow, magpie, seagull, etc.) visits the abandoned and brings a piece of fat or meat to the camp of the starving. | 20 | 24 |
| 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 |
| K10h In K10 family | The bird feeds, but does not let go. | A bird carries a woman or boy to its nest, feeds them, but does not let them go. The captive runs away. | 10 | 8 |
| K94 | The bird of happiness (eaten head), ATU 567, 567A. | Those who eat a miraculous bird, fish, animal or fruit gain wealth and power. | 113 | 128 |
| K32f In K32 family | The bird son saves his mother. | A woman or girl raises a bird of prey chick, which brings her food and fire. This usually happens after an evil spirit leaves the girl or young woman in a tree or on an island. | 6 | 7 |
| K80a1 In K80 family | The bird tells of the crime. | A bird (usually arising from the remains of the murdered person or embodying their soul) tells of the crime committed or takes revenge on the murderer itself. | 45 | 55 |
| K27z2f In K27 family | The Biting Doll, ATU 571C. | A poor girl buys a doll (goose) that defecates gold. When the neighbours take the doll, it only dirties their house. They throw it away, and the prince uses it to wipe himself, and it sticks to his backside. No one can help, but the poor girl easily solves the problem. The prince marries her. | 8 | 8 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K88c In K88 family | The blood of a dog will cure the princess. | The character learns that the blood (brain, etc.) of the dog guarding the neighbouring herd will cure the princess (prince). He uses this medicine and is rewarded. | 12 | 15 |
| K80a5 In K80 family | The boar and the fratricides. | Brothers, competing as suitors or heirs, must hunt a boar. The younger brother succeeds. The older brothers kill him and take the boar for themselves. The truth comes out. | 8 | 20 |
| K18b In K18 family | The boy stops crying. | Men or women approach the little boy one after another or take him in their arms. The person who makes the boy stop crying is recognised as his parent. See motif K18. | 1 | 1 |
| K18a In K18 family | The boy takes a bow and arrows. | The boy's father is recognised as the man whose bow or arrows he chooses. See motif K18. | 13 | 4 |
| 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 |
| K113a In K113 family | The bride where the arrow fell. | A young man throws an object, shoots an arrow, etc. Where the arrow lands (where the object falls), the young man finds a wife or a means of obtaining one. | 47 | 61 |
| 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 |
| K89b In K89 family | The brother left on the tree. | At the beginning of the story, the sister parts with her brothers (or one brother), who die, remain on trees, on a hill, ascend to the sky, etc. Usually, after a successful marriage, the sister meets her brothers again, who have acquired superhuman nature. | 14 | 24 |
| 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 |
| K103c In K103 family | The bull-helper fights in the copper forest. | Sitting on a bull or a cow, a young man or woman runs away from their stepmother's house. Along the way, the bull fights other bulls (monsters), the last of which usually kills it. | 8 | 10 |
| K139 | The burnt pheasant. | A servant is so struck by the beauty of a girl (rarely: a boy) that he lets the meat or bread intended for his master burn. | 17 | 18 |
| K76f In K76 family | The calf-boy. | A young man with the appearance of a calf marries and then turns into a handsome man. | 9 | 8 |
| 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 |
| K13c In K13 family | The cannibal's daughter avenges her mother on her husband. | The cannibal's daughter takes revenge on her husband for her mother's death and manages to cut off his leg. See motif K13A. | 0 | 0 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K10g In K10 family | The chick descends to the ground. | Finding himself in the nest of a giant bird on a tree or rock, a man descends to the ground with the help of an adult bird (attaching its feathers or wings to himself), and more often - a chick (grabbing its legs, sitting on the chick, attaching its feathers or wings). | 17 | 21 |
| K10f In K10 family | The chicks turn into ordinary eagles. | The character turns the children of a flying monster into ordinary eagles or owls. | 22 | 22 |
| K30a In K30 family | The chief's wife and the vultures. | The wife of the first ancestor flies away with the vultures (usually voluntarily, after she has already cheated on her husband), and the chief (Uito: her brother) brings her back. See motif K30. | 9 | 7 |
| K87a1 In K87 family | The child is handed over. | A demonic woman asks the baby's mother to let her hold him or secretly replaces another person who was supposed to take the child. Once she has the baby, the demon takes him away. | 13 | 10 |
| K73a5 In K73 family | The child is replaced by a kitten. | Malicious women replace the newborn with a kitten (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a kitten). See motifs K73, K73A. | 37 | 59 |
| K73a4 In K73 family | The child is replaced by a puppy. | Malicious women replace the newborn with a puppy (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a puppy). See motifs K73, K73A. | 131 | 237 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K73a3 In K73 family | The child is replaced with a doll. | The midwife's ill-wishers replace the baby with a statue or doll (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a doll). | 7 | 9 |
| K73a2a In K73 family | The child is replaced with a log. | After hiding or discarding a newborn baby, ill-wishers replace it with a piece of wood and/or inform the father that his wife has given birth to a piece of wood. | 6 | 6 |
| K167 | The Child King. | A boy plays, pretending to be a king and demonstrating wisdom and/or magical abilities. | 12 | 8 |
| K38e2 In K38 family | The collapsed kingdom. | Returning from the underworld to earth, the princess places the objects surrounding her (clothes, house, "kingdom") into a small object (egg, ball of yarn, etc.), which she takes with her. | 26 | 51 |
| 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 |
| K38e1 In K38 family | The Copper Forest, (ATU 511). | Characters pass through a forest with metal trees of two or more types (copper, silver, etc.). | 32 | 43 |
| K103 | The cow as helper, ATU 511. | A domestic animal (horse, cow, bull, goat, ram, sheep) helps an orphan, a lonely child, or an unfortunate young woman. | 118 | 164 |
| 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 |
| K27z4a In K27 family | The cripple demands the return of his leg, ATU 978. | The cripple claims that the father of the visitor is to blame for his physical disability. The man's wife or the man himself, on someone's advice, promises to return the leg (eye) if the cripple gives him the other one as a sample or brings him a part of a dead person's body and demands money. | 11 | 9 |
| K86 | The Crying Child. | A small (usually capricious) child is ignored, sent away from home, abandoned on the road, or given to another person for a time. As a result, the child is carried away by an animal or a spirit. | 71 | 83 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.