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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K56a8a In K56 family | The good girl returns with her fiancé. | A girl goes to another world, behaves correctly, returns with an animal or an object, inside which her groom is found. Usually, another girl behaves incorrectly and suffers damage. | 7 | 8 |
| K100b In K100 family | The Grateful Dead Man, ATU 505. | A person helps to bury a dead man (pays his remaining debt, honours a saint). The revived dead man (saint) helps him overcome difficulties. See motif K100A. | 55 | 85 |
| K27x8 In K27 family | The guiding frog. | Only the frog (toad) knows the way to the object that is unattainable for ordinary people, which the hero is looking for (and helps him get there). | 13 | 14 |
| K128b In K128 family | The Hare Shepherd, ATU 570. | The ruler will give his daughter to the one who can herd (gather, train) hares (squirrels, sheep, poultry, partridges) without loss. A poor young man accomplishes the task with the help of a magic device. To have an excuse to refuse, the ruler's family members try to buy one hare (a magic pipe, etc.) so that the suitor cannot fulfil his promise, but as a result they find themselves in a humiliating position. | 53 | 46 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K100d In K100 family | The helper turns out to be a prince, ATU 314. | At the end of the story, the animal helper (horse, lion, etc.) turns into a prince (princess) itself. | 26 | 54 |
| K27zy In K27 family | The hero between two cannibals. | A young man (woman) lives in the house of a cannibal (witch). In order to destroy him or her, the cannibal orders that a certain object be brought from other cannibals (often from his or her mother or sister). The hero or heroine escapes (and destroys all the cannibals). | 29 | 47 |
| K35a In K35 family | The hero brands his rivals, ATU 530A. | In exchange for improving his current situation, the character agrees to have his body injured or branded. | 84 | 133 |
| K38b3 In K38 family | The hero cares for the chicks. | A powerful bird or other flying creature helps a person for taking care of its chicks/offspring: feeding them, sheltering them, decorating them, etc. | 42 | 59 |
| K131a In K131 family | The hero divides the carcass, ATU 159*. | Several animals (often a lion, a falcon, an ant) argue (usually over prey or habitat). The hero resolves their dispute, and they grant him the ability to take on their form (to possess their qualities). | 24 | 47 |
| K38b3a In K38 family | The hero feeds the chicks. | A mighty bird helps a man for feeding its chicks. | 14 | 15 |
| K73b6 In K73 family | The hero flies to his mother's enemies to eavesdrop on their conversation. | The wife of a powerful character gives birth to wonderful children. Her jealous sisters conspire to make her husband order her to be disposed of (usually by locking her and the child in a barrel and throwing it into the water). The boy immediately grows up and rescues his mother and himself. He himself (in the form of a bird, animal, insect, or flying in on a miraculous object) or his puppy brother enters his father's lair and, eavesdropping on the conversation, learns of the existence of miraculous objects. Upon returning, he obtains them or already possesses them and demonstrates them to his father when they meet (the objects may include the young man's brothers). | 12 | 21 |
| K38 | The hero helps the chicks, B364.4. | For doing good to chicks (rarely: young of non-ornithomorphic flying creatures), their mother or father does a favour for the person. | 119 | 254 |
| K27n3a1 In K27 family | The hero in battle with the elements. | In the course of his courtship, the hero enters into a struggle with characters (more than two) who embody the elements, celestial bodies, and parts of the universe. | 2 | 5 |
| K35c2 In K35 family | The hero in the underwater kingdom, (ATU 677). | When the ship unexpectedly stops, the hero descends to the bottom of the sea, behaves correctly with the local inhabitants, and returns to the ship. | 12 | 14 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K2a In K2 family | The hero is sent down to the underworld. | The character is sent down to the underworld (into an abyss, a well, etc.). After he sends the treasures (women) he has obtained back up, his envious companions cut the rope, but he manages to return to earth. See motifs K38, K39, K74. | 125 | 207 |
| K73b7 In K73 family | The hero kills the enemy of his enchanted wife. | The hero saves the magical wife from her enemy at a time when both the future wife and the enemy have zoomorphic appearances. Later, the rescued woman becomes a woman. | 3 | 3 |
| K38b3b In K38 family | The hero shelters the chicks. | A mighty bird (rarely – another creature) helps a person for sheltering (warming) its chicks (offspring, children). | 27 | 47 |
| K38b3c In K38 family | The hero shields the sleepers from the sun. | Seeing sleeping fairies or their children, the hero covers them from the scorching rays of the sun. For this, they do him a favour. | 3 | 6 |
| K27n3c1 In K27 family | The hero's adversaries – polar bears. | The inhabitants of the polar bear village – relatives of his wife – set the hero difficult tasks and trials. | 11 | 16 |
| K48 | The hero's singing bird, ATU 550. | The antagonist orders the wonderful bird captured by the hero to sing or talk, but it remains silent or cries out inappropriately. The bird begins to sing (talk) after the hero has triumphed over his opponents. | 64 | 80 |
| 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 |
| K102 | The hero's woman helps his enemy, ATU 315 (sister), 590 (mother). | A woman who is initially friendly to the hero (his sister, mother, less often his wife or lover) then tries to destroy him by acting in concert with his enemy. To this end, she persuades the hero to take actions that are fatal to him. | 124 | 202 |
| K33a8 In K33 family | The heroine is transformed into a dove. | A woman transformed into a dove by the machinations of a rival tries to establish contact with her children or husband. | 34 | 47 |
| 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 |
| K33a5 In K33 family | The heroine is turned into a duck. | A woman who has been turned into a duck (goose) by her rival's scheming tries to establish contact with her children or husband. | 10 | 19 |
| K33a3 In K33 family | The heroine is turned into a turtle. | A woman, turned into a turtle because of her rival's intrigues, tries to establish contact with her children or husband. | 12 | 15 |
| K147 | The horse brings the hero's remains, and he is revived. | The enemy dismembers the hero's body. The remains are tied to the horse's saddle, or the horse itself picks them up and brings them to friendly characters. They revive the hero. | 31 | 42 |
| K150 | The horse eats coals. | A magical horse (rarely: dog) eats (hot) coals, nails, etc., or attempts are made to feed these to the horse. | 18 | 30 |
| 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 |
| K85a In K85 family | The horse-thought and the horse-wind. | When assessing the speed of a horse, the speed of thought (lightning, or something else) and wind are compared. | 12 | 14 |
| K132a In K132 family | The husband's rooster and the wife's hen, ATU 219E*, 715A. | The husband (rarely: the wife) sends the rooster out to earn money, and it brings back money. The wife (husband) sends the hen (cat, her half of the rooster, etc.) and receives only mice, filth, etc. Or, instead of money, the rooster brings the wife something bad or nothing at all. | 20 | 15 |
| 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 |
| K80 | The indestructible woman. | The character transforms into objects or creatures, which another character systematically destroys. However, the character (usually a young woman) is reborn each time in a new form and eventually in her original form. | 106 | 174 |
| K132 | The Invincible Rooster, ATU 715, 715A. | A small character (usually a rooster) comes to a powerful enemy. Thanks to creatures and objects that he encounters along the way and hides in his body or bag, the character remains unharmed after all attempts to destroy him. Cf. motif L126. | 64 | 86 |
| 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 |
| K27x1 In K27 family | The invisible servant ("Bring me that, I don't know what"), (ATU 465A). | Having received a difficult task (usually: to bring an object or creature that has no specific characteristics, such as "something, I don't know what," "a strange wonder," etc.), the hero meets an invisible man who serves others; he is kind to him, and the man becomes his assistant. (This motif is certainly present in some texts of the ATU 465A plot, but it is not specifically highlighted in the definition). (Cf. motif K131B). | 28 | 39 |
| K2a2 In K2 family | The kidnapped princess drops her shoe. | A monster rushes past a young man, carrying off the princess. The young man picks up the princess's lost shoe or, after shooting, finds a lock of the princess's hair. He sets off in search of her, descends underground and rescues the kidnapped princess. | 6 | 8 |
| K131c In K131 family | The kidnapped woman runs away while the archers compete. | A woman offers her captors to shoot arrows – she will marry the winner. While they are figuring out whose arrow flew farther, the kidnapped woman runs away. | 2 | 2 |
| K27x3 In K27 family | The king and the hero's wife, ATU 465. | The ruler seeks to take possession of the wife or bride of a man of lower social status and, in order to get rid of him, gives him impossible tasks or secretly kills him. {Both ATU and some regional indexes (e.g., Cardigos 2006: 110) list texts that do not meet the definition of plot 465: the king's desire to take possession of the hero's wife is not explicitly stated as the reason why the king seeks to get rid of the hero}. | 113 | 152 |
| K121 | The knight at the crossroads. | At the crossroads, it is indicated that one road is safe, another is neutral, and the third is deadly dangerous. There can only be two roads – dangerous and safe. The hero travels along the dangerous road. | 57 | 95 |
| 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 |
| K33 | The Living Drowned Woman, Th D688, E323.1; ATU 450. | When a malevolent woman pushes another woman into a body of water (a well), the latter drowns or loses her human form, but manages to return to the world of humans. Cf. motif k32m | 167 | 283 |
| 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 |
| K35a7 In K35 family | The magical feather. | A character finds a feather, the touch of which brings health and beauty. | 9 | 7 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.