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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K77c In K77 family | Those hiding in the house frighten the enemy. | Various objects and/or animals hide in the house where a strong enemy is expected to appear. They take turns attacking or frightening him, and he either dies or flees. See motifs K77a and K77b. | 0 | 0 |
| 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 |
| K120a1 In K120 family | Three dresses, (ATU 510B). | To get rid of an unwanted suitor (her own father, brother, monster), a girl demands that he obtain a dress for her (usually three dresses in succession) made of unusual material (gold, fly wings, etc.), and when the condition is fulfilled, she runs away. | 35 | 60 |
| K149 | Three knots. | The character has a rope or reins with three knots, allowing him to move faster or slower. Usually, untying the first and second knots causes the character's ship to sail faster (thanks to the rising wind) or his horse to gallop faster; however, contrary to the warning, the character (when almost reaching the goal) also unties the third knot and as a result loses the ship, the horse, ends up not where he wanted to be, etc. | 11 | 16 |
| K72 | Three maidens. | A character of high status meets or marries three (less often two or four) women. One (promises to bear and) bears him a son (children) with unusual qualities, the other two (promise to engage in and) engage in crafts or housekeeping, or intend to marry men of lower status. | 121 | 198 |
| 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 |
| K101b In K101 family | Three Nights of Trials, (ATU 400). | A girl or young man is freed from a spell after the hero endures three nights of torment or fear inflicted by demons. The girl or young man themselves are not dangerous to the hero; they help him. | 22 | 45 |
| K131 | Three Wonderful Objects, ATU 518. | Certain characters argue over the possession of magical objects, but the objects go to the hero. Usually, he suggests that the disputants race each other or asks them to let him try out the objects, after which he hides, taking the objects with him. | 94 | 142 |
| K37e In K37 family | Three-legged cast-iron bird. | The clairvoyant cannot identify the person who revealed the secret, because that person does so while hiding among objects that are never found together in everyday life. | 5 | 5 |
| 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 |
| K73b3 In K73 family | Throw a nut for good luck. | A person who is asked to count the nuts in a barrel (taking them out one by one) accompanies his actions with a revealing story. | 8 | 8 |
| K75a In K75 family | Throwing an apple at a suitor, H316. | The character chooses one of many suitors (a woman chooses a husband, a boy chooses a father, a young man chooses a bride) by throwing an object (often an apple) at him. Cf. motif K113A (throwing an object at random, not at a person who is nearby). | 68 | 107 |
| K14a In K14 family | Thrown into the furnace, ATU 910K. | The antagonist orders the killing of the first person to arrive at the agreed place in the morning. The hero is accidentally delayed, and the antagonist himself or his wife or son are killed. | 49 | 58 |
| K35a4 In K35 family | Thrown into the sea. | In order to get rid of the hero and take his place, the deceiver pushes him into the sea or leaves him on a distant island. The hero survives and returns. | 17 | 20 |
| K106 | Thrown to the cows. | The hero (a miraculous infant, a magical rooster) is thrown at the feet of animals, but they do not trample him. | 61 | 91 |
| K41 | Thunder against the snake. | A character representing a thunderstorm or a giant bird fights a snake or other large creature living in water or underground. | 71 | 122 |
| 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 |
| K27g In K27 family | To bathe in boiling water. | The character is ordered to bathe in (hot) milk, in boiling water, to jump into the fire; he remains unharmed, while his opponent usually perishes. | 62 | 87 |
| K27v2 In K27 family | To hit a copper object with an arrow. | The character must hit an object or creature made of copper with an arrow. | 5 | 5 |
| K27v1 In K27 family | To hit a needle with an arrow. | The character must hit the eye of a needle with an arrow (the eye of a needle). | 10 | 16 |
| K27z7 In K27 family | To learn what the rose of the heart is. | The character promises to fulfil a request if the other person reveals the secret behind someone's strange behaviour. | 23 | 24 |
| K27f In K27 family | To obtain a woman. | An authoritative character demands that the hero obtain a woman. | 115 | 179 |
| K80a3 In K80 family | To the forest for berries. | Members of the same family (girls, young women or children) go to the forest to pick berries and kill (bewitch) the one who is the object of their envy. | 12 | 43 |
| K100a In K100 family | Tobiah, (ATU 505). | Setting off on a journey, a young man releases a caught fish or animal, or he or his father does someone a favour. As a reward for their help, a person or creature in the guise of a stranger or animal comes to the young man, becomes his companion and protector. | 62 | 94 |
| K95 | Together and after death, ATU 970. | Two people who love each other (usually a man and a woman) die prematurely and are buried in the same grave or nearby. After or during the burial, something unusual happens that is connected with the story (special plants grow in that place, the smoke from the two funeral pyres joins together, the dead turn into two birds, two stars, etc.). | 77 | 77 |
| K32g In K32 family | Torn apart by horses. | The antagonist is executed by being tied to a horse (camel, bull), which drags him along the ground or tears him to pieces. | 96 | 242 |
| K33c1 In K33 family | Transformation into a lotus. | A character thrown into the water is transformed into a flower (usually a lotus). | 14 | 17 |
| K1A In K1 family | Trap: a young man or man is abandoned. | A young man or man finds himself in a place where he is unable to move, but which is isolated from the ground: the top of a tree, a rock, a cave, a burrow, an island. This happens through someone else's fault: the antagonist lures or traps the hero, or (less often) leaves him no other option but isolation. After some time, the hero either finds a way to salvation himself, or is saved by someone else (often a bird or animal), or (rarely) undergoes a metamorphosis and no longer returns to his normal life. For texts with a fairy-tale episode in which the hero is sent down to the underworld and abandoned there, see motif K2A. | 262 | 490 |
| K1B In K1 family | Trap: abandoned woman. | A woman is lured onto a tree, rock or island and left there. | 23 | 31 |
| 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 |
| K1i In K1 family | Tree for descending from a cliff. | Near the cliff, at the bottom of the pit, or in the underworld, a tree, reed, or vine grows, which the character uses to descend or climb to the ground. | 19 | 36 |
| 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 |
| K107d In K107 family | Trying to wake up a wonderful spouse. | After overcoming difficulties, a girl (rarely a boy) finds a magical spouse, but at first cannot wake him (her) up. | 34 | 64 |
| K119c In K119 family | Tsar-Thunder and Tsarina-Lightning. | The antagonist believes that he has been attacked by the lord of thunder (the father of the bride, whom a zoomorphic assistant has tricked into marrying a poor young man, motif K119). | 12 | 16 |
| 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 |
| K36 | Turned into an animal, (ATU 449). | The hero (heroine) is temporarily transformed into an animal (usually a dog/coyote or a donkey, with the face of the former]: 151-152t to the ground; and the strength of 99 men; if she had taken the hundredth, she would have remained a woman; if the young man had ground, a horse). When he or she is helped to regain their former appearance, the antagonist is transformed into an animal. In some texts, either only the hero or only the antagonist undergoes metamorphosis. Cf. motifs K62B, J62b1 (the character transforms many people into animals). | 100 | 150 |
| K93 | Twins and a woman, ATU 303. | After a series of adventures and victories, the hero finds himself in trouble. His twin or brother follows in his footsteps, meets the same characters, but when he encounters the final enemy, he defeats him and revives (frees) the hero. | 94 | 107 |
| K25a7 In K25 family | Two brothers and a winged maiden. | The older brother hunts, the younger brother takes care of the household. After catching the winged maiden, the older brother takes her as his wife, while the younger brother, out of naivety, returns her wings to her. The older brother sets off in search of his wife. | 15 | 23 |
| K25a5 In K25 family | Two brothers and bird maidens. | The older brother is a hunter, the younger brother (rarely a sister) is a housekeeper. Learning that bird maidens come down to the younger brother, the older brother teaches the younger brother what he must do so that the older brother can catch one of them and make her his wife. The wife finds feather clothing and flies away (often the younger brother, out of simplicity, gives it to her), and the husband sets off in search of her. | 12 | 18 |
| K70 | Two daughters-in-law: a girl and a frog. | One man marries a girl, another (usually the brother of the first) marries a frog or a toad, or the girl and the frog are the wives of one man. Usually, the wives are given certain tests, and the girl is recognised as a worthy wife, while the frog is recognised as worthless. | 23 | 25 |
| K136d In K136 family | Two flutes. | A young man receives two flutes (pipes, horns) from a cow (buffalo), which produce different effects when played (joy and sorrow, prosperity and a call for help, etc.). | 8 | 9 |
| K54 | Two giants. | When encountering a giant or a snake, a person is afraid of it, but it becomes his friend and asks for help when he is fighting another giant or snake. The person fulfils the request. | 37 | 49 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K117d In K117 family | Two in bed with the princess, ATU 850. | The princess, lying between two suitors, must choose blindly the one she likes best. The suitor of low birth arranges things so that his noble rival emits a foul odour (while he himself emits a pleasant fragrance). The princess turns to him. | 40 | 22 |
| K33g In K33 family | Two kinds of fruit, ATU 566. | The person who eats the fruit (leaf, etc.) grows horns (long nose, etc.) or turns into an animal, while the other fruit (leaf, etc.) returns to its normal appearance. | 83 | 113 |
| K32i In K32 family | Two nurses beside a sleeping man, ATU 894. | A girl finds the body of a young man who shows no signs of life and must sit next to him for a certain amount of time so that he comes back to life and takes her as his wife. Usually, she leaves at the last moment and an impostor becomes the wife of the revived man. | 41 | 43 |
| K88 | Two Travellers (Truth and Falsehood), ATU 613. | Two people set off on a journey or argue about which is stronger: truth or falsehood (stinginess or generosity, etc.). The evil one abandons the good one, crippling or robbing him, but the good one regains his health and achieves success. The villain usually perishes. | 117 | 141 |
| K29a In K29 family | Unharmed by fire. | The hero demonstrates his magical abilities or cunning by remaining alive in a hot bath, oven, fire, or among burning vegetation. | 176 | 258 |
| K44b In K44 family | Upon returning, throws food. | The hero or heroine returns after a long absence. Seeing (usually from the roof of the house) his or her parents (mother, husband) languishing in poverty, he or she throws food at them, extinguishes the fire, pushes them, etc. At first, they usually do not understand what is going on. | 13 | 20 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.