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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K116 | Choosing a companion (ATU 516C). | To choose an assistant, a young man asks the candidates to perform simple tasks (eat bread, set off on a journey). The behaviour of the chosen candidate shows that he will take care of the hero, while the behaviour of the others shows that they will only think of themselves. | 16 | 18 |
| K33e In K33 family | Chosen and returned children (Griselda), ATU 887. | Newborn children disappear (die) one after another, but are returned to their wife or husband grown up and in good health. | 47 | 60 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K27y1 In K27 family | Coal arrowheads. | The character believes or pretends that arrowheads should be made of bark, coal, grass, and similar materials. | 9 | 10 |
| K25a3 In K25 family | Collected feathers. | The magical bird-wife flies away when she makes herself new feather clothing from feathers collected on the ground. | 6 | 6 |
| K27o3 In K27 family | Competition between two teams. | Two groups of characters compete in overcoming trials or play a game, divided into two teams (at least two episodes with different characters on both sides). The participants are either anthropomorphic but possess different unusual abilities, or they are different animals (natural phenomena, elements, etc.). Cf. motif K27xy (Characters with different properties in opposing camps). | 39 | 51 |
| K27t In K27 family | Competition: climbing a pole. | Competition: climbing a pole. See motif K27. | 17 | 13 |
| K93b2 In K93 family | Conception from an eaten fruit. | A childless woman conceives a child after eating a fruit (usually an apple; in northern traditions also cabbage, eggs, peas, etc., in India – mangoes). | 83 | 124 |
| K93b1 In K93 family | Conception from eaten fish. | After eating fish, a childless woman gives birth to a boy or twins. | 44 | 81 |
| K102a2 In K102 family | Conflict between son and mother. | The mother seeks to destroy her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair. Cf. motif L86: Children flee from their demon mother. | 111 | 165 |
| K1f In K1 family | Conflict over a woman. | One man traps another, driven by jealousy or the desire to possess his rival's wife. See motifs K1A, K1E, K2A. | 172 | 93 |
| K56a5d In K56 family | Conversation with Moroz. | A person responds kindly to a question from a character embodying cold, praises him, and is rewarded. Another expresses dissatisfaction and is punished. | 10 | 24 |
| K56a5c In K56 family | Conversation with the months. | A man who kindly answers the questions of characters representing the weather in certain months of the year is rewarded. Another man scolds them and is punished. | 14 | 16 |
| K38e In K38 family | Copper, silver, gold. | Locations or objects made of three (rarely four) materials of varying degrees of value, but all valued positively (copper, silver, gold; silver, gold, diamonds, etc.) are mentioned. | 77 | 201 |
| K71 | Coyote betrays and saves his brother. | The coyote's brother successfully defends himself against enemies until the coyote breaks a certain taboo. The enemies kill the brother; the coyote comes to the enemy camp, retrieves his brother's remains and either flees from the enemies or kills them. The brother comes back to life. | 13 | 23 |
| K22 | Cranes and pygmies, F535.5.1. | The inhabitants of a distant land, who differ from (ordinary) people, occasionally fight off enemies of a non-human nature who attack them. | 58 | 97 |
| K117c In K117 family | Dancing against their will, ATU 592. | When a character plays a pipe (violin, horn, etc.), people and animals begin to dance against their will. | 59 | 60 |
| K27r2 In K27 family | Dancing apples. | Task: bring objects (fruit, wood, water, etc.) that perform actions characteristic of humans (sing, dance, yawn, laugh, etc.). | 37 | 61 |
| K24b In K24 family | Dancing in magical clothes. | A magical wife deceives her naive mother-in-law into giving her wonderful clothes or some other item that enables her to leave the human world. | 31 | 37 |
| K34 | Dangerous swings, K855. | The character puts others on the swing and, after swinging them, throws them (or threatens to throw them) into the water, onto rocks, etc. | 61 | 87 |
| K100e In K100 family | Dangerous tales. | Fairy tales act as separate characters: they usually try to harm people, believing that a certain person does not treat them with due respect. Cf. motif L94d, "The Tale with a Tail". | 17 | 16 |
| K49 | Dead mother nursing a baby, E323.1. | A woman who has been transformed into an animal or found herself outside the human world returns to her child to feed and care for it. Cf. motif K33. | 73 | 81 |
| K102a3 In K102 family | Dead tooth. | Someone (usually a woman) places a poisonous tooth (bone, nail, etc.) in the hero's bed. The young man dies, but is then revived. | 22 | 36 |
| K14 | Dear advice, ATU 677, 910A, 910B. | A person receives or buys simple advice, the meaning of which is initially unclear (travel with a companion, do not skip breakfast, etc.) and either follows it, achieving success, or violates it, getting into trouble. | 121 | 166 |
| K90b In K90 family | Deer antlers in the dragon's mouth. | The antlers of a deer or the tusks of an elephant, which a snake or dragon is trying to swallow, get stuck in its mouth. | 14 | 14 |
| K8f In K8 family | Deer in the belly of a monster. | The swallowed one discovers a living deer in the belly of the monster. See motif K8A. | 0 | 0 |
| K107e In K107 family | Delayed childbirth. | A woman remains pregnant for many years and gives birth only after her wonderful husband, who has left her, or someone else allows her to do so. | 10 | 10 |
| K140 | Demonstratively ungrateful. | Travelling with his sister or brother, the young man regularly kills his saviours and helpers, exposing himself to ever new dangers. | 9 | 12 |
| K27h In K27 family | Depict a head that is not shown. | The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. | 8 | 17 |
| K25a2 In K25 family | Discarded feathers. | An anthropomorphic character flies away or tries to fly away, attaching feathers shed by birds flying in the sky to his body. | 15 | 21 |
| K93b5 In K93 family | Disguised as a puppy. | The character infiltrates the enemy camp disguised as a kitten or puppy. Usually, one of the enemies suspects deception, but the others believe that the cute animal is harmless. | 14 | 17 |
| K27k In K27 family | Dive long or deep. | Test: to dive underwater for a long time or deeply. See motif K27. | 26 | 15 |
| 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 |
| K35a1 In K35 family | Do not pick up the feather of the firebird. | Setting off on a journey, a person (often against the advice of their horse) picks up a precious feather. Upon learning of this, an authoritative character gives them difficult tasks. | 38 | 55 |
| K56a3 In K56 family | Do not tie shoelaces. | A wandering girl or young girl should not tie her shoelaces or the laces on her shoes or clothing. If she does so, she will get into trouble. | 12 | 11 |
| K27z1 In K27 family | Don't take the cage, don't take the bridle! ATU 550. | The assistant teaches how to steal the desired object, but not to take anything else (take the bird, but not the cage, the horse, but not the bridle, etc.). The character takes what he should not, is caught, released on the promise to deliver another object, then the girl. In the end, the hero keeps both the girl and everything he stole. {ATU 550 includes a much wider range of texts; in particular, the Indian, Burmese and Persian variants mentioned in Uther 2004 do not correspond to our definition}. | 70 | 65 |
| K33d In K33 family | Donkey Skin, ATU 510B. | A man discovers that a beautiful girl is hiding under the guise of an ugly hag or under the skin of an animal. | 87 | 107 |
| K115A In K115 family | Dove at the entrance. | When a character hides in a shelter, a dove builds a nest there. The enemies decide that no one has entered the cave or room for a long time and leave. | 3 | 4 |
| K27i In K27 family | Drain a body of water. | Task: to drain a large body of water. | 0 | 0 |
| K120a3 In K120 family | Dress in a nut. | The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. | 38 | 64 |
| K27z4b In K27 family | Dressed as a man, the wife rescues her husband. | The husband leaves, meets a swindler and loses everything he has to him. The wife comes disguised as a man, punishes the swindler and rescues her husband. | 22 | 20 |
| 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 |
| K22a In K22 family | Dwarves are attacked. | Birds or other creatures that are harmless to ordinary people attack dwarves living in another world. See motif K22. | 29 | 5 |
| K27e In K27 family | Eat or drink a lot, ATU 1088). | The character is offered to eat or drink an unusually large amount or poison. | 133 | 155 |
| K129 | Enchanted and brought to life, ATU 709, 709A. | (Due to the intrigues of an antagonist) a girl falls into a deep swoon, but is not dead. A male character of high status (either the girl's spouse or blood relative) revives her. {In sub-Saharan Africa, except for Swahili, borrowing from Europeans is more likely than from Arabs}. | 71 | 95 |
| K103d In K103 family | Enter the horse's ear and take it out of the cow's ear. | An animal (rarely a demonic creature) orders the hero or heroine to retrieve necessary items from its ear or to enter its ear in order to transform, fall asleep, etc. | 40 | 68 |
| 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 |
| K25a4 In K25 family | Escape from the siren, ATU 316. | A man (rarely a woman) finds himself in the power of an aquatic-chthonic creature (usually a siren, fish, sea monster, sometimes a sorcerer). The captive is lifted above the water (above the ground; usually after the antagonist lifts him) several times. After that, the captive escapes (most often by flying away as a bird). | 26 | 30 |
| K67d In K67 family | Escape from the worker, ATU 1132. | The worker (rarely – the husband) annoys the master (wife) so much that he or she decides to run away, taking his or her property with him or her. The worker hides in a sack (chest) with his or her property and ends up back where he or she started. | 54 | 49 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.