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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K87 | Marriage to an animal ends badly. | A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rarely another non-human creature). The husband takes care of her, but the marriage ends with the murder of the husband, the woman, their offspring, the woman's relatives, the transformation of the woman herself into an animal, leading to hostility between humans and animals, etc. | 47 | 78 |
| K56a8c In K56 family | Married to a dog. | A young man brings an animal to his home, and it turns into a girl. Imitating him, another man marries a dog (pig), but it remains an animal. | 6 | 4 |
| K27z2c In K27 family | Marries to lock up his wife. | After marrying a poor girl, the prince locks her up. She turns out to be more cunning than him. | 6 | 6 |
| K14F In K14 family | Material evidence of the father's righteousness. | After his father's death, the son consistently violates his father's instructions. Having preserved material evidence of what happened, he presents it to those gathered, proving his father's rightness and/or his wife's wrongness. | 5 | 5 |
| K27z2a In K27 family | Meeting for one night. | Noticing the woman's pregnancy, her relatives or in-laws accuse her of promiscuity, because, according to their calculations, she could not have conceived by her husband or fiancé. After severe trials, the woman meets again the father of the boy she gave birth to. | 6 | 7 |
| K80c1 In K80 family | Melon and severed head, ATU 780C. | Someone brings meat or fruit to another person or keeps it for themselves. At the decisive moment, the food turns into the remains of a (supposedly) murdered person. The owner is executed or is about to be executed. Cf. motif K168A. | 24 | 19 |
| K154a In K154 family | Men in the harem. | By solving a riddle, a boy or young man (rarely a girl) exposes the daughter, wife or assistants of an authoritative character: the daughter or wife has a lover; the assistant is plotting a conspiracy. | 24 | 32 |
| K99b In K99 family | Midnight escape: change of partner, (ATU 856). | A girl and a young man agree that he will take her away at night. The young man is late or falls asleep, and the girl is taken away by someone else who happens to be at the appointed place. | 39 | 50 |
| 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 |
| K27q In K27 family | Milk of a wild animal. | Task: to obtain the milk of a wild animal or milk possessed by a dangerous creature. See motif K27. | 80 | 108 |
| K73a7 In K73 family | Miraculous children: a sister with two brothers. | A woman gives birth to three (not two or many) miraculous children – two boys and a girl. They grow up and triumph over their enemies. | 26 | 33 |
| K73a8 In K73 family | Miraculous children: brother and sister. | A woman gives birth to a miraculous boy and girl. They are replaced by animals or objects and thrown away, but they escape and triumph over their enemies. | 58 | 90 |
| K148 | Missing foals. | Every night or every year, a mare gives birth to a foal, and every time someone steals it. | 14 | 20 |
| K19c In K19 family | Mistress in a handbag. | A man brings home a small creature with which he makes love at night. The man's mother, sister or wife finds the creature in his bed or purse. | 18 | 35 |
| K20 | Mortal desires a star, C15.1, C15.1.1. | Looking at the sky at night, a man or woman expresses a desire to marry a star or the Moon (kuchin: to possess a star as an object). See motifs K19a, K19b. | 72 | 10 |
| K73b1 In K73 family | Mother and child in a barrel. | A woman with her newborn son (pregnant with a boy) or a girl with a young man are placed in a barrel (box; rarely: in a boat) and lowered into the sea (river). | 37 | 64 |
| K80b In K80 family | Mother killed, father ate, ATU 720. | The mother or stepmother kills the boy (rarely a girl) and usually feeds her husband, i.e. the child's father, his flesh. The boy is reborn, usually (at first) in the form of a bird that tells the story of what happened. Cf. motif K80A. Traditions in which the boy is killed by his own mother are highlighted in bold. | 59 | 67 |
| K32b1 In K32 family | Mother replaces daughter. | The man's mother-in-law takes on the appearance of her daughter to take her place. See motif K32. | 17 | 11 |
| K56a1 In K56 family | Mother-in-law performs the work of her daughter-in-law. | The groom, the bringer of prosperity, orders the girl who has come to perform work that she herself is unable to do. The groom's mother performs the work, and the girl is accepted by the groom. See motif K56A. Except for the Ket people: the work is performed by tiny women sitting in or behind the mother-in-law's ear. | 0 | 0 |
| K32b In K32 family | Mother-in-law replaces daughter-in-law. | The man's mother takes on the appearance of his wife in order to take her place. | 5 | 6 |
| K117 | Nesmeyana (bride, young man), ATU 559, (571). | A woman will marry the man who makes her laugh; a man promises a reward to anyone who makes his daughter, mother or son laugh. | 51 | 69 |
| K116a In K116 family | Nesmeyana (the disguised tsar perishes). | The king takes or is about to take the poor man's wife. She suggests that the king put on clothes that are not his own (usually those that belonged to her husband). After that, the king is killed by his own soldiers (dogs), who believe him to be a poor man (jester, devil). | 20 | 24 |
| K4 | Nest destroyer. | The character climbs a tree or rock to get a bird, bird eggs, or chicks, climbs into a bird's nest, comes into conflict with another character, and/or cannot climb down. See motifs K1, K2A. Traditions in which the nest destroyer is a woman are highlighted in italics; bold italics indicate those in which the character falls into the trap not through the fault of another person, but by accident, or, having climbed up to destroy the nest, does not fall into the trap at all, although he quarrels with his companion; an asterisk* marks those in which the character remains in the trap (undergoes a metamorphosis). | 96 | 53 |
| K27u2 In K27 family | News from the tumbleweed. | An authoritative character orders to find out where the tumbleweed is rolling or what news it brings. | 7 | 8 |
| K101 | Night dances of girls, ATU 306. | A girl or boy disappears at night. Usually, the girl's clothes or shoes are worn out overnight, or the boy looks sick and tired in the morning. The girl or boy is followed and seen spending the night in another world. | 57 | 65 |
| K27a In K27 family | Night in the cold. | Test: spend the night in the cold (the antagonist tries to destroy the hero in this way). See motif K27. Compare motif M35: two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will sit out the night in the cold. | 13 | 13 |
| K15 | No one but this beggar. | A woman swears that she has not been with anyone except (her husband and) a dirty beggar. Others do not know that her lover has taken on the appearance of a beggar. | 9 | 9 |
| K120a2 In K120 family | Not by her mother, but by her mother-in-law. | Family members want to marry their daughter off to a man who is unacceptable to her (usually they want to marry her off to her own brother). The girl refuses to address her father, mother, etc. as close relatives, but calls them in-laws (mother-in-law, sister-in-law, etc.) or enemies; or the relatives themselves demand that the girl address them as in-laws. | 23 | 22 |
| K27x4 In K27 family | Not spilling water, climbing a tree. | The character is told to climb a tree (pole, mountain, etc.) while holding a full open vessel in his hand and not spilling a drop from it. | 14 | 17 |
| K8c3 In K8 family | Not through the mouth, but through the side. | One (zoomorphic) character refuses to use any part of another's body except the one he uses to kill him. | 25 | 35 |
| K27m In K27 family | Obtain an animal of unusual colour. | Task: to kill and bring an animal of a certain (often unusual) colour or shape. See motif K27. | 36 | 30 |
| K27yy1 In K27 family | Obtain the feather of a dangerous bird. | The hero brings the feather (feathers) of a dangerous bird. | 30 | 29 |
| K27y In K27 family | Obtaining material for arrows. | The hero is sent or, knowing the danger, goes himself to obtain various (at least two) materials for making a bow and arrows (shafts, feathers, bowstring, flint for arrowheads, paint for colouring arrows, resin and fibres for attaching the arrowhead or feather to the shaft, etc.). See motif K27. | 35 | 38 |
| K27yy3 In K27 family | Obtaining the fruits of a dangerous tree. | The hero must bring the fruits growing on a tree that is dangerous to approach. | 4 | 5 |
| K27yy4 In K27 family | Obtaining tree bark. | The hero must obtain tree bark, which is fraught with danger. | 11 | 14 |
| K21 | Once in heaven, she gets married. | A girl ends up in the sky and gets married there. | 32 | 46 |
| K27g3 In K27 family | One falls – all fall. | To fell all the trees in the forest, a man fells one (lightly touching it with an axe), after which all the trees fall. | 10 | 10 |
| K125 | One of the subjects is a traitor. | The pursuer asks various objects where the hero is hiding or where he has run. Everyone remains silent, but one of the objects betrays the hero. | 45 | 53 |
| K40 | One will be eaten today, another tomorrow. | Two (rarely more) characters consider themselves doomed to death, but the one whose death will come later rejoices, while the one whose death will come earlier grieves. Cf. motif N30. | 20 | 27 |
| K74a In K74 family | Only the hero defeats the demon and follows in his footsteps. | A demonic character arrives and mocks one of the men remaining in the house. When the hero remains, he defeats the demon and follows in his footsteps to where he dwells. Cf. motif K74 (an unassuming and weak-looking man approaches a warrior preparing dinner; he eats everything, ties up, beats or kills the cook. When the hero remains to cook, he defeats the demon). | 80 | 56 |
| K17 | Ornithomorphic groom. | A male character in the form of a winged creature approaches a girl and either magically or unnoticed by her impregnates her. See motif K16: taking the form of an animal or bird, he enters the girl's house. | 76 | 68 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K27ss In K27 family | Overtake (an old) woman. | A strong man must overtake a woman, often an old woman. This is difficult or impossible to achieve. | 34 | 45 |
| K38e4 In K38 family | Palace made of gold and silver bricks, F771.1.1.2. | The narratives (in various contexts) mention a palace (castle, crypt, church, bridge, causeway) built of gold and silver modules – usually bricks, less often planks. | 21 | 23 |
| K27r In K27 family | Passing away. | The person giving the task requires an item or message to be brought from the world. | 65 | 75 |
| K159 | Peas underfoot. | When two characters are fighting, someone nearby wants one of them to slip (while the other remains firmly on their feet) and throws something under their feet for this purpose. | 30 | 31 |
| K8e In K8 family | Penetrates inside through the anus. | The character penetrates inside the creature through the anus. | 54 | 48 |
| K52c1 In K52 family | Penis instead of fish. | Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion. One episode: the magical specialist orders those present to catch the birds or fish that have appeared with the water, or they begin to catch them on their own initiative; when the water disappears, people see that they are holding not caught animals, but their penises or something else. | 7 | 9 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.