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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K43 | The abandoned survives and triumphs, S300. | 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 abandoned or expelled discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. [Materials on European fairy tales are mostly not yet included] | 124 | 216 |
| 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 |
| K74 | Brothers and the dwarf. | Of two or more characters, each one stays at home or goes to fetch fire for cooking or brings food to the house. Each time, a certain character appears who eats the food and/or defeats the one who stayed behind or came to fetch fire. | 126 | 239 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K27s In K27 family | Running, racing. | Competition: running, racing. See motif K27. | 133 | 140 |
| K8c In K8 family | Jonah: swallowed by a land animal. | The character enters the belly of an ordinary land animal, kills it from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. Cf. motif M118. | 137 | 193 |
| K27hh In K27 family | Sorting grain, Th H1091. | The character is tasked with quickly separating small particles of different types (usually seeds of different plant species) mixed together in a single vessel, or counting the number of grains, or gathering scattered or already sown grain. | 139 | 183 |
| K37 | Recognising one's own among similar ones, H62.1, H161, H324. | In order to return or obtain a wife, son or husband (in Africa also a domestic animal or object), a person must identify her or him among several identical people or animals (objects). | 141 | 324 |
| K10 | Battle with a bird. | A monstrous bird (bat) attacks people, heroes engage in battle with it. See motifs K10A – K10G. | 142 | 222 |
| K38f In K38 family | The dragon slayer, ATU 300. | A reptilian monster demands human sacrifices (devours people; kidnaps a girl; blocks water sources). The hero kills it. The monster's victims do not play an active role in the action. | 148 | 287 |
| K66 | Bogatyrs with different abilities, ATU 513, 653, F601. | Each of several companions or brothers excels others in some way (sees, hears, runs, etc. better than anyone else). Cf. motif K2B, "Gorynya and Dubyna". | 162 | 287 |
| K73a In K73 family | Child substitution. | Malicious women replace the newborn with an animal or an inanimate object (they tell the baby's father that his wife gave birth to an animal or an object). See motif K73. | 162 | 318 |
| K76 | The Strange Son, ATU 425A, 441. | A boy who is born or found has a strange or ugly appearance (ball, nut, sack, half-human, dwarf, animal), but then demonstrates magical powers and turns out to be handsome (usually getting a bride of high status). The princess's magical spouse initially has a non-human or ugly appearance. | 163 | 284 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K56 | The worthy are rewarded, the unworthy are punished, ATU 480, 480D*. | One of the girls, young women or young girls (wives of one man) meets a character who is able to reward and punish. She behaves correctly and receives a reward. Another (others) tries to repeat everything, but behaves incorrectly and is punished (rarely: not rewarded). | 187 | 449 |
| K73 | Children of the younger wife, ATU 707. | A young wife (promises to give birth and) gives birth to wonderful children (or one son). In the absence of her husband, attempts are made to kill the wife or her child (usually by slandering them to the husband), but they remain alive. (For medieval European variants, see Newell 1906). | 188 | 395 |
| K28 | Father or uncle – enemy and rival. | The uncle on the mother's side or the father of the young hero (or grandfather, if he replaces the father, who is not mentioned) is his enemy and rival, giving him difficult tasks with the aim of destroying him. | 190 | 302 |
| K56b In K56 family | The worthy are rewarded, the unworthy are punished. | Two men take turns meeting a character who can reward and punish. One behaves correctly and is rewarded, the other (or two others) behave incorrectly and are punished (rarely: not rewarded). | 200 | 366 |
| K27n2 In K27 family | The task giver – a mythical character. | The character who gives the hero difficult tasks or subjects him to trials is a mythical creature or animal. See motif K27. | 226 | 172 |
| K27n1 In K27 family | The one who gives tasks – a king or a chief. | A character who gives the hero tasks that are impossible for an ordinary person (subjecting the hero to difficult trials), or a character who requires the suitors of his daughter to fulfil certain conditions, is the head of a community or supra-community collective and is neither a member of the same family collective as the hero nor a mythical creature. See motif K27. | 229 | 211 |
| K8a In K8 family | Jonah: swallowed by an aquatic or chthonic creature. | The character enters the belly of an aquatic creature or a giant creature whose appearance and habitat are not precisely described. He kills the creature from within (K952) and/or returns to the outside without outside help. Upon emerging from the belly, he often finds himself bald (K921). Cf. motifs I81B (Charybdis) and L110 (Devourer). | 234 | 402 |
| K177 | The wandering heroine. | A girl or woman sets off on a journey to find or return her fiancé or husband, or flees from danger, and her journey ends in a successful marriage. | 236 | 398 |
| K24 | Hidden clothes of a supernatural woman, F202.4.2. | Women (rarely men) possessing magical powers and usually coming from another world (from the sky, from under water, they are winged creatures, bird-people, animal-people; rarely: a girl of higher social status than the hero) take off their clothes (feather coverings, etc.) or part of them. The character hides the clothes (one of them), forcing him (rarely her) to fulfil his (rarely her) desire. | 238 | 560 |
| K75 | The younger daughter agrees, ATU 433B. | The girl (usually the youngest of the sisters) does not reject the hero, who temporarily takes the form of an animal, a freak, an old man, a poor man, or a loser, or she picks up the hero's remains and he comes back to life. After some time, the hero reveals his true nature. | 250 | 432 |
| K12 | Kidnapped and returned. | The hero returns the woman whom his enemy or rival tried to take away from him. | 252 | 429 |
| 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 |
| K32 | The Substituted Woman, K1911; ATU 403, 404. | The man does not (immediately) notice that another woman, an evil spirit or (in Chaco) a male trickster has replaced his wife or bride, who is banished, imprisoned in the underworld, killed, etc. | 274 | 652 |
| K176 | Man in search of a woman, ATU 400. | A man sets out on a journey to find or bring back a bride or wife. | 322 | 613 |
| K27n In K27 family | Tasks of relatives, H310, H331. | A young man must complete difficult tasks or win a competition in order to obtain permission to marry. The person giving the tasks is indicated in square brackets. See motif K27. | 373 | 325 |
| K25 | The magical wife. | A man consciously marries a woman who belongs to the non-human world. | 422 | 1196 |
| K27 | Tasks and competitions. | The character receives tasks that are deadly dangerous or can only be accomplished with supernatural abilities or helpers; the hero completes the tasks and/or miraculously survives. The confrontation between the characters unfolds as a game or competition in which the loser loses their life or status. | 477 | 1424 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.