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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K138 | Body swap (king and vizier), ATU 678. | A person gains the ability to revive the dead by incarnating in their body. While they remain in it, their own body is dead. Another person takes the body of the first, leaving them with the body of an animal. | 12 | 13 |
| 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 |
| K167 | The Child King. | A boy plays, pretending to be a king and demonstrating wisdom and/or magical abilities. | 12 | 8 |
| K171 | The weaver creates an army. | The heroes fight, but the number of enemies does not decrease, because someone is constantly weaving (forging) new warriors. | 12 | 13 |
| K18c In K18 family | A boy urinates on his father's hands. | The man in whose arms the boy urinates will be recognised as his father. See motif K18. | 12 | 4 |
| 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 |
| K27l1 In K27 family | Frozen in ice. | Voluntarily subjecting himself to trials, the character allows himself to be frozen in ice and cannot free himself. | 12 | 22 |
| K27z2d In K27 family | The sparrow's quarrel with her husband. | A conflict arises between a pair of birds (sparrows, pigeons, etc.), in which the male is more likely (and more often clearly) to be at fault. This episode serves as the starting point for a story about the relationships between people of noble origin. | 12 | 12 |
| K32l In K32 family | Horses are given for fattening. | The ruler distributes horses (cows) to his subjects for fattening. Only the heroine returns hers well-fed. | 12 | 14 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K45b In K45 family | A woman becomes an aquatic animal. | A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict, as a result of which the woman turns into a marine mammal, the mistress of marine mammals, or a frog. | 12 | 19 |
| K55 | Rewarded chastity. | A powerful character finds out whether his guest has made love to his daughter or wife (if the character is a woman: whether he has attempted to have sexual contact with her). A man who is impotent or (successfully pretends to be) chaste is rewarded (at least not punished). In most cases, the other character engages in sexual contact or is unable to hide what he has done and is punished as a result. | 12 | 15 |
| 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 |
| K56ab In K56 family | The girl takes off her shirts, the snake takes off its skin (ATU 433B). | A girl marries a monster. On their wedding night, he orders her to take off her shirt, and she orders him to take off his skin. The girl survives, and the monster becomes handsome – usually because she has more shirts (or skins worn in advance) than he does. | 12 | 12 |
| 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 |
| K67h In K67 family | Bear in the barn | When a worker is sent to a place where he is to be torn apart by a predator, he tames it and lets it into the barn (stable) at home. As a result, the predator destroys the owner's livestock. | 12 | 14 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K85c In K85 family | Four legs are faster than three. | A three-legged horse is strong and fast, but its four-legged brother is faster. | 12 | 11 |
| K87b In K87 family | A woman steps in bear droppings. | A woman is picking berries, steps in bear droppings, and scolds the bears. The offended bear takes her away and marries her. | 12 | 15 |
| K88c In K88 family | The blood of a dog will cure the princess. | The character learns that the blood (brain, etc.) of the dog guarding the neighbouring herd will cure the princess (prince). He uses this medicine and is rewarded. | 12 | 15 |
| K89a In K89 family | Where to leave the sister? | Having escaped danger, the girl or boy goes with their sister or brother. The sister or brother is crippled, rejects a number of places where they are to be left, and remains in the last place offered. See motif K89. | 12 | 14 |
| K18a In K18 family | The boy takes a bow and arrows. | The boy's father is recognised as the man whose bow or arrows he chooses. See motif K18. | 13 | 4 |
| K19g In K19 family | Stars differ in brightness and colour. | One star is an old man, the other is a young man; both stars differ in brightness or colour, but it is impossible to determine the age of the star-man by these characteristics (a dim star may be young and vice versa); usually two girls want to marry stars of different types (one bright, the other dim, one red, the other blue, etc.). See motif K19B. | 13 | 1 |
| K26a In K26 family | A stone covers the opening. | The hole in the sky is covered by a flat stone. Moving it aside, the character sees the earth. See motif K26. | 13 | 2 |
| 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 |
| K27d In K27 family | House with dangerous creatures. | The test: to stay alive in a room full of predatory, poisonous and other dangerous creatures. See motif K27. | 13 | 11 |
| 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 |
| K27z9 In K27 family | Why the fish smiled (ATU 875D). | (Dried) fish (water, satyr, etc.) laughs, smiles or spits. The reason is that there is a man dressed as a woman in the house. | 13 | 18 |
| K30b In K30 family | Went out for a walk and disappeared. | A woman or girl is forbidden to go outside. As soon as she does, a flying creature kidnaps her. | 13 | 17 |
| K32e In K32 family | Gold, silver, wood. | A negative character, object or locus is contrasted with one or two positive ones, such as wood with gold and silver. | 13 | 14 |
| K38b4 In K38 family | The serpent emerges from the water. | The nest of a mighty bird is located on a tree in the middle (at the edge) of a pond, from where a snake (monster) emerges, threatening the chicks. | 13 | 22 |
| 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 |
| K45 | Sedna (severed fingers). | A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict. The man sails away from the woman in a boat or on a raft, or leaves her on a sledge. When she tries to grab the edge of the boat (raft, sled), he cuts off her fingers. (The common motif among the Warrau and Eskimos was first noted by O. Zerries [Zerries 1954: 346, 376]). | 13 | 23 |
| K5 | False chicks. | To lure the hero into a trap and send him far away, the enemy makes fake birds from worthless materials (bodily secretions, etc.). See motif K4. | 13 | 6 |
| 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 |
| K68 | A clot of blood protects the father. T541.41.1. | A strong man takes food from a weak man and forces him to work for him (usually a son-in-law mistreats his father-in-law). A boy appears in the house of the wronged man from a clot of animal blood that has been collected. He kills the offender. | 13 | 23 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| K87a1 In K87 family | The child is handed over. | A demonic woman asks the baby's mother to let her hold him or secretly replaces another person who was supposed to take the child. Once she has the baby, the demon takes him away. | 13 | 10 |
| K148 | Missing foals. | Every night or every year, a mare gives birth to a foal, and every time someone steals it. | 14 | 20 |
| K182a In K182 family | The sleeping defender. | A mighty warrior residing in a cave (or crypt, etc.) will eventually emerge into the light (to assist his people), or he could emerge but chooses not to. | 14 | 20 |
| k185 | Father fights son. | Not recognising his son, the father fights him and kills him. {In this formulation, the motif is rare, and in more general ones it has no clear boundaries}. | 14 | 13 |
| K19e In K19 family | Wolverine under a tree. | Returning from the sky to earth, a woman or two sisters encounter a male wolverine who tries to capture them. Usually, the women who have descended first find themselves in a tree. Some animals cannot or will not help them descend to the ground. The wolverine descends to take the sisters as wives; they run away from him. See motif K19B. | 14 | 11 |
| K27p2 In K27 family | The enemy father-in-law takes the form of a bear. | Demanding that the hero kill the bear, the father-in-law (rarely: mother-in-law) himself takes on the form of a bear or turns his daughter or wife (husband) into a bear (bear). | 14 | 15 |
| 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 |
| K27zz3 In K27 family | The pit by the apple tree. | The father or stepmother (werewolf) pushes/locks the sisters (the girl and her servants) into a pit. The heroine manages to escape and triumphs over her antagonists. | 14 | 17 |
| K33c1 In K33 family | Transformation into a lotus. | A character thrown into the water is transformed into a flower (usually a lotus). | 14 | 17 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.