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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.
L - Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
| Ref ▲ | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L1a In L1 family | The woman became a bear. | A young woman turns into a bear (in Asia, a tigress) and attacks her close relatives or husband. | 51 | 71 |
| L1b In L1 family | The Bear and Her Sister. | A young woman turns into a monstrous bear and kills most people except her younger sister (Ojibwa: the younger sister of her former husband). Their brothers (or one brother) return from hunting and kill the bear, or she dies while chasing them. Cf. motif L65D. | 24 | 27 |
| L1b1 In L1 family | The female demon and her brothers. | A woman comes into conflict with her brothers and turns into a dangerous demon. | 33 | 36 |
| L1c In L1 family | Fugitives turn into stars. | Those fleeing from the monstrous bear ascend to the sky and turn into stars. | 12 | 18 |
| L1c1 In L1 family | Flight to the heavens. | Fleeing from demonic characters, a group of men – relatives of a girl – ascend to the sky and remain there. See motif L1C. | 15 | 18 |
| L1c2 In L1 family | Hiding under the hearth. | Fleeing from a demonic creature, the characters hide their children (younger brother or sister) in a camouflaged pit, usually under the hearth. See motif L1C. | 11 | 11 |
| L1d In L1 family | Woman kills a jaguar. | The jaguar-werewolf kills most people and is killed by the woman who survives. | 7 | 8 |
| L1e In L1 family | The character creates monstrous birds. | A monstrous bird is created from a small amount of human or animal flesh (usually from the heart) or from lumps of manioc starch. | 9 | 9 |
| L1f In L1 family | Sister avenges her lover. | The sister, using magic or transforming herself into a monster, kills her brothers in revenge for the death of her lover or husband. | 14 | 14 |
| L2 | Dried mask. | The mask or costume becomes part of the person wearing it; the character is transformed in accordance with the painting on their body, which reproduces the pattern on the animal's skin. See motif L1A. | 31 | 18 |
| L3 | A husband turns into a demon. | The demon takes on human form and comes to his wife (less often to another woman). Usually, the woman (alone or with a child) runs away and/or kills the monster, either by herself or with someone's help. | 54 | 79 |
| L3a In L3 family | She asked for help – a demon came. | Left alone, a woman carelessly calls for someone to help her with the housework; a demon comes and kills the woman or her child. | 8 | 11 |
| L4 | The Unmasked Murderer, ATU 311, 312. | The character consistently (almost) kills girls (rarely: his nephews or his wife's younger brothers) whom he brings to his home (usually a male character kills wives). The heroine or hero (the youngest of all) avoids the common fate, usually after discovering the captives or their remains. | 88 | 128 |
| L4a In L4 family | Meat answers to the master. | To test the loyalty of the heroine (hero), the demon demands that she eat food that humans should not eat. Usually, when the heroine reports that the food has been eaten, the demon asks where the food is, and the food answers him. | 16 | 20 |
| L4b In L4 family | Blood cannot be washed away. | The character learns about the violation of the prohibition to enter a certain room, as evidence of this has been preserved on the body of the heroine (hero) or on an object in her (his) hands (often blood on a key or an apple). | 29 | 42 |
| L5 | Rolling head. | Describes or depicts a creature in the form of a skull or head without a body. | 153 | 254 |
| L5A In L5 family | The head turns into a celestial object. | A rolling head turns into a celestial object that emits or eclipses light (sun, moon, stars, fireball; it is the cause of eclipses). See motif L5. | 15 | 11 |
| L5B In L5 family | The head turns into lightning/thunder. | A rolling head turns into lightning/thunder. See motif L83. | 7 | 5 |
| L5c In L5 family | Head-chaser, D1641.7, D992, D1602.12, R261.1. | The monster head pursues celestial bodies, people, or attaches itself to someone else's body. See motif L5. | 18 | 21 |
| L5d In L5 family | The head wants to drink. | The rolling head suffers from thirst. See motif L5. | 8 | 9 |
| L5e In L5 family | A decapitated wife pursues her husband. | The decapitated body of a woman pursues her husband, while her head pursues their children. | 8 | 5 |
| L5e1 In L5 family | A female demon pursues her children. | A woman who has become a monster pursues her own children. | 15 | 12 |
| L5f In L5 family | The good skull. | Head, face or skull – a woman's husband, fiancé or son; not dangerous to her, brings wealth, saves from hunger, etc. | 35 | 40 |
| L5g In L5 family | The head of the older sister rolls after the younger one. | Only the head remains of one of the sisters. It rolls after the other sister or sisters, or they take it with them; in the end, the head finds a place where it wants to settle. | 13 | 8 |
| L5h In L5 family | A severed head stuck in a hole. | Two sisters or two brothers find themselves in the demon's house or in front of an obstacle. One of them crawls through a narrow hole. The other gets stuck. The brother or sister pulls him or her by the head, and the head is torn off. | 12 | 13 |
| L5i In L5 family | A multitude of skulls. | A multitude of rolling heads or skulls try to take a woman away. | 5 | 4 |
| L5j In L5 family | The rolling head laughs. | The rolling head laughs for no reason. See motif L5. | 6 | 2 |
| L6 | The clingy demon. | The creature demands that the person carry it constantly, not allowing itself to be thrown off. | 85 | 113 |
| L6a In L6 family | Asks to be carried. | An unremarkable, weak-looking character asks a person to carry him or her on their back, and then refuses to get off. | 27 | 28 |
| L7 | Mistakenly chases after an animal. | While chasing a person, spirit, monster or beast, mistakenly chases after a large two-legged object passing by, usually an animal. | 35 | 54 |
| L7a In L7 family | Sticky: first to humans, then to animals. | A character who sticks to another creature and refuses to let go, first sticking to a human, then to an animal, or first sticking to an animal, then to a bird. | 17 | 24 |
| L7b In L7 family | Mistakenly chasing a calabash. | While chasing a person, spirit, monster or beast, he mistakenly throws himself after a calabash floating down the river. | 4 | 4 |
| L8 | Left behind feet and heads. | A character temporarily leaves parts of his body behind. Usually, a marriage partner makes it impossible to reunite the departed part with the remaining one. See motif L5. (For the Greater Southwest, Mesoamerica, and the Central Andes, borrowing from the Spanish or the superimposition of a borrowed motif on a pre-Columbian one cannot be ruled out. Stories of witches leaving parts of their bodies behind, which are of European origin, are widespread among the Spanish-speaking population of the Caribbean). | 34 | 48 |
| L9 | Cutting and stabbing body parts. | The character's body parts resemble cutting or stabbing weapons. | 123 | 164 |
| L9a In L9 family | Ostronog, G341.1. | The character's leg is crippled (intentionally or accidentally) or originally pointed. He uses the pointed bone for hunting, fishing or killing people. | 49 | 67 |
| L9b In L9 family | Knife elbows, G341. | The sharp elbows or (rarely) knees of the character resemble knives or awls. | 28 | 31 |
| L9c In L9 family | Sharp breast. | The character kills others with a sharp protrusion on his chest. | 13 | 28 |
| L9d In L9 family | Sharp hands. | The character has sharp nails or knife-like hands, which he uses to kill people. | 17 | 18 |
| L9e In L9 family | Copper nose. | The anthropomorphic character has a nose resembling a copper or iron beak. | 14 | 21 |
| L9f In L9 family | Golden nose or teeth. | A person with a nose or teeth made of gold or silver is a sign of their demonic nature. | 11 | 10 |
| L9g In L9 family | Bluebeard. | A man's hair or beard of an unusual colour is a sign of his demonic nature. | 8 | 8 |
| L10 | Sharp tail. | The character has a sharp (biting) tail or a protrusion on its back. See motif L9, cf. motif L9C. | 16 | 13 |
| L10a In L10 family | A demon approaches a hunter's campfire. | A demonic character approaches a man's campfire. The man leaves a log in his place and hides. The character throws himself on the log, mistaking it for a sleeping man; usually, the hunter kills or wounds the demon. | 32 | 53 |
| L11 | The turtle bench. | Everyday objects take the form of fish, invertebrates, reptiles, dangerous predators, or objects that transform into these animals under special circumstances. | 57 | 78 |
| L12 | Vultures and incomplete bodies. | Vultures lift into the sky a creature that has lost some of its limbs or has only one head left. | 6 | 11 |
| L13 | The raised monster. | People feed a dangerous creature, or it grows on its own in a man-made enclosure. Once it becomes big and strong, it starts to destroy people. | 66 | 97 |
| L14 | The cultivated snake. | People bring a small creature (usually a worm or reptile) into their home and raise it, or it settles into a man-made dwelling on its own. The creature turns into something terrifying or magnificent. See motif L13 (raised monster attacks people). | 79 | 45 |
| L15a In L15 family | Vulnerable spot on the body, | The character's vulnerable spot is located on the surface of the body, but not in vital internal organs. | 115 | 163 |
| L15a1 In L15 family | Achilles' heel. | The character's vulnerable spot is located at the bottom of the foot (heel, toe, sole, ankle). | 46 | 68 |
| L15a2 In L15 family | Not fully hardened. | The human body is tempered (in a furnace, etc.) to make it invulnerable, but one place remains unprotected. | 7 | 16 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.