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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L101 | Discarded clothing distracts the pursuer. | While running away, a person gradually undresses and throws items of clothing behind them. The pursuer wastes time picking them up or destroying them. | 30 | 41 |
| L102 | Escape from an animal husband. | A girl or woman (for various reasons, jokingly or seriously) calls an animal or animal remains her husband, or steps on bones and addresses them. The animal (comes to life and) carries her away. Her human husband, parents or brother come for her, and they flee; usually the animal husband pursues them, but stops the chase or dies. | 18 | 22 |
| L102a In L102 family | Escape from the seagull husband. | A seagull kidnaps a girl or woman, but she manages to return to people. | 6 | 5 |
| L103 | Magical flight: Atalanta, R231. | The fugitive throws or creates objects behind him, which the pursuer, wasting time, collects, eats or destroys, even though they do not hinder his progress. | 128 | 167 |
| L103a In L103 family | They did not unlock the door for their daughter. | A girl, a young woman, runs away from a demonic character; she manages to run home, but her relatives do not open the door. The pursuer finds and eats her. (A musical instrument is made from her hair or intestines). (Overview of variants in Rakhno 2016: 475-484). | 7 | 13 |
| L103b In L103 family | Animals carry away from the demon, (ATU 314A*). | A girl (boy, children) falls into the hands of a demonic creature. An animal or bird offers to carry her away and runs off. Usually, animals of different species do this, but only the last one manages to escape pursuit. | 19 | 39 |
| L103b1 In L103 family | A stream of excrement in the face of the pursuer. 28.30.-.32. | The hero or heroine flees from a demon on the back of a domestic animal (often a bull). When the demon approaches, the animal releases a stream of manure or intestinal gas into its face, and it stops the chase. | 5 | 10 |
| L103c In L103 family | The protective dog and the cannibal. | A dog, cat or other animal tries to drive away a demon (usually an old cannibal). The demon (or its victims, who do not understand the danger) kills the animal – usually by cutting off (breaking) its body parts one by one, after which the demon gains power over its victims. | 12 | 21 |
| L104 | The fugitive and the pursuer change their appearance (ATU 325). | The fleeing character successively takes on the appearance of various creatures or objects; the pursuer also changes his appearance, each time transforming into someone who is dangerous to the pursued in his current form. | 135 | 174 |
| L105 | The invisible hook, B5482.3. | A wounded animal, fish or anthropomorphic character runs or swims away – usually with a hook, harpoon, arrow or other hunting or fishing implement stuck in its body; local healers cannot cure the wounded creature (usually because they cannot see the object that caused the wound); a person comes to the wounded person's village and successfully treats them (usually by removing the object that caused the wound). Cf. motif M60A. | 54 | 63 |
| L106 | Demand to return the harpoon. | A person takes an object belonging to another and loses it; the owner demands that the object be returned; the hero goes after it (to another world), usually finds it and brings back what was lost. See motifs K56a3 and L105. | 53 | 71 |
| L106a In L106 family | Cut belly. | The antagonist makes formally justified but essentially unfair demands on the hero. The hero either fulfils them or is punished by the antagonist. Then the antagonist takes an object or animal belonging to the hero, but cannot return it and is punished equally or more severely. | 24 | 28 |
| L106b In L106 family | For disappearance into another world. | A girl, a young girl or (rarely) a boy loses an everyday object, usually carried away by water or wind. In search of the lost object, she (he) encounters powerful characters, returns the object and/or receives valuables. Traditions recorded only in Roberts 1994: 103-110 are highlighted in italics. | 74 | 93 |
| L107 | Ears-blankets. | People have disproportionately large ears (rarely: lips): they cover themselves with them like a blanket, use them as an umbrella, can step on them, etc. | 33 | 53 |
| L108 | The Wolf and the Kids, ATU 123. | Each time the departed character returns, he or she sings a song or gives a signal to a relative (usually a child) or friend who remained at home, who then lets him or her in. The antagonist pretends to be the departed person, imitating his or her voice, showing his or her hand, etc. Cf. motif L27a. | 142 | 228 |
| L108a In L108 family | The goat kills the antagonist. | A predator or cannibal swallows people and animals. A goat (rarely a sheep) punishes it and usually rescues those who have been swallowed (most often by cutting open its belly, allowing those who have been swallowed to escape alive). | 66 | 81 |
| L108b In L108 family | The Thin Voice, (ATU 327F). | To prevent his victim from recognising him, the predator, the cannibal, makes his voice thinner by mechanical means - he smears his throat (tongue) with fat, cauterises it with a hot stone or iron, exposes it to ant bites, consults a blacksmith, etc. | 59 | 83 |
| L108b1 In L108 family | The blacksmith makes his voice thin. | To make his voice thin, the character turns to the blacksmith. | 25 | 46 |
| L108b2 In L108 family | Ants make the voice thin. | To acquire a thin voice, the character allows ants to bite his tongue. | 5 | 7 |
| L108c In L108 family | White Hand. | To prevent the victim from recognising him and opening the door, the predator, the cannibal, shows part of his clothing, his hand, his paw, making the victim believe that his mother, teacher, etc. has come. | 32 | 41 |
| L108d In L108 family | Stones sewn into the belly. | A character who swallowed his prey alive falls asleep. When his belly was cut open, the swallowed prey was removed and replaced with stones, but he did not notice anything. | 12 | 15 |
| L108e In L108 family | Children of the fox, ATU 123A. | A fox has a child, usually adopted (she cares for a lamb, a foal, etc.), a wolf or a bear kills it, and the fox takes revenge. | 15 | 8 |
| L108f In L108 family | Luring from the bottom. | A character (girl, boy) finds themselves in water, and the antagonist lures them to shore by imitating the voice of their father, brother or sister. | 4 | 5 |
| L108g In L108 family | Wash away the black. | The character is black and must sit in water until he turns white. The antagonist carries him away. | 3 | 5 |
| L109 | The man-eating pumpkin. | The pumpkin turns out to be a monster-devourer and/or grows from the remains of a monster. | 29 | 38 |
| L110 | The Devourer, (ATU 2028), Th F911.6. | A character swallows many people and/or animals. In the end, his stomach is cut open, and those who were swallowed unharmed come out or are extracted and revived. Cf. motif K8a. | 146 | 220 |
| L110a In L110 family | Cut ear. | A character swallows a person or (usually) many people and animals, the hero kills the monster, and while cutting it open, accidentally wounds one of those who were swallowed. Usually, the wounded person is offended and when those who were swallowed come out, they harm or destroy the hero. | 5 | 8 |
| L110b In L110 family | The stomach eats the oak tree. | The stomach (spleen) removed from the body of a domestic animal or bird turns out to be a voracious monster. | 7 | 7 |
| L110c In L110 family | Clay child. | An elderly couple makes a child out of clay (wood, straw, dough). The doll comes to life and eats everyone it sees. Usually a goat (ram) breaks it, and those who have been swallowed come out alive. | 16 | 21 |
| L111 | Hook from the sky. | The inhabitants of the sky or shamans catch or want to catch earthly people with a hook, net, noose, etc., dragging them up into the sky (somewhere above) like fishermen pull fish out of the water; the inhabitants of the earth fish with hooks for fish, which in their own world are people or domestic animals. | 20 | 23 |
| L112 | Attaining physical completeness. | A physically defective boy is born (tiny, with one head, half a body, etc.). After a series of adventures, he gains physical completeness. | 20 | 27 |
| L113 | Married to a werewolf (ATU 363). | A girl who has long rejected suitors falls in love with a handsome man who turns out to be a demon, a werewolf, or a dangerous animal. The girl barely escapes or perishes. | 67 | 93 |
| L114 | The younger brother saves from the werewolf. | A group of young men or women arrives at the demon's lair. The younger brother or sister, or a character who is considered sick, unpleasant, unfit, and often goes with others against their will, saves them all. See motif L113. | 70 | 85 |
| L114a In L114 family | The awake child. | One (usually the youngest) of a group of young men or women (children) ends up with them in the house of a cannibal or cannibaless. The cannibal intends to kill the newcomers when they fall asleep. The youngest consistently answers the cannibal's questions about why he is not sleeping, forcing him to carry out new tasks instead of attacking the sleepers. The brothers (sisters) run away and escape. | 34 | 48 |
| L114b In L114 family | Task: to bring the property of the cannibal, ATU 328. | After receiving the task or on his own initiative, the trickster enters the character's house (usually that of the cannibal) several times, each time taking one of his belongings or one of his family members. | 70 | 77 |
| L114b1 In L114 family | Task: bring the cannibal himself, ATU 328. | The character sequentially steals various items from the cannibal's house and finally catches or kills him. | 45 | 59 |
| L114c In L114 family | Exchanging clothes with the cannibal's daughters, ATU 327B. | Children or young men (usually brothers) exchange clothes (headgear, jewellery, blankets, sleeping places) with the children of a hostile character, who then kills his own children instead of them at night. Usually, the brothers end up with a cannibal, and the younger brother orders them to swap places (clothes, etc.) with his daughters for the night. Outside Europe, the protagonists are animals. | 103 | 100 |
| L115 | The Perfect Gentleman. | A girl who rejected suitors finally finds someone she likes. The groom turns out to be a werewolf: on the way to his home, he gives away borrowed items of clothing and parts of his body. | 16 | 25 |
| L116 | The Singer in the Sack, ATU 311B. | A cannibal (old man, gypsy) grabs a girl, carries her away, and forces her to sing (beg). People recognise the girl's voice and free her. | 20 | 25 |
| L116a In L116 family | Doe with golden horns. | While chasing a roe deer (fallow deer, deer), the hero finds himself in the lair of a demon or wizard; the roe deer is an enchanted person or demon. | 32 | 45 |
| L117 | Imposed companions. | A man is going to get married. An evil spirit, animal, etc. imposes itself on him as a companion (usually helping, feeding, or simply saying that it will then demand half of the wife). After the wedding, it takes or tries to take the bride or demands to share her. In the Gola text, a man obtains a wife for the spirit and demands to share her. | 14 | 16 |
| L118 | Hand caught in a log, H1532, ATU 38. | One character provokes another to stick a part of their body into a split log (between two boards, etc.) and knocks out the wedge. | 78 | 101 |
| L118a In L118 family | Imitation: knife to the throat. | In order to get rid of a dangerous but foolish character, a person performs certain actions, which the character imitates, not realising that he is harming himself. | 20 | 18 |
| l118a1 In l118 family | Man deceives monkey. | A man deliberately performs certain actions in front of a monkey. The monkey imitates him, causing harm to itself. | 5 | 5 |
| L119 | Battle in the air. | The hero and antagonist fight in the air, tearing off each other's limbs. Usually, their allies on the ground try to preserve the limbs of their leader and destroy those of their enemy. | 4 | 8 |
| L120 | Snakes turn into apple trees, ATU 300A. | After overhearing a conversation between demonic characters who are planning to turn themselves into something edible, attractive, and safe, and to destroy anyone who touches them, the hero neutralises the demons. | 37 | 57 |
| L120a In L120 family | Dragon tongue and blacksmith's tongs. | The hero hides in a smithy from the dragon chasing him. When the monster breaks through and rubs the door (with its tongue), the blacksmith (or the hero himself) burns it (usually clamping its tongue with red-hot tongs or throwing a red-hot club into its mouth). | 25 | 34 |
| L120b In L120 family | The fighting hero wakes his brothers. | The hero fights the serpent and calls for help, but no one hears him. Then he throws an item of his footwear or clothing, and his awakened brothers or his horse come to his aid. | 12 | 16 |
| L121 | The hunter and his werewolf wife. | An animal or cannibal (man-eater) transforms into a woman and marries a hunter with the sole intention of killing him. Usually, the wife takes on her true form when she goes into the forest with the hunter. | 18 | 37 |
| L121a In L121 family | The hunter's secret. | The hunter has the ability to avoid danger by transforming himself into various objects. His shapeshifting wife tries to recognise them in order to destroy the hunter. | 7 | 15 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.