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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| l44a1 In l44 family | Louse- turtle. | A human and a demonic character agree to compare their lice. When the human shows a turtle or a frog, the demon believes that it is scarier and stronger than him. | 13 | 16 |
| 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 |
| l15h4 In l15 family | The character's soul in a needle. | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final container of the soul is a needle, which the hero breaks. | 5 | 6 |
| l73a1 In l73 family | The fugitive creates fog. | Throwing some object behind him, the fleeing character creates fog or darkness in the path of his pursuer. | 22 | 21 |
| l93d In l93 family | The hedgehog as helper. | The hedgehog, resorting to cunning, helps the hero and saves him. | 4 | 5 |
| l15h2 In l15 family | The soul of a character in a bird. | The object in which the character's life is contained is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final repository of the soul is a bird (a chick, several birds or chicks). | 22 | 28 |
| l15h3 In l15 family | The soul of a character in an insect (worm). | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final vessel of the soul is an insect or worm. | 11 | 14 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L72k In L72 family | A discarded bottle of oil. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws a jar of oil behind him. Spilling out, it turns into a lake or river. (Only North American materials are taken into account. In the Old World, the motif is rare and unsystematic. In North America, it most likely refers to hair oil in all cases). | 7 | 12 |
| L5e1 In L5 family | A female demon pursues her children. | A woman who has become a monster pursues her own children. | 15 | 12 |
| 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 |
| L90a In L90 family | A hut on chicken legs. | Describes a house that stands on the legs or a single leg of a bird or small animal and/or rotates (is capable of turning). | 23 | 70 |
| L42g1 In L42 family | A knock is heard, the father has left. | Father (stepfather) takes children into the forest and slips away unnoticed. To make the children think he is nearby chopping wood, father hangs a board, pumpkin, etc. on a tree, which bangs against the trunk in the wind. | 42 | 59 |
| L73b In L73 family | A line drawn. | The fugitive draws a line on the ground (ice), creating an obstacle in the path of the pursuer. | 7 | 11 |
| L5i In L5 family | A multitude of skulls. | A multitude of rolling heads or skulls try to take a woman away. | 5 | 4 |
| L72j In L72 family | A needle (awl) turns into many needles (awls). | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him an awl or needle, which turns into many awls or needles. | 11 | 11 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L36 | A woman attacks when a man is in a tree. | At the moment when the husband climbs or descends from a tree, his wife (or her brother) kills or maims him or turns into a demon that pursues him. | 12 | 13 |
| L40a In L40 family | A woman mistakes a young man's reflection for her own. | An unattractive woman sees the reflection of a young man sitting in a tree in the water and thinks that she has become beautiful. | 5 | 10 |
| L85b In L85 family | A woman who has offended a god gives birth to a freak. | A pregnant woman curses the Sun, Rain or another powerful character. Because of this, the child is born physically disabled. He possesses magical powers and usually acquires a normal body. | 11 | 12 |
| L72d In L72 family | Abandoned scissors. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a pair of scissors, which turn into some kind of obstacle in the path of his pursuer. | 13 | 13 |
| L70 | Aborted fruit. | The character is killed or maimed by an object dropped from above, the fall of which he expects, but has a false idea of its nature or weight (fruit, piece of bark, turtle, log, etc.). | 126 | 173 |
| L40b In L40 family | Absurd actions aimed at luring a character out. | To make the character come closer, absurd actions are performed in front of him. The character does not understand the deception and comes closer to explain how to act correctly. | 29 | 43 |
| 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 |
| L81d In L81 family | After fighting, the cripples recovered. | Two cripples with different physical disabilities quarrel and fight, and as a result become whole and healthy. | 10 | 9 |
| L83 | An incomplete body turns into lightning/thunder. | A character who has only a head left (motif L5) or who has burned his leg (motif L82) turns into lightning/thunder (or emits lightning/thunderclaps). | 7 | 8 |
| 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 |
| L108b2 In L108 family | Ants make the voice thin. | To acquire a thin voice, the character allows ants to bite his tongue. | 5 | 7 |
| L85b1 In L85 family | Ascending to heaven, he regains his physical wholeness. | After ascending to the sky (meeting God, returning from the sky to earth), a physically disabled young man (usually with only half a body) becomes whole. | 16 | 20 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L47 | Backwards – the slain enemy. | The hero's enemy approaches him upside down or backwards, giving the hero the opportunity to kill him or escape. See motif L46. | 21 | 18 |
| 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 |
| L126 | Bird-demon, ATU 2041. | An anthropomorphic character cooks and eats a bird, but the bird cries out from inside his stomach and escapes. The character dies or suffers harm. Cf. motif K132. | 32 | 37 |
| 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 |
| L9g In L9 family | Bluebeard. | A man's hair or beard of an unusual colour is a sign of his demonic nature. | 8 | 8 |
| L55 | Boiling water in the mouth. | To neutralise a dangerous enemy, a caustic or boiling liquid is poured into one of the openings of its body. | 28 | 27 |
| L23c In L23 family | Breaking an object in half. | Trying to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance. The last transformation is a small wooden object (usually a spindle). When this object is broken in half, the character permanently regains his human form. | 15 | 26 |
| L99 | Bring the skewer! | Having captured the character, the ogre orders him to bring wood or a spit to roast him. The character deliberately procrastinates, brings the wrong thing, or is helped to escape by some animal. | 20 | 19 |
| L34 | Burning hair. | The character kills or maims the enemy by setting fire to their clothes, mask, headdress, hair, or an object behind their back. | 57 | 51 |
| L82 | Burns his leg in a fire. | A person deliberately or accidentally burns his foot in a fire or burns himself completely; he turns into a demonic creature. See motif L9 (man with a sharp foot). | 16 | 24 |
| L50 | Cannibal by the trail, G321. | The character kills travellers passing by. Usually, he does not attack them unexpectedly, but distracts their attention first. Often, he pushes his victims down somewhere. | 37 | 56 |
| L42a In L42 family | Cannibal steals corpses. | The cannibal steals fresh corpses from graves. | 12 | 14 |
| L42e In L42 family | Captured again, ATU 327C. | A demon catches the hero, carries him home, but the hero escapes on the way. The demon returns, catches the hero again, and this time brings him to his home. Or the demon catches and carries several children, but they escape on the way, leaving only one, whom the demon brings to his home. | 43 | 50 |
| L72g In L72 family | Cast salt. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws salt behind him, preventing his pursuer from continuing the chase. | 31 | 34 |
| L31a In L31 family | Children carried away to the sky. | An object descends from the sky. Children playing climb into it or stick to it, and it carries them away to the sky. See motif L31. | 0 | 0 |
| 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 |
| L86 | Children run away from their demon mother. | Having turned into a demon, a woman pursues her children. Cf. motif K102a2: A mother seeks to destroy her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair and/or sides with his father in a conflict between his parents. | 26 | 38 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.