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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L42i In L42 family | Sister sets out to rescue her brother (geese-swans), ATU 480A*. | Creatures from another world carry off a little boy. His sister takes him and safely escapes from their pursuers. Usually the boy has two or three sisters, and only the youngest succeeds. | 15 | 22 |
| L65c1 In L65 family | Sisters fly away from a cannibal. | Three or more sisters have the ability to fly and fly away from the cannibal – their older sister or mother. Only the youngest is saved. | 4 | 5 |
| L28 | Snake meat. | A person who eats unusual or forbidden meat or fish, or touches something forbidden, turns into a reptile or a fish. | 65 | 92 |
| 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 |
| L94c In L94 family | Son or daughter sacrificed. | If a deity grants victory, a person promises to sacrifice to it the first person who comes out to meet them at home. A son or daughter comes out. | 4 | 5 |
| L38a In L38 family | Sticky trap – resin stump. | The character sticks to an object, usually by successively sticking individual parts of their body to it. The object is either a trap for a demonic creature or is itself a creature of a non-human nature. Cf. motif M182 (tar doll), probably brought to the New World after Columbus from Africa. | 34 | 55 |
| 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 |
| L41a In L41 family | Stone in a basket. | The character runs away from his captor, leaving a stone (or a log, sand) in his place. See motif L41. | 57 | 55 |
| L62 | Stone Man. | The Stone Man kills people, but is then killed himself. | 19 | 17 |
| L33g In L33 family | Stone with a beard. | A tree, a creature on a tree, a stone kills (seriously injures) anyone who calls it a certain way, climbs on it, etc. The character provokes others to do this and eats the dead, the last of the invited guests deceives the provocateur himself. | 6 | 7 |
| L53 | Stones in the mouth, K951. | The terrifying creature is killed or neutralised by throwing (red-hot) stones, pieces of iron, etc. into its mouth or anus, or the creature retreats when threatened with a stone being thrown into its mouth. | 133 | 183 |
| 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 |
| L59a In L59 family | Stuck to the whale. | People who mocked the hero or his son were dragged into the sea and turned into sea animals or parts of its body or parasites on its skin. | 7 | 11 |
| L24 | Suffocating demons with smoke. | Demons (or one of them) attack people and then hide. People destroy the demons' lair and kill all or most of them by spreading a smoky fire around the demons' refuge. | 55 | 96 |
| L41b In L41 family | Tar basket. | A basket in which a cannibal puts people is smeared or filled with tar. See motifs L41, L42. | 10 | 9 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L85e In L85 family | Temporarily splits in two. | The character is temporarily split vertically into two halves and then rejoined. | 2 | 3 |
| L72h In L72 family | The abandoned flint. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a tool for kindling fire (flint, tinder, match, kindling), which becomes an obstacle in the path of his pursuer. (A discarded flint is counted if it serves to strike fire, and is not counted if it is simply a hard stone that turns into a mountain). | 25 | 37 |
| L72c In L72 family | The abandoned mirror. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws a mirror behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (ice, lake, etc.) or attracts his attention and causes him to lose time. (In the Udmurt version, objects destroy obstacles in the character's path). | 46 | 56 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L42g2 In L42 family | The bird erases the trace. | A person leaves traces behind by dropping seeds, pebbles, etc., or leaving drops of blood. These traces are unintentionally destroyed by birds, animals, wind, etc. | 21 | 24 |
| L108b1 In L108 family | The blacksmith makes his voice thin. | To make his voice thin, the character turns to the blacksmith. | 25 | 46 |
| L44b In L44 family | The blind man saw, the lame man ran. | The blind and deaf (lame) began to live together, helping each other. After being mortally frightened or fighting, both (less often, one of them) got rid of their disabilities. | 20 | 21 |
| L37b3 In L37 family | The body of a bird has miraculous powers. | From the birds' conversation, humans learn that their bodies or secretions have miraculous properties. | 12 | 13 |
| L54 | The boiling lake. | To overcome the disaster, hot stones or ashes are thrown into the water. | 16 | 23 |
| L33c In L33 family | The boulder crushes the trickster. | The trickster and the boulder agree to race down the slope. The boulder rolls faster and faster and crushes the trickster. See motif L33. | 14 | 7 |
| L33a In L33 family | The boulder pursues the thief. | The trickster takes an object lying on or near a rock or other inanimate object, which he has given to that object. The object pursues or otherwise punishes the offender. See motif L33. | 25 | 4 |
| L42i1 In L42 family | The boy fisherman is carried away by a witch (ATU 327F). | A boy is rowing a boat. A witch lures him out and carries him away. The boy escapes. | 9 | 24 |
| L15g In L15 family | The burnt log (death of Meleager), ATU 1187. | A person's life is connected to an object that can be burned. As soon as the object is burned, the person dies. | 19 | 8 |
| L42 | The cannibal brings the hero to his home, ATU 327C. | After capturing the character, the enemy brings the prey home or to the place where he intends to eat it. The character runs away and escapes. | 198 | 342 |
| L65a In L65 family | The Cannibal Sister, ATU 315A. | A daughter is born, or people find a girl; she is a monster or turns into a monster and devours everyone. Her brother escapes (usually leaves, marries, returns), and she pursues him unsuccessfully. | 65 | 82 |
| L42d In L42 family | The cannibal's frozen tongue. | A man runs away from a cannibal across the ice, the cannibal pursues him, licks the blood spilled on the ice, his tongue freezes, he dies, or falls to his death after slipping on the ice. | 11 | 13 |
| L81a In L81 family | The cat extinguishes the fire. | A girl offends a cat (rarely: a dog, a rooster) and the cat takes revenge by causing misfortune to befall the girl (usually by extinguishing the fire, after which the girl falls into the hands of a demon). | 22 | 33 |
| L41a1 In L41 family | The cauldron split. | When the demon tries to shake the meat out of the bag over the cauldron, stones fall from the bag into the cauldron and it splits, or the boiling water spills out and scalds the demon. | 15 | 19 |
| L96 | The changed appearance is sold and returns (ATU 325). | The character has the ability to transform into animals or objects. Sold in this form, he achieves his goal and becomes human again. | 87 | 127 |
| 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 |
| L57 | The character returns his organ. | The character loses an internal organ or part of the body, which is taken away by others; he approaches unnoticed and takes back what was lost. | 48 | 67 |
| L100c In L100 family | The chaste sorceress and seducers, D2006.1.1. | When a man comes to a beautiful woman who lives alone, she asks him to perform a trivial task (close the door, etc.) and uses magic to leave him in an awkward and uncomfortable position (holding the door handle, etc.) for the whole night. The next night, the same thing happens to another (rarely: the same) admirer. Each, ashamed, tells the others that he enjoyed it. | 23 | 28 |
| L6 | The clingy demon. | The creature demands that the person carry it constantly, not allowing itself to be thrown off. | 85 | 113 |
| 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 |
| L94b1 In L94 family | The demon collects the riches back into the box. | A man receives a box (bag, horn, etc.) as a gift, which he must open only at home. Driven by curiosity, he opens it on the way, and everything that should make him wealthy (houses, livestock, etc.) spills out. The demon who appears agrees to return everything, but sets a condition, the severity of which the man does not immediately understand. | 36 | 43 |
| L57b In L57 family | The demon comes for a part of his body, ATU 161A. | A person tears off or cuts off a part of the body of a predatory animal or demonic creature and uses it. The creature comes for the lost part, usually killing or maiming the person. | 19 | 24 |
| L81a2 In L81 family | The demon comes to drink the girl's blood (ATU 709A). | While the men are away, a demonic character comes to a girl or woman to drink her blood or otherwise torment her. The men notice that the girl is wasting away, but at first they do not know the reason. | 42 | 50 |
| L88 | The demon comes to life from touch. | A man kills a demon, but when he touches its remains some time later, it comes to life. | 8 | 11 |
| L96b In L96 family | The demon is thrown into a cauldron. | A person encounters an ascetic, demon, etc. The latter intends to kill him by pushing him into a boiling cauldron or cutting off his head when he bows before the deity. The person asks the ascetic to do everything first, then pushes him into the cauldron or cuts off his head himself. | 27 | 35 |
| L38 | The demon trap. | The demon sets a trap, and people fall into it. Cf. motif K64A. | 57 | 92 |
| L124 | The demon's treacherous gift. | A person extracts a vein, spinal cord, or intestine from the demon's body, cuts out a strip of skin, or receives a belt as a gift, but does not gird himself or another, instead placing the belt on a tree. The belt cuts or burns the tree. | 13 | 18 |
| L25 | The devil sucks out brains. | By killing demons, people save the life of a child, girl or woman. Remaining among people, she or he kills people (usually children) left in her or his care. | 16 | 19 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.