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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L69 | The puma defeats the monster. | A monster attacks a person; a puma, jaguar or dog fights the monster, kills or drives it away; the person returns home. | 11 | 12 |
| L100a In L100 family | The pursuer abandons the transformed fugitive. | The fugitive transforms into a small object (stick, stone) or hides in a similar object. The pursuer, in anger, throws the object far ahead, unwittingly helping the fugitive to escape. | 13 | 18 |
| L72e1 In L72 family | The pursuer hides the axe. | In order to destroy the obstacles created by the hero, the pursuer uses tools. Before continuing the chase, he is forced to spend time taking them home or hiding them, otherwise animals and birds will steal them. | 12 | 16 |
| L72e In L72 family | The pursuer returns for the axe. | In order to overcome the obstacles created by the fleeing hero, the pursuer is forced to return home for the necessary tools. | 17 | 29 |
| 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 |
| L31b In L31 family | The reptile crawls into the water. | Upon discovering a reptile on land, people touch it or sit on it, stick to it, and it crawls away with them into the water. See motif L31. | 17 | 3 |
| L74 | The Returned Hand. | A bear or other powerful character tears off and carries away another character's hand. A third character steals the hand and returns it to the one from whom it was torn off. | 11 | 17 |
| L15c1 In L15 family | The righteous adversary suffers damage. | A dangerous character naively reveals what he fears or what his life consists of, and the hero takes advantage of this. | 12 | 14 |
| L5j In L5 family | The rolling head laughs. | The rolling head laughs for no reason. See motif L5. | 6 | 2 |
| L73c In L73 family | The scarf opens and closes the way. | By waving a piece of cloth (towel, scarf, item of clothing) or throwing it, placing it on water, etc., the character creates obstacles (in the path of the pursuer) or a means of overcoming them (bridge, etc.). | 35 | 62 |
| L65 | The scary baby. | An infant or small child turns out to be a demon and kills people. | 73 | 97 |
| 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 |
| L15h1 In L15 family | The soul of a character in an egg. | 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 container of the soul is an egg (to kill the character, the egg must be broken over his head). | 45 | 70 |
| L31 | The sticky monster. | People are forced against their will to follow an object, person or animal (usually sticking to it) that carries them far away (usually into water or into the sky). | 34 | 49 |
| L58 | The stingy man. | A man refuses to give food to his closest relatives or spouse; as punishment, he or his food changes its nature. | 28 | 32 |
| L59 | The stingy woman: metamorphosis. | A woman eats the best food or eats fruit before it is ripe; as punishment, she undergoes metamorphosis. | 20 | 23 |
| 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 |
| L94d In L94 family | The tale with a tail. | A demonic character accuses a man of stepping on (tearing off) the tail of a fairy tale. Cf. motif K100E, "Dangerous Fairy Tales". | 3 | 3 |
| 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 |
| L134 | The Third Wave. | The hero's adversary (usually a demonic woman) is inside a sea wave (the third or ninth) or embodies the wave. | 10 | 9 |
| L42j In L42 family | The tree bends (children in the ogre's bag). | The ogre catches children (usually mice), puts them in a bag, orders a tree (pole, crossbar in the house) to bend over, hangs the bag, orders the tree to straighten up again, and leaves. Another character (usually a fox) orders the tree (pole, etc.) to bend over and frees the children. | 7 | 9 |
| L33b In L33 family | The trickster provokes a stone. | The character challenges someone who, at first glance, is unable to move (a stump, a boulder, fire) to race or roll over it. The challenged party sets off, crushes or burns the character, or runs away with their property. | 18 | 22 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L100 | The Unrecognised Fugitive, D671. | A young man and woman fleeing from their pursuers take on the appearance of different but associatively related creatures or objects (a pond and a duck, a minaret and a muezzin, etc.). Usually, their pursuers do not recognise them. | 91 | 173 |
| L51 | The victim is thrown to aquatic animals. | A cannibal, spirit, or predatory beast regularly throws its victims down, where they are devoured by aquatic or chthonic creatures. | 9 | 14 |
| L32 | The voracious stone. | The stone swallows, bites, beats or transforms people. | 15 | 19 |
| L135 | The Wanderer. | A person leaves home and finds himself in unfamiliar places. His journey is marked by encounters with various strange creatures. In the end, he either returns home or leaves the earth for another world. (With an abundance of episodes, the story often either breaks off or does not contain the initial episodes explaining the reason for the hero's departure from home). | 36 | 47 |
| L125a In L125 family | The werewolf wife suffers from thirst. | The woman with whom the man has come together is a creature of a non-human nature. This becomes clear after she suffers from thirst at night and, finding no water in the house, takes on her true form, turning into a snake, separating her limbs from her torso, etc. | 8 | 8 |
| L125 | The Werewolf Wife, ATU 411. | After meeting a beautiful woman, a man finds her in a situation where her inhuman nature is revealed. After that, the marriage falls apart. | 49 | 83 |
| L72b In L72 family | The whetstone mountain. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws small objects behind him, which turn into powerful obstacles in the path of his pursuer. One of the objects thrown is a whetstone. (In one of the Udmurt variants, the objects thrown destroy the obstacles in the character's path). See motif L72. | 53 | 78 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L65d In L65 family | The younger sister of the cannibal. | When the older sister becomes a cannibal, the younger sister (temporarily) escapes. Cf. motifs L1B, L65C. | 34 | 40 |
| 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 |
| L42h In L42 family | Those gathered for the feast eat the host. | A cannibal catches the hero and invites other cannibals to a feast. The hero escapes, and the cannibals eat the one who invited them. | 9 | 9 |
| L97 | Those rooted in the earth. | Seeing a character who is unable to move (nailed to the ground, his lower body rooted to the ground, petrified, completely absent), the hero himself manages to avoid a similar fate. | 22 | 20 |
| L15b In L15 family | To kill with a cane. | The character can only be killed with a specific plant, which is not usually used for making weapons. | 22 | 19 |
| L37a In L37 family | To learn the causes of misfortune, Th H1291, ATU 460A. | On the way to a powerful being, a person meets characters who ask him to ask questions on their behalf (usually to find out the cause of their misfortunes). | 113 | 174 |
| L37b1 In L37 family | Toad under a stone. | To cure a sick person or rid a house of other misfortunes, one must kill (catch, expel) a toad, frog or snake hiding in the house (in the garden, under the roots). | 30 | 42 |
| L78 | Toad-jaguar. | In the images, the character has the features of a jaguar and a toad; the toad/frog turns into a jaguar; the toad/frog is the mother or wife of the jaguar. | 21 | 22 |
| L95b In L95 family | Together with the demon against the child. | Having promised to give the child to the demon, the mother or father does not try to save him or her, but arranges for the child to fall into the demon's hands. Against all odds, the son or daughter is saved.[1] Motif L85 "Half-creatures, F525" (the character has only half a body (vertically) or only one leg, which does not prevent him from moving) [AKB]. See also text No. 35.[2] Voracity is a characteristic feature of šǝʔōl in Is 5:14, Hab 2:5, Pr 1:12, Ps 141:7 (see Gaster 1950:189, O’Callahan 1954:169). | 35 | 43 |
| L65b4 In L65 family | Tooth-axe. | The character pulls out his tooth to use it as a weapon or tool (often an axe). | 18 | 22 |
| L123 | Traces lead in all directions. | In order to confuse the pursuer, the character leaves traces leading in all directions before running away. | 8 | 8 |
| L23b In L23 family | Transformation into a spindle. | Trying to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance. The last transformation is into a spindle. | 9 | 24 |
| L23a In L23 family | Transformation into flame. | In an attempt to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance, in particular turning into fire (and water). | 9 | 8 |
| L23e In L23 family | Transformations of the captured man. | A man captures a male character. Trying to free himself, the latter transforms into various substances or animals. | 14 | 15 |
| L23d In L23 family | Transformations of the captured woman. | A man captures a desirable woman. Trying to free herself, she transforms into various substances, materials, animals or (urarina, setebo) orders various dangerous animals to attack the man who captured her. | 25 | 50 |
| L19b3 In L19 family | Twelve-headed monster. | A creature with 12 heads is mentioned – either singly or at the end of a series of creatures with fewer heads. | 32 | 59 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.