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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L1c In L1 family | Fugitives turn into stars. | Those fleeing from the monstrous bear ascend to the sky and turn into stars. | 12 | 18 |
| L20a In L20 family | The parrot devourer. | A man climbs a tree, takes chicks (usually parrots) from a nest and throws them to a woman. She eats them raw, then kills or tries to kill the man. | 12 | 31 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L42a In L42 family | Cannibal steals corpses. | The cannibal steals fresh corpses from graves. | 12 | 14 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L95a In L95 family | Light on water. | A person sees lungs or a liver lying on the ground or floating in the water. As soon as he touches them, a demonic character appears before him. | 12 | 14 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L124a In L124 family | Cutting belt. | The belt (wire, intestine, strip of leather, etc.) cuts or burns whatever it is applied to (a tree or a person). | 13 | 18 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L74a In L74 family | Hanged over the hearth. | The enemy carries the hero away or tears off and carries away part of his body, after which he hangs his victim or part of his body (usually over a fire) in order to cause the victim torment. Another character rescues the hero himself or returns the stolen part of his body to him. | 13 | 15 |
| L93c In L93 family | The monkey helper. | The monkey, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saves them. | 13 | 11 |
| L9c In L9 family | Sharp breast. | The character kills others with a sharp protrusion on his chest. | 13 | 28 |
| 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 |
| L130 | One eye for three, ATU 328*. | Two or more characters have only one eye between them. | 14 | 18 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L9e In L9 family | Copper nose. | The anthropomorphic character has a nose resembling a copper or iron beak. | 14 | 21 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L22B In L22 family | Metamorphosis of the blind. | People who wake up blind in the morning turn into fish, birds or animals. See motif L22. | 15 | 14 |
| 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 |
| L30 | He who eats a snake wants to drink. | The one who broke the food taboo experiences terrible thirst and drinks a huge amount of water. | 15 | 21 |
| L32 | The voracious stone. | The stone swallows, bites, beats or transforms people. | 15 | 19 |
| L33e In L33 family | The gifted cloak. | The trickster demands back or takes the cloak belonging to the skale or another character (usually he himself had previously given this cloak as a gift). | 15 | 24 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L5e1 In L5 family | A female demon pursues her children. | A woman who has become a monster pursues her own children. | 15 | 12 |
| L65b1 In L65 family | Exchanging sheep for dogs. | A man exchanges sheep (goats) for dogs. The exchange seems unequal, but the dogs help him achieve success. | 15 | 25 |
| L72i In L72 family | Discarded soap. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws soap behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (a slippery mountain, river, etc.). | 15 | 18 |
| L10 | Sharp tail. | The character has a sharp (biting) tail or a protrusion on its back. See motif L9, cf. motif L9C. | 16 | 13 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L22a In L22 family | People go blind. | Having broken some taboo, seen an unusual object or strange character, people fall into a deep sleep and wake up in the morning blind. See motif L22. Among the Watut, Khmou and Trumai, a spirit eats out a person's eyes and they die immediately without waking up). | 16 | 6 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L54 | The boiling lake. | To overcome the disaster, hot stones or ashes are thrown into the water. | 16 | 23 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.