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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L20 | Raw meat eater. | Two characters hunt or fish. One turns out to be or becomes a cannibal, which is revealed when he/she begins to eat the prey raw. | 22 | 49 |
| L39d In L39 family | Give an apple to someone. | A boy climbs a tree to pick fruit. A demonic character asks him to share, but not to throw the fruit on the ground, but to pass it from hand to hand. He grabs the boy and carries him away. | 22 | 30 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L81b In L81 family | The hero's severed legs. | The hero's rivals abandon him, cutting off his legs (usually leaving a sword at the entrance to his tent, and when the hero rushes out, the blade wounds him). | 22 | 32 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L129 | Why such big teeth? (Little Red Riding Hood), (ATU 333) | The character is asked why his body parts, organs, and tools are the way they are. He answers (or the questioner gives explanations for him). In the end, one kills or maims the other. | 23 | 27 |
| L131 | Your children are burning (all versions). | To get rid of a demonic creature or make a bird or ladybird fly away, they are told that the place where their home and/or children are located is engulfed in fire. | 23 | 47 |
| L85c In L85 family | Polukurochka, B171.1, ATU 715. | A character with half a body – a hen, a chick. Sometimes it is only a name, and the character's appearance is more anthropomorphic. | 23 | 28 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L15i In L15 family | Life in hair. | A man dies or loses his strength (or pretends to) if his hair is cut or pulled out. | 24 | 25 |
| 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 |
| L108b1 In L108 family | The blacksmith makes his voice thin. | To make his voice thin, the character turns to the blacksmith. | 25 | 46 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L37a1 In L37 family | Let the wolf eat the fool, ATU 461A. | A man sets out to discover the reason for his misfortunes. Others also convey their questions to him. God (fate) replies that a predator (wolf, lion, bear) must eat the fool, and in order to help the others, one must dig up treasure, marry the queen, etc. The man refuses to marry, take the gold, etc., because he has not received direct instructions to do so. The predator decides that he will not find anyone more foolish. | 25 | 23 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L90E In L90 family | Heads on stakes. | Human heads are impaled on stakes outside the house of a dangerous character, and one head is missing (or there is a wall of heads, with one missing). It is assumed that the head of the hero of the story should be there. | 26 | 30 |
| L65a1 In L65 family | The horse's legs eaten away. | A demonic character successively devours parts of the horse on which the hero arrived, each time returning to the hero and then leaving to devour another part. (Often asks whether the hero arrived on a three-legged, two-legged or one-legged horse). | 27 | 34 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L15c In L15 family | Who is afraid of what (hero and adversary). | A dangerous character asks the hero how he can be killed, what he is afraid of. The hero lies, saying that the named object does not harm him. | 28 | 32 |
| L49 | Parts of the body fall down. | Individual parts or pieces of a character's body are successively thrown down. (In American variants, those below usually mistake them for game, honey, or fish). | 28 | 42 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L81c In L81 family | The legless, the blind, and the armless. | The legless man lives together with the blind and armless man (or with one of the two). By working together, they are healed. | 28 | 37 |
| L9b In L9 family | Knife elbows, G341. | The sharp elbows or (rarely) knees of the character resemble knives or awls. | 28 | 31 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L66 | Underground passage beneath the monster. | To help the hero, a small animal digs an underground passage beneath the lying monster, and the hero strikes it from below. | 29 | 43 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L92 | Imaginary help to a cannibal. | A demon, a cannibal, chops down a tree or rock on top of which the hero has climbed. Another character offers the cannibal a rest and takes over the chopping, but only spoils his work or (among the Athapaskans) kills him as soon as the cannibal hands him his axe. (African variants are clearly borrowed from Eurasia). | 30 | 48 |
| L93b In L93 family | The hare as helper. | The hare or rabbit, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saving them. | 30 | 53 |
| L95 | Returning for toys. | A person (usually a child or teenager) returns to a previous location for a forgotten item (often a toy) and finds a demon there, from which they struggle to escape. | 30 | 31 |
| L2 | Dried mask. | The mask or costume becomes part of the person wearing it; the character is transformed in accordance with the painting on their body, which reproduces the pattern on the animal's skin. See motif L1A. | 31 | 18 |
| 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 |
| L87 | He who has tasted blood becomes a cannibal. | A character accidentally tastes blood or human flesh, after which he devours himself and/or others. | 31 | 31 |
| L96a In L96 family | Oh! | A person sighs, after which a character named Oh, Uh, Hey-way, etc. appears. | 31 | 57 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.