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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.
M - Adventures: Tricks and episodes
| Ref | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M1a In M1 family | The caiman carries the Pleiades brothers. | The caiman transports one of the brothers or a group of brothers, who then turn into the Pleiades. It usually bites off the leg of the youngest. Cf. motif K13B. | 6 | 10 |
| M21b In M21 family | Every deception is the beginning of the next. | The character consistently harms others in such a way that each person who has been deceived is used as a tool to harm the next. | 7 | 10 |
| M29nn In M29 family | Trickster - Earth Squirrel (Xerus inauris) | See the motives in square brackets. | 8 | 10 |
| M39a3a In M39 family | Oiled soil | fool sees cracked objects (stumps, earth, ice), sympathizes with them and oils them. | 8 | 10 |
| M39a4g In M39 family | A fool sells property to dogs | Fool sells property to the dogs and believes that they will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 12 | 10 |
| M39b In M39 family | He attacks his own plague | A person does not notice that he turned and swam back on the way, so he takes his home for enemies, kills his own relatives. | 13 | 10 |
| M68 | When the winds blow, it scares the game | Because of his own stubbornness, the character suffers from an irrepressible gas eruption and scares away the game with a loud sound. Almost starves to death. | 12 | 10 |
| M84b2 In M84 family | Birds eaten and animated | The character carefully preserves the bones of migratory birds eaten (not fish or animals) and the birds come to life again. (Episodes of reviving a domestic goose or rooster are not taken into account in everyday tales). | 7 | 10 |
| M90a3 In M90 family | The tree grew out of a snake | plant grows from a killed snake or part of a snake's body. | 8 | 10 |
| M90b In M90 family | The sun is rising from the west | The character was wrong when he claimed that the sun would never rise in the west or go down after midnight. | 11 | 10 |
| M114b2 In M114 family | How many steps did your horse take? | A man (an authoritative character) asks a girl (a subordinate) a question about the number of routine actions she has performed (or small items she has), which no one counts. She asks a counter-question about the number of similar actions performed by the questioner. | 9 | 11 |
| M130 | The fox and the bird in one burrow. | The fox and the bird hide from the hunter in the same burrow or hollow. The bird pretends to be dead and as a result is saved – either alone or together with the fox. Cf. motif M130A. | 13 | 11 |
| M139 | Released birds. | The fox caught the birds and put them in a bag. Another character secretly replaced them with thorns. | 7 | 11 |
| M154a1 In M154 family | Pregnant wife on a pregnant mare. | A man who understands the language of animals hears the mare say that she is carrying four (three): she has a foal in her belly, and the woman in the saddle is also pregnant. | 11 | 11 |
| M157d In M157 family | Grandfather and the Turnip, ATU 2044. | Animals (mainly domestic) and/or people join forces to achieve a goal (usually to pull a root vegetable out of the ground). They succeed after the last participant (usually the weakest) joins in. | 16 | 11 |
| M16a In M16 family | Gains sight by diving. | A character (usually a loon) restores a person's sight and/or health by diving into the water with them. See motif M16. | 19 | 11 |
| M29h In M29 family | Trickster - Owl | See the motives in square brackets. | 17 | 11 |
| M32a In M32 family | Eats what falls out | character's insides or pieces of flesh fall out of his back. He eats them, mistaking them for regular meat and fat. | 9 | 11 |
| M38c2 In M38 family | He cuts off a horse's leg to shove it | To shove a horse or donkey, Jesus (the saint) cuts off his leg, nails a horseshoe to his hoof, and attaches his leg back. The other character tries to imitate in vain. | 12 | 11 |
| M39a2b In M39 family | A fool salts the river | After buying salt or sugar, a fool pours them into a pond to salt or sweeten the water. | 9 | 11 |
| M39g2 In M39 family | To rake nuts with a pitchfork, ATU 1229* | Numskulls try to shovel nuts with a pitchfork. F stranger shows them how to do this work more easily with a shovel (a basket) | 14 | 11 |
| M56c In M56 family | Try on a snake | The character promises to bring a snake. The snake agrees to have the character measure its length. He ties the snake to a stick or, while measuring, finds out where to hit it to kill it. | 10 | 11 |
| M66a In M66 family | A mountain of excrement | After eating a certain food, the trickster leaves a mountain of excrement that is larger than himself. | 7 | 11 |
| M75d In M75 family | Vulture knife | A man bereaves vultures of their hunting weapons or amulets | 10 | 11 |
| M78g In M78 family | Sleep-related | When the inhabitants of the house fall asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) ties them together in pairs so that when they wake up, they quarrel. | 15 | 11 |
| M7a In M7 family | Thrown in the water | Birds or animals take the character into their boat, but take on a zoomorphic appearance and leave their passenger in the water (after he breaks a ban). (It is significant that the boat or raft only appears to be artifacts, but is actually the bodies of the corresponding birds or animals, or it is an ice floe; cf. Motive M31). | 9 | 11 |
| M91E In M91 family | The Tsar orders himself to be burned | The ruler, the leader, believes that a man who escaped death by cunning returned from the world where he received benefits. It tells you to burn, drown, etc. yourself or your close associates. | 16 | 11 |
| M99a1 In M99 family | Leaky beaks of birds | The character is going to pierce all the birds with their beaks (to string them on a rope) or cut them off altogether. | 7 | 11 |
| M11a In M11 family | Fish extracted from the body. | The character gives others the fish extracted from his body. | 9 | 12 |
| M149b In M149 family | Dogs in the stomach. | A person says that in his stomach (in a box) there are dangerous creatures that he has swallowed (put in a box) and that they may come out. A predator that is about to eat (bite) a person believes this and runs away. | 9 | 12 |
| M152e In M152 family | Whose voice is louder. | A tiger (lion) and another animal compete to see whose roar is louder. The tiger roars louder, but ultimately loses. | 10 | 12 |
| M181b In M181 family | How the spider came to live under the roof. | The story of the trickster Spider ends with his transformation into a spider that lives under the roof, in dark corners, etc. | 8 | 12 |
| M190 | Beaver and porcupine. | The beaver carries the porcupine across a water barrier. Usually, he throws it into the water or leaves it on an island. | 9 | 12 |
| M197c In M197 family | Remedy against fleas, ATU 1862A. | A man sells sand, dust, etc. as a remedy against fleas, mice, etc. He explains that you need to catch a flea and pour sand into its eyes. The buyer replies that you can crush a caught flea. The seller: that's even easier. | 16 | 12 |
| M199c1 In M199 family | Whoever throws a stone farther, ATU 1063A. | A man and his opponent agree to test their strength by throwing a heavy object as far as possible. The man pretends that he is going to throw the object so far that those who are across the sea, behind the mountain, in a distant city, etc. (including the opponent's relatives) may be harmed. The opponent refuses to take part in the test. | 17 | 12 |
| M2 | Descending a tree. | The hero descends from a tree or rock on the back of an animal or on the backs of animals. | 11 | 12 |
| M22a In M22 family | The crane as a watchman. | In a foreign house, in a foreign country, where the hero finds himself, the crane or heron is a watchman who must raise the alarm in case of strangers appearing. | 8 | 12 |
| M29z2 In M29 family | Gypsy - a cunning winner | Being smart and witty, the Gipsy overcomes strong adversaries | 14 | 12 |
| M31 | Discharged into water | A character who can't swim asks another to take him by water. He agrees, but throws the rider into the water. | 10 | 12 |
| M35 | Who won't freeze? | Two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will spend the whole night in the cold and stay alive. By morning, one of them dies. Cf. K27A motif (the cold test does not involve a two-animal competition). | 9 | 12 |
| M38d3 In M38 family | A blurred lump of earth | The character, who is a lump of earth (oatmeal, salt), blurred in the rain or after going to get water. | 8 | 12 |
| M38d7 In M38 family | Sausage makes soup, (ATU 85) | Person who represents something fat (a sausage, a piece of fat, etc.) prepares a rich soup adding to it its own fat. Another person tries to repeat the trick and dies | 10 | 12 |
| M39a8b In M39 family | Tongueless Robber | Using a stratagem, someone who hides in a tree cuts (bits) off the tongue of a dangerous person and the latter is unable to describe situation to his partners | 12 | 12 |
| M39b1 In M39 family | They row in both directions, ATU 1276 | Once in the boat, some people row in one direction and others in the opposite direction, the boat remains in place. | 17 | 12 |
| M42c In M42 family | When it falls off a cliff, it eats its bone marrow | Falling off a cliff and breaking his leg, the character eats his bone marrow. | 14 | 12 |
| M53e In M53 family | Allegedly inedible whale | A character (always a raven) kills a whale and points others to imaginary signs that whale meat is not suitable for food. People believe and all the meat goes to the deceiver. | 8 | 12 |
| M55 | Dangerous overnight stay | A human or weaker animal character takes a stronger character to sleep in a supposedly dangerous place where hot coals, sticks, etc. can fall on those lying at night; when A strong character falls asleep, his companion burns or hits him, pretending that both of them have suffered equally. | 5 | 12 |
| M7a1 In M7 family | The luminaries float above the hero | Person gets to a place from which he is unable to come out. Several (more than two) different celestial bodies rise and move near him or above him. He puts attention to them (and asks their help) | 8 | 12 |
| M96 | Imaginary guests | In order not to share with family members, the character pretends to have guests and eats everything himself. | 12 | 12 |
| M109a In M109 family | Sitting on the ice, waiting for food from the sky. | One zoomorphic character advises another to sit on the ice for a long time – usually until food falls from the sky. The one who sits on the ice freezes to it. | 11 | 13 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.