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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M29w3 In M29 family | Leo is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the lion dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 115 | 75 |
| M29x In M29 family | The hyena is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the hyena dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 66 | 68 |
| M29x1 In M29 family | Trickster - Badger | See the motives in square brackets. | 9 | 7 |
| M29X2 In M29 family | Trickster other creatures | See the motives in square brackets. | 41 | 28 |
| M29y In M29 family | Trickster - Wren | See the motives in square brackets. | 10 | 9 |
| M29z In M29 family | Beardless (Aldarkose) | hero of the story is a character named “Beardless” or Aldar-Kose (Aldar is a “deceiver”, a braid is “beardless”). | 31 | 32 |
| M29z1 In M29 family | Anthropomorphic trickster (miscellaneous). | purely anthropomorphic character, or a character who bears the name of an animal or plant but does not act zoomorphic in the course of his adventures. See the motives in square brackets. {Data not fully entered} | 32 | 35 |
| M29z2 In M29 family | Gypsy - a cunning winner | Being smart and witty, the Gipsy overcomes strong adversaries | 14 | 12 |
| M29z3 In M29 family | Gypsy - opponent and loser | The Gipsy (more often a female than a male) is an enemy overcome by the hero (heroine) or (rare) a weak failure | 25 | 22 |
| M29z4 In M29 family | Anthropomorphic trickster (miscellaneous) | 89 | 85 | |
| M30 | The trickster falls, (ATU 225, 225A) | character who has no natural wings or can't fly long distances rises into the air, but falls or, having lost its wings, stays where he can't return from. (The motive includes several options, but even when taken together, they don't cover the whole world. Texts with M25 and M28 motifs are counted as including the M30 motif). | 226 | 343 |
| M30a In M30 family | They relieve the need for a fallen person | The character flying over the village falls, is tied up, and defecated on him. | 9 | 7 |
| M30b In M30 family | Birds take the feathers they have given | Birds give a non-flying or ugly character feathers so that he can fly or become beautiful, but then take them away. | 30 | 39 |
| M30c In M30 family | He falls, breaking the ban | A character flying through the air falls, violating the ban on talking, looking down, flying over villages, etc. (The character is not dropped by the person carrying it and flies above the ground, not descends from the sky or rises to the sky). | 33 | 47 |
| M30d In M30 family | Holds to a stick carried by birds, ATU 225A | To get into the air, a character without wings (usually a turtle or a frog) grabs a stick with the ends held in their beaks by two birds. | 27 | 33 |
| 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 |
| M32 | Indigestion | The character swallows food or water, or his own entrails, pieces of flesh flow out and fall out of his ass. | 28 | 35 |
| 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 |
| M33 | Sealed anus | The character plugs or seals his anus tightly (with wax, clay, grass, etc.), or someone else does it. See M32 motif. | 23 | 24 |
| M34 | An attached tail | An object is thrown at the character, which turns into a tail, and the character himself into a corresponding animal. | 11 | 15 |
| 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 |
| M36 | Disassembled into pieces fits into the hole | The character finds himself inside wood, stone, ice, etc. He or someone else makes a hole, but it's too small. Then he disassembles himself (or turns into fog), pushes these parts into the hole and reassembles it. | 12 | 16 |
| M37 | Shattered with an axe | Although the character's head or entire body is cut in two with an ax or split with a stick, the character remains unharmed. Cf. motive J22. | 9 | 8 |
| M38 | Inept imitation | Person sees how others act using magic or according to their animal nature. He or she imitates their actions and gets into trouble. Actions are not heroic deeds, competitions or tests and refer to everyday activity, mostly to providing and cooking food | 203 | 348 |
| M38a In M38 family | Inept imitation: visiting, Th J2425 | On a visit, the character sees how the owner acts with magic or techniques that suit his nature (in Africa, too, deception). He imitates their actions but fails. Actions are not tests or competitions and are not related to performing feats. This is mainly getting or preparing food. | 150 | 265 |
| M38a1 In M38 family | Imitates relatives or wives, ATU 552B, J2411.3. | The character imitates the sisters' sons-in-law or husbands, or the wife's brothers (shoshone's) or wives (comox and chalkomel). {ATU combines a motive with another}. | 26 | 36 |
| M38a2 In M38 family | The hen boils eggs | The hen (other bird) cooks her own eggs and serves them to other animal persons (who imitated her with disastrous consequences) | 4 | 4 |
| M38b In M38 family | Silly wives imitate a sorceress, ATU 898 | The first wife, rejected or taken later than others, performs certain actions with the help of magic. Other wives try to imitate her but are killed, maimed, or disgraced. | 35 | 32 |
| M38b1 In M38 family | The young woman is waiting for her husband to guess | After the wedding, the wife is silent until her husband says certain words that indicate her origin. {In North Africa, the Pyrenees and the Arabs of Western Asia, the motive is very popular, which suggests that the list of traditions in which it is known may include some records that have so far been supported only with links to pointers, but not by the texts themselves}. | 20 | 15 |
| M38b2 In M38 family | Three daughters-in-law at the king's feast | Each of the three brothers comes to his father with his wife (fiancée). The younger brother or his fiancée is considered worthless, but the girl turns out to be a sorceress and surpasses the brides of her older brothers in everything. | 16 | 23 |
| M38b3b In M38 family | Hero warms and covers the nestlings | Mighty bird (more rare other creature/mythological person) helps a man (rare: a woman) because he (she) warms/covers from bad weather its/hers nestlings (children) | 0 | 0 |
| M38c In M38 family | Converting old to young, ATU 753 | blacksmith (supposedly) forges a person, rejuvenating or revitalizing him. | 44 | 43 |
| M38c1 In M38 family | Converting old to young: an unsuccessful imitation, ATU 753 | The character (supposedly) forges a person, rejuvenating or reviving him, the other unsuccessfully tries to imitate him. | 37 | 42 |
| 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 |
| M38c3 In M38 family | An old woman was turned into a monkey | A conceited smith attempts to rejuvenate an old woman (man). His magic helper tries to save the victim but all that he do is to transform the woman into an animal, usually a monkey | 11 | 13 |
| M38d In M38 family | Item characters die one after another, ATU 85, 295 | Two or more characters, which are small objects or small animals, live or travel together and die one by one while committing protozoa actions. | 55 | 61 |
| M38d1 In M38 family | Hair neck | bubble-head, the straw leg, the hair-neck are successively dying, trying to act like ordinary people. | 11 | 16 |
| M38d2 In M38 family | Coal, straw, bob by the river, ATU 295 | Several characters (usually three), which are small objects, go traveling and must cross the river. This fails. | 35 | 25 |
| 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 |
| M38d4 In M38 family | The Hunting Needle, ATU 90 | Several characters that embody small objects (and a squirrel with them) travel together. The needle penetrates the body of a large animal and kills it. (In the Baltic-Finnish texts, the needle first finds items that others find useless, but after the animal was caught, everything found turned out to be in demand for cooking meat). | 4 | 5 |
| M38d5 In M38 family | Cereals talking to each other, ATU 293E* | Two or three types of cereals talk to each other, act together, etc. | 9 | 8 |
| M38d6 In M38 family | Bursts with laughter | Several characters embody small objects and die one at a time. The last one left laughs and rejoices so much that he bursts with laughter (breaks his head, etc.). | 34 | 28 |
| 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 |
| M38e In M38 family | Mushroom and oak, ATU 293B* | mushroom (pumpkin) thinks that it is as durable as a tree. | 16 | 8 |
| M39 | Misunderstood instructions | After receiving instructions, the character understands (or pretends to understand) them incorrectly or too literally, committing absurdly ridiculous or violent acts. | 109 | 136 |
| M39a In M39 family | Deer don't want to wet their shoes | fool lives with his brother (and mother), is sent on business, does ridiculous things (all or part of the above): releases animals from the trap, kills (trapped) mother ; cuts off the pet's legs or skins; takes the fontanel on the baby's skull for a boil and squeezes it out; tears a large piece of cloth and ties the pieces to swaying reeds; hearing the murmur of water, throws food into the water; puts the plague in the water; wants to salt the water and pours all the salt into the river. (There are other common episodes as well). | 33 | 71 |
| M39a1 In M39 family | Misunderstood instructions: one step behind, ATU 1696 | character misunderstands the first instruction, promises to do the right thing next time; literally follows a memorized rule that does not correspond to the new situation; so multiple times. | 88 | 88 |
| M39a2 In M39 family | Misunderstood instructions: a sharp object | The character does ridiculous things, understanding the instructions too literally or one episode late (i.e., doing what was relevant to the previous episode). One episode involves improper handling of a needle and other sharp objects. | 17 | 19 |
| M39a2a In M39 family | A fool buys spoons and a table | fool buys spoons and/or a table, tells the table to go on its own feet, throws away spoons because they rattle. The two episodes are usually combined. | 9 | 14 |
| 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 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.