Folklore Database · Browse
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M7 | Waiting for transport | The character goes to the lower world, to the sky, to the country on the horizon, etc. and waits for someone to give him a ride to his goal. Usually, some animals/birds or celestial bodies follow by, and the last (often the Sun or Month) delivers. | 27 | 46 |
| M114k In M114 family | Water that is neither earthly nor heavenly. | A liquid that is not normally used for drinking, washing or cooking is used once. It is necessary to guess what is meant, knowing that this water is neither from the earth nor from the sky (most often it is horse sweat). | 11 | 13 |
| M120a In M120 family | Weeping corpse eater, ATU 37, Th. K931. | The character pretends to be a mourner and eats (treats the body disrespectfully) the deceased. | 15 | 31 |
| M90a2 In M90 family | What did the tree grow from? | It should be guessed that the plant grew from a part of the body of a man or a snake or from dirt scraped off from the body | 14 | 15 |
| M163a In M163 family | What do cats eat? | A man sells a cat (rooster) to people who do not know about cats (or chickens). Having received a cat or rooster, people do not know what to feed them and fear that they will eat people. | 16 | 17 |
| M114i In M114 family | What do your relatives do? ATU 875(4), 921. | When asked where her father, mother, brother, etc. are, the girl or boy answers in such a way that only an intelligent person can guess what is meant (father went to make an enemy out of a friend, mother went to make one out of two, etc.); or the girl explains the meaning of similar phrases uttered by others. | 64 | 55 |
| M114b1 In M114 family | What is the fattest, sweetest, fastest? | When answering the question of what is the sweetest (fattest, fastest, etc.), a clever person names abstract concepts and entities (while a foolish person names specific objects or creatures). | 41 | 42 |
| M62b In M62 family | When aiming at a hero, they hit each other | Two or more characters aim their weapons at the hero in between, but they hit each other. | 18 | 26 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| M195a In M195 family | Where is the upper end of the stick? | A character sends a long object that either looks the same at both ends or is inside a small object, and asks which end of the object is the top and which is the bottom. The guesser gives the correct answer. | 24 | 31 |
| M57a1 In M57 family | Where it comes, there's gold | When a beautiful woman walks on the ground, jewels appear under her feet, flowers bloom, etc. | 29 | 52 |
| M74b In M74 family | Who ate the fat? | The character adjusts so that the sign that identifies the thief who ate supplies or who should be eaten is not on him, but on another character (smears with leftovers or with the secretions of your body of another, replaces secretions, etc.). | 53 | 57 |
| M74d In M74 family | Who ate the kidneys? ATU 785 | God (the saint) travels with his companion. When he leaves, he eats the kidneys (heart, etc.) and says that the animal did not have kidneys. He continues to persist (even in the face of death), but confesses when he is promised wealth. | 31 | 18 |
| M83c In M83 family | Who gets drunk faster | Animals argue who of them gets drunk easier. The last one falls down because he becomes drunk as soon as somebody talks about alcohol | 7 | 8 |
| M101 | Who is afraid of what (the fox and the bear). | The bear tells the fox (rarely the sable or the wolf) that he is not afraid of people (usually saying that he is afraid of flying partridges). After trying to attack people, he is killed or wounded. Cf. motif M101A. | 11 | 23 |
| M168 | Who is more cowardly than a hare? ATU 70. | Hares are desperate because they are more cowardly than everyone else, but they rejoice when they learn that there are animals (frogs, sheep) that are afraid of them. | 57 | 51 |
| M198a4 In M198 family | Who is nobler? ATU 976. | Those who listened to the story must answer who they liked more: the husband who let his wife go to another man after the wedding, the robber who did not harm her, or the man who immediately sent her back to her husband. | 18 | 22 |
| M198a3 In M198 family | Who stole the ruby? | One of the brothers secretly takes valuables belonging to all of them or is illegitimate. The brothers come to an authoritative figure to determine who is the thief or illegitimate child. Usually, the figure tells a story and determines the culprit based on the reaction of those who have come. | 37 | 34 |
| M183a In M183 family | Who will eat more: one against many. | Two people argue about who will eat or drink more. One of them is constantly replaced by his relatives, his opponent does not notice the substitution and loses. | 4 | 3 |
| M199o In M199 family | Who will pierce the tree, ATU 1085. | A man and his opponent agree to pierce a hole in a tree trunk (stump) with their head (finger, penis) or to knock down a tree with a blow to the head. The man has made a hole in advance (sawed the tree). | 22 | 17 |
| M196 | Who will speak first? ATU 1351. | A husband and wife agree to award a small prize to the one who remains silent the longest. Both or one of the spouses continue to remain silent even when others mistake them for dead or commit violence against them. | 63 | 64 |
| 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 |
| M98 | Who's more? AA 981.1. | The character counts the number of members in two huge and alternative sets (dead and alive, men and women, etc.). Usually numbers are distributed equally, and one term (or some) is endowed with the properties of both. By referring it to one of the sets, the character proves a thesis. | 54 | 74 |
| M83 | Who's older? ATU 80A* | Each character claims that he is older and appeared before this world or (Ingush) that his father was cosmic in size. | 86 | 124 |
| 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 |
| M199c In M199 family | Whoever throws the club higher, ATU 1063. | A person pretends to throw or is about to throw an object somewhere from which it cannot be retrieved (often into the sky, the clouds, or the sea). The opponent asks them not to do so and to stop the contest. | 44 | 65 |
| M199i In M199 family | Whoever whistles louder, ATU 1084. | A man and a giant (devil, bear, etc.) compete to see who can make the loudest sound (whistle, shout, sneeze, etc.). The man blindfolds his opponent and hits him with a heavy object; blows a trumpet; wraps his head so that it does not burst; etc. The opponent admits defeat or refuses to compete. | 34 | 30 |
| M83b In M83 family | Whose sleep better? ATU 1626 | Two (or more) characters agree to give food to whoever has the best dream. One talks about a feast he went to in a dream (or says he was in a different world), the second admits that he ate everything alone - he was sure that after the feast, the first one would not qualify for food (which someone who finds himself in a different world does not need food). | 56 | 41 |
| 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 |
| M152f In M152 family | Whose voice is quieter, we will eat. | Animals agree to eat the one among them who has the quietest voice. | 2 | 5 |
| M152 | Why only one wolf? ATU 1149. | Seeing a predator (a giant, etc.) approaching, the weak character pretends to thank the one who is leading the predator for his promise to bring prey, or his wife and children (rarely: he himself) begin to talk aloud about how they are going to eat the predator or how they have eaten his companions before. | 96 | 155 |
| M17b In M17 family | Wife deceives blind man. | The wife directs the blind man's arrow at game, lies that he has missed, and eats the meat herself. | 29 | 36 |
| M57d3 In M57 family | Wind donor | A person receives a reward from a character who is associated with the wind. Cf. Motive K175 (“The wind carried away the flour”). | 25 | 29 |
| M102 | Without a head and a leg. | The character believes that another has temporarily separated his head or leg from himself, asks to do the same to him, and dies or is maimed. | 25 | 31 |
| M153b In M153 family | Wolf riding. | The wolf is killed or maimed after agreeing to a domestic animal's offer to ride it. | 15 | 16 |
| M29f In M29 family | Wolverine is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the wolverine dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 30 | 24 |
| M157c In M157 family | You are hens, and I am a rooster. | To put a character in an awkward position, others present him with chicken eggs that they have prepared in advance, which the character does not have. (Usually, he crows and says that there are hens around him and only he is a rooster). | 16 | 17 |
| M157a6 In M157 family | You think you are looking at an abbot, ATU 922. | To help a person answer the ruler's questions, a servant or friend impersonates him and gives witty answers. Most often, the ruler asks, among other things, what he is thinking at the moment. Answer: you think you are looking at one person, but in fact it is another. | 45 | 41 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.