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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M197b In M197 family | Rusted stallions and foaled mares. | The owner claims that other mares foaled or aborted because his stallions, which were far away from the mares, whinnied, that any foal born was from his mare, etc. The young man begins to kill the owner's dogs: they did not chase away the wolves (they scared away the game, etc.), although they were far from the scene. The owner acknowledges the absurdity of his claim. | 15 | 14 |
| M20 | Severed beak, J2138. | The character does something unacceptable, is caught, and his beak or jaw is damaged. Usually (except for the Koryaks), people keep the torn-off beak (jaw) in their homes, and the character comes and takes it back. | 15 | 20 |
| M46c In M46 family | Swallowed needle | The character turns into a needle, a garbage, a small insect. A woman swallows it and becomes pregnant. See M46B motif. | 15 | 18 |
| M47 | The head is attached to the rear | When punishing a person or animal or restoring a dismembered body, a character intentionally or accidentally puts his head to his ass. | 15 | 27 |
| M54 | The runaway wakes up in the same place | The character lives or stays at someone else's house; then goes far away, falls asleep, but wakes up again in the same house. | 15 | 19 |
| 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 |
| M7b In M7 family | The fox asks for help from people passing by | zoomorphic character (usually a fox) finds himself in a place he can't get out of, and consistently asks for help from animals (fish) passing by or approaching him. The latter helps. | 15 | 16 |
| M81f In M81 family | A blind liar is robbed, ATU 1577 | blind beggar robs an honest man. He watches him and, when he enters the house, takes everything the blind man has accumulated. He often takes money accumulated by other blind people as well. | 15 | 8 |
| M10 | The girl and the honey. | A girl or woman gets stuck in a hollow while extracting honey, or greedily sucks honey in some other way and as a result dies or undergoes a metamorphosis; a woman stuck in a narrow passage turns into honey, into a honey bee. | 16 | 19 |
| M106c In M106 family | My name is "Guest". | Telling his companions that his name is "Guest," "For Guests," etc., the character appropriates the food intended for all who have come. | 16 | 21 |
| M108 | The trickster takes away property. | The character is called upon to help perform a task (usually to transport property or provisions across a river) and takes away what has been entrusted to him. | 16 | 18 |
| M125 | Eats one's own eyes. | One character lies to another, pretending to eat his own eyes. The other agrees to eat his own. The first character gouges out one of his eyes and gives him something tasty in its place. The character believes that this is the same eye that was gouged out and agrees to give up the second. | 16 | 27 |
| M127c In M127 family | Foolishly frightened. | Seeing an object that has been deliberately left behind or accidentally dropped, or hearing a sound it makes, the character sees it as a sign of danger and reacts inappropriately. | 16 | 17 |
| M134b In M134 family | Measuring the wolf. | When a predator is about to eat a person, the person asks to be measured first and strikes the predator with an (imaginary) measuring instrument. | 16 | 20 |
| M157a5 In M157 family | Golden mortar. | A person finds a golden (rarely marble, etc.) mortar (bell) and brings it to an authoritative figure. Instead of gratitude, the latter demands that the pestle (the tongue of the bell, etc.) also be brought. | 16 | 16 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| M171b In M171 family | A shoulder blade without meat. | The character pretends to have brought meat on a shoulder blade and gives it to the hosts to cook. Taking a bare bone without meat out of the pot, he accuses the hosts of stealing the meat. | 16 | 20 |
| M179 | Bark and ice huts, ATU 43. | Two zoomorphic characters live nearby, one's house is destroyed, he asks the other to shelter him. Usually he breaks in and drives out the owner, strong animals fear the invader, while weak or small ones drive him away. | 16 | 32 |
| M19 | Bait man. | The character ties another person (usually a child) to the end of a line, using them as bait or forcing them to catch fish with their hands. | 16 | 20 |
| M192 | Dried carcass, ATU 68. | A scavenger who has climbed into an animal carcass or put on a fresh animal skin cannot get out of it (usually because the skin has dried out in the heat). He gets out when the skin becomes soft again or someone helps him. | 16 | 19 |
| 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 |
| M199a In M199 family | Squeezing brains out of the ground. | A man buried something soft and liquid in the ground, and when he stamped on it (shot an arrow into it) and the buried object splashed onto the surface, he said that he had squeezed the brain (innards) out of the earth. | 16 | 28 |
| M26 | Ducks carry the catcher (grabbed by the legs) | The character dives under waterfowl and ties a rope to their legs to catch them. Birds soar into the air, lifting the catcher with them. It later falls. | 16 | 18 |
| M26a In M26 family | Ducks carry the catcher (strung on a rope), ATU 1881 | The character catches birds by feeding them bait tied to a rope, which they swallow one by one, or by shooting several birds with one bullet, or by soldering birds drunk and tying up. Birds usually take off and carry away a catcher holding a rope. | 16 | 7 |
| 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 |
| M38e In M38 family | Mushroom and oak, ATU 293B* | mushroom (pumpkin) thinks that it is as durable as a tree. | 16 | 8 |
| M45c In M45 family | Plant boiled tubers | The character advises the other person to plant or sow boiled or roasted seeds or tubers, who follows the advice. | 16 | 13 |
| M56a In M56 family | The crocodile's secret | A weak character hits a crocodile, but the crocodile is safe. He says he would be killed if the attack hit a specific location. Next time, the same character hits this place and kills a crocodile. | 16 | 14 |
| M58 | A trail or bush saves you from the heat | The earth is burning, the fire is chasing the character. A number of elements and objects refuse to cover him, saying they will burn or heat up; the last in the row shelters him. The earth cools down, the character leaves the shelter. | 16 | 25 |
| M60a1 In M60 family | The shepherd explains how to cross | The hero meets a servant (usually a shepherd) and takes his form, after asking how he acts, how he talks to the hostess (usually finds out what to say in order transport the herd across the river). | 16 | 19 |
| 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 |
| M97a2 In M97 family | The blind man asks the trees to get to the water. | 16 | 21 | |
| M108a In M108 family | Trickster-adopted child. | A lonely elderly couple adopts a trickster. He steals from them (and runs away). | 17 | 18 |
| M114c In M114 family | Shielding from the rain with one's body. | The character is puzzled as to how the other person's clothes (firewood, etc.) remained dry after the rain – the other person covered them with their body (hid them in a vessel, waited out the rain in a shelter). | 17 | 27 |
| M147b In M147 family | The fox gets rid of fleas, ATU 63. | To get rid of fleas, the fox (jackal) takes a bunch of moss (hay, grass) in its mouth and dives into the water. The fleas, in order not to drown, move closer and closer to its head and then fall onto the moss or hay. The fox leaves the bunch in the water and comes ashore. | 17 | 9 |
| M172 | The Hare Riding the Lion, ATU 72. | To show that a strong character is his slave, a riding animal, the weak one adjusts so that the strong one takes him along. Those around them are convinced of the truthfulness of the weak one. | 17 | 30 |
| M181a In M181 family | Fire at sunset. | The character believes that unattainable natural objects are accessible cultural objects. Usually agrees to go after fire upon seeing a red sunset, fireflies, etc. | 17 | 22 |
| M182a1 In M182 family | Animals redeem themselves, ATU 159. | A man catches several wild animals and releases them on the promise that they will bring gifts or prove useful. The animals fulfil their promise. | 17 | 21 |
| M188 | Jackal in the dyeing workshop. | The character is honoured after accidentally acquiring an unusual appearance – getting paint on himself or attaching an object to himself that he cannot remove. | 17 | 21 |
| 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 |
| M29E In M29 family | Trickster - Skunk | See the motives in square brackets. | 17 | 7 |
| M29h In M29 family | Trickster - Owl | See the motives in square brackets. | 17 | 11 |
| 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 |
| M39a5a3 In M39 family | The master's devils were beaten | Realizing that a wife telling the truth will cause trouble for the family, the husband says that the sounds she hears are the screams of her master (official, etc.) who is beaten, dragged to hell, etc. She repeats this to the master (official), who declares her insane. | 17 | 18 |
| 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 |
| M53c In M53 family | Reddened eyes | trickster, inviting birds to dance around him with their eyes closed, kills them one at a time and threatens to turn red at the one that opens their eyes; this is an empty threat, or for a bird that opens eyes and eyes have really turned red ever since. | 17 | 30 |
| M57b In M57 family | The sweat of the Sun and the tears of the Moon | Beads or metals are the bodily secretions of a deity. | 17 | 18 |
| M64 | He pretends to own valuables | The character comes to the owner of valuables (food, fire) and pretends that he already owns them. As a result, valuables are made available (littoral is exposed at low tide, salmon spreads in waters, etc.). | 17 | 27 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.