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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.
All motif categories
| Ref | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K129a In K129 family | Half-living in the tomb. | A young woman (lying in a tomb) comes back to life, then appears dead again, but is ultimately freed from the spell. | 6 | 7 |
| K22aa In K22 family | Birds in the north – people in the south. | There is a country whose inhabitants are migratory birds that live with us in the summer and turn into people when they fly away to their own country. | 6 | 7 |
| K27f3 In K27 family | Fill the feather bed with feathers. | The character must quickly obtain enough feathers to fill a feather bed or pillow. | 4 | 7 |
| K27z2a In K27 family | Meeting for one night. | Noticing the woman's pregnancy, her relatives or in-laws accuse her of promiscuity, because, according to their calculations, she could not have conceived by her husband or fiancé. After severe trials, the woman meets again the father of the boy she gave birth to. | 6 | 7 |
| K27z2e In K27 family | Lost objects and meeting at the end, ATU 434. | During a meeting (sometimes not in their true form), a young man or woman takes certain objects (jewelry) from the other. One of those who met falls ill. A new meeting leads to the healing of the sick person, the identification of the objects, and a wedding. | 7 | 7 |
| K27z7a In K27 family | He who learns the family secret will die. | A man is going to kill the person who found out why he severely punished his ex-wife. | 7 | 7 |
| K30a In K30 family | The chief's wife and the vultures. | The wife of the first ancestor flies away with the vultures (usually voluntarily, after she has already cheated on her husband), and the chief (Uito: her brother) brings her back. See motif K30. | 9 | 7 |
| K32f In K32 family | The bird son saves his mother. | A woman or girl raises a bird of prey chick, which brings her food and fire. This usually happens after an evil spirit leaves the girl or young woman in a tree or on an island. | 6 | 7 |
| K35a7 In K35 family | The magical feather. | A character finds a feather, the touch of which brings health and beauty. | 9 | 7 |
| K37c In K37 family | Identifying an animal or object. | The character must identify an animal or object among several identical ones. See motif K37. | 7 | 7 |
| K47d In K47 family | The dog fulfils the condition of marriage. | A girl gives herself to a dog because it fulfils the condition of marriage set by her or her father for her future husband. See motif K47A. | 14 | 7 |
| K56aa In K56 family | The dog-groom tests the bride. | Two or three sisters successively become the dog's brides. The first or the first two act incorrectly, perish or fail to achieve their goal. The last one acts correctly and succeeds. | 7 | 7 |
| K56f2 In K56 family | Woman, two men, five eggs, ATU 1663. | In order to divide a certain number (often five) of eggs equally among people of different sexes, a cunning woman takes into account that each of the men already has two eggs. | 9 | 7 |
| K65c2 In K65 family | Man and tiger. | A woman or female animal gives birth to several sons, including a human and a tiger. | 4 | 7 |
| K77b3 In K77 family | The goat with three bellies. | Goats encounter a wolf. One goat has one stomach, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. The goat with the most stomachs kills or scares away the wolf. | 5 | 7 |
| L108b2 In L108 family | Ants make the voice thin. | To acquire a thin voice, the character allows ants to bite his tongue. | 5 | 7 |
| L110b In L110 family | The stomach eats the oak tree. | The stomach (spleen) removed from the body of a domestic animal or bird turns out to be a voracious monster. | 7 | 7 |
| L15e1 In L15 family | Discarded weapon. | An ageing character and/or one who senses his death approaching instructs his son, a warrior, or his subjects to throw his cold weapon (sword, sabre or axe) into the sea, a lake or a river. Cf. motifs L15E and L15e2. | 8 | 7 |
| L26 | Death of initiates. | During the (first) initiation, supernatural beings teach boys rituals and kill them for violating rules related to the consumption and distribution of food. | 5 | 7 |
| L26a In L26 family | Extermination of spirits. | During the (first) initiation, men kill supernatural characters (reproducing their appearance and/or voices during rituals from that moment on). | 9 | 7 |
| L33c In L33 family | The boulder crushes the trickster. | The trickster and the boulder agree to race down the slope. The boulder rolls faster and faster and crushes the trickster. See motif L33. | 14 | 7 |
| L33g In L33 family | Stone with a beard. | A tree, a creature on a tree, a stone kills (seriously injures) anyone who calls it a certain way, climbs on it, etc. The character provokes others to do this and eats the dead, the last of the invited guests deceives the provocateur himself. | 6 | 7 |
| L71 | The end of a thin branch. | The character kills an animal; the trickster tries to take the meat; the character lifts the meat onto a tree; helps the trickster or his cub to climb up too; after eating, the climber wants to relieve himself or (less often) drink; the character points out that this can be done at the end of a thin branch; the trickster or the trickster's cub climbs up, falls, and is killed. See motif L70. | 19 | 7 |
| L76 | Severed testicles. | When a female cannibal attacks a man, she devours or tears off his testicles. | 3 | 7 |
| L93 | The discarded axe. | A demon, a man-eater, chops down a tree or a rock on top of which the hero is hiding. While he is resting, the animal throws his axe into the water, carries it away or damages it. See motif L92. | 17 | 7 |
| M100a In M100 family | Fire on the edge of a cliff. | One of the characters leads another to the edge of a cliff with the aim of lighting a fire, or lights a fire at the edge of the cliff. As a result, the other falls and is killed. | 5 | 7 |
| M108b In M108 family | The woodpecker helper. | The deceiver takes away someone else's property in a boat or carries it away. A bird (usually a woodpecker) deceives him and returns the property to its owners. | 11 | 7 |
| M114f In M114 family | Crooked pipe. | The girl has a minor physical defect. Man: The house is nice, but the pipe is crooked. Girl: But the smoke comes out well. | 6 | 7 |
| m11d In m11 family | Salt from bodily secretions. | The character makes food taste good by adding salt to it. Another character learns that the cook extracts this salt from his own body (it is contained in his bodily secretions). | 8 | 7 |
| M130b In M130 family | The traitor is killed instead of the victim. | A herbivorous animal falls into a hunter's trap. The predator does not want to release it, as it hopes to eat its entrails, but the bird helps it to escape. The hunter tries to kill the bird, but instead kills the predator. | 7 | 7 |
| M138a In M138 family | One hundred and twenty years of life. | At the beginning of time, the supreme deity or his messengers decided that the maximum lifespan of a human being would be 120 years. | 7 | 7 |
| M144a In M144 family | Burning straw on the back of a tiger. | The character asks a large and dangerous animal (a tiger or an elephant) to carry a load of straw and sets it on fire. Then he or someone else advises the victim to run not to the river, but to the mountain. | 7 | 7 |
| M162b In M162 family | Cranberry juice in the bear's eyes. | The character pretends to rub sour berry juice into his eyes. Another (always a bear) wants the same thing, goes blind, and the character kills him. | 6 | 7 |
| M198b1 In M198 family | A fortune teller named Rak. | An authoritative character asks a man named Cancer to guess what is in a box (under a lid on a plate, etc.). There are crabs or crayfish inside. The man says that now he, Cancer, has been caught, while others think that he has guessed correctly. | 7 | 7 |
| m198b6 In m198 family | A fortune teller named Zhaba (Frog). | An authoritative character asks a person to guess what is in his box. The person says that now he, so-and-so, has been caught, or utters an exclamation. This exclamation or name sounds like "toad" or "frog," and the character believes that the person has a special gift. | 6 | 7 |
| 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 |
| M29E In M29 family | Trickster - Skunk | See the motives in square brackets. | 17 | 7 |
| M29l In M29 family | Trickster - Possum | See the motives in square brackets. | 25 | 7 |
| M29q In M29 family | Trickster - Raccoon | See the motives in square brackets. | 11 | 7 |
| M29x1 In M29 family | Trickster - Badger | See the motives in square brackets. | 9 | 7 |
| 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 |
| M39a6e In M39 family | Basket Maker, ATU 888A* | A person learns a craft (weaving, painting) in order to earn a living for the family. His wife is kidnapped (separated if he is with him). The wife finds out that her husband is there when she sees baskets or other items he has made. | 7 | 7 |
| M62d In M62 family | A hare in rotten skin | trickster wears rotten skin, pretends to be another animal, and says that the name (i.e. himself) has caused him to get sick. The animals are frightened, they do not dare to take revenge on the trickster for his tricks. See M62C motif. | 8 | 7 |
| M62e In M62 family | One field and two employees | A weak character alternately negotiates with two strong ones to cultivate the site. Each of the strong works in due time and does not know about the existence of the other. As a result, a weak character takes the entire crop. | 6 | 7 |
| M84d In M84 family | A sick tree | A person hears trees talking, one of which is (fatally) ill and suffers. | 6 | 7 |
| M8b In M8 family | Birds are hammering the rock: extracting water | Animals, and often birds, struggle to break through the rock to get water or honey hidden inside it. | 7 | 7 |
| M90c In M90 family | Stepladder instead of wife | man agreed with another that he could take the first thing he touched from his house. The visitor is going to take his wife, but when he takes up the stepladder to go up to the woman, he is told to pick up the stepladder and leave. | 7 | 7 |
| A37c In A37 family | The arrow hits the barrier. | The character shoots an arrow into the sky, aiming to hit a celestial body or deity, but the arrow hits an obstacle blocking the target. | 5 | 8 |
| A8a In A8 family | Liberation of the sun, moon and stars, ATU 328A*. | The sun, moon and star (stars) appear as three consecutive and comparable objects/characters in narratives about the abduction and subsequent liberation of celestial bodies. | 11 | 8 |
| B104b In B104 family | A woman turns into a woodpecker. | A woman refuses to share bread with Jesus, who has come to her, and he turns her into a woodpecker. | 7 | 8 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.