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.
All motif categories
| Ref | Title | Summary | Traditions | Narratives ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B111 | Bees from the body of an animal. | Bees or wasps fly out of the carcass or body of a large animal (lion, bull) (usually the episode explains the origin of bees). | 7 | 8 |
| B124 | Indentation on the foot. | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's foot, a hollow has formed between the toe and the heel. | 9 | 8 |
| B16b In B16 family | The wolverine makes the sea salty. | The sea is salty because a wolverine or a fox bathed in it or urinated in it. | 6 | 8 |
| B1d In B1 family | Two workers. | Two characters are building the world, one works poorly, the other well, so different parts of the universe (or a specific island) have different appearances. | 8 | 8 |
| B24 | Transformation into wild boars. | People who have entered into conflict or violated a prohibition are transformed into wild boars or peccaries. | 8 | 8 |
| B27a In B27 family | Transformation into thunder and lightning. | The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become thunder and/or lightning. | 10 | 8 |
| B2g In B2 family | The chameleon walks on soft ground. | The chameleon walked on the ground when it had not yet hardened. | 5 | 8 |
| B35 | The club-footed bear. | The bear hastily puts his left moccasin on his right foot and vice versa, which is why he is club-footed. | 8 | 8 |
| B44b In B44 family | Fingers, claws, hair, feathers. | The number and/or nature of the alternation of fingers, claws, feathers, hairs, and stripes on animal skins determines the number of time intervals in the calendar or daily cycle. See motif B44. | 29 | 8 |
| B63 | The transformation of lazy children. | Children lie to their mother, pretending to work in the fields. When the deception is revealed, they are left without a harvest and are transformed into atmospheric phenomena or celestial objects. | 4 | 8 |
| B63A In B63 family | Brothers of the elements. | Several brothers turn into Thunder, Storm and other elements. | 4 | 8 |
| B72a In B72 family | Mother, child and swans. | Mother (stepmother, adoptive father) does not give food to a girl or (less often) a boy. The child asks migratory birds to take him with them, they give him bird clothing, he flies away with them, becoming a bird. | 11 | 8 |
| C33b In C33 family | Ancient windlessness. | The demise of the first race is associated with the appearance of wind. | 3 | 8 |
| C37 | The sloth's catastrophe. | The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. | 8 | 8 |
| C39a In C39 family | The sky was patched up with ice. | A hole in the sky or a crack in the ground was plugged with a piece of ice, which is why it is cold in the north (north-west, north-east). | 1 | 8 |
| D13c In D13 family | The trickster makes his brother's wife laugh. | Two companions or brothers live together. The older one has a wife, whom he hides. To discover her, the younger one, left alone in the house, makes her laugh. | 7 | 8 |
| D4g In D4 family | The hummingbird obtains fire. | Hummingbird steals, finds or spreads fire. See motif D4A. | 19 | 8 |
| D4q1 In D4 family | The bat and fire. | The bat participates in obtaining fire. | 7 | 8 |
| D6b In D6 family | The burned one becomes a caiman. | The one who is burned turns into a crocodile/caiman. | 7 | 8 |
| E30b In E30 family | Pygmalion. | A man makes a figure or receives a woman. She comes to life and becomes his wife. | 12 | 8 |
| E9b In E9 family | The magical wife – the elephant. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of an elephant (elephant tusk). | 7 | 8 |
| e9i5 In e9 family | The magical wife - the snail. | Before meeting the hero, his wife takes the form of a snail. | 4 | 8 |
| F49a In F49 family | An animal teaches how to give birth. | A small animal (mouse, rat, rabbit, two-wombed animal, bird) explains how to give birth. See motif F49. | 12 | 8 |
| F51d In F51 family | Ginseng child. | Ginseng roots – boys or girls who help the hero. | 6 | 8 |
| F56a In F56 family | Shavings in the fire. | To see a woman's genitals, a man throws something that flashes brightly into the hearth. The woman recoils, exposing her genitals. | 8 | 8 |
| F69 | Indecent invitation. | A woman's husband (male relative) invites her through her children to come and make love to him; the invitation is made in a veiled form; the woman comes. | 9 | 8 |
| F75 | Siren and tapir. | A hunter sees a tapir summoning a woman who lives in the water with a secret signal; she emerges from the lake or river, and the tapir mates with her. The hunter himself summons the woman and becomes her lover. | 5 | 8 |
| H24g In H24 family | Woman in a vessel. | A woman returned from the other world or obtained there disappears when a man opens the vessel in which she is kept prematurely. | 6 | 8 |
| H34d In H34 family | A piece bitten off the sky. | A zoomorphic character climbs or attempts to climb up to the sky or the moon to bite off a piece of them. | 6 | 8 |
| i41b2 In i41 family | Rainbow from the mouth of an animal. | A rainbow emerges from the mouth of a reptile, amphibian or invertebrate animal. | 8 | 8 |
| I50b In I50 family | Many-legged beast (predator). | Describes or depicts a predatory animal with six or more legs. | 7 | 8 |
| I80b In I80 family | The forgotten wind, ATU 752B. | Man is allowed to control the weather in his own interests. He sends rain at the right time, but cannot take all factors into account (he usually forgets about the wind). The bread will not grow or will be unpalatable. | 23 | 8 |
| I82e In I82 family | The star that sold its mother. | It is said that Venus or another star sold her mother or father in order to adorn herself luxuriously and dress up. | 3 | 8 |
| I87c1 In I87 family | Mouse in a boat. | A mouse makes itself a boat out of a small object. | 8 | 8 |
| I8h In I8 family | Man and woman hold up the earth. | The earth is supported by a man and a woman in the underworld. | 6 | 8 |
| J23b In J23 family | Spears are placed along the path. | To defeat the monster, the young man (twins) prepares spears in advance and leaves them along the supposed retreat route. Fleeing from the monster, the young man throws spears at it one after another and eventually kills it. | 7 | 8 |
| J3 | Conception from under the earth. | A woman conceives a son or twins in a way that is incomprehensible to her; the reason is that when she sits on the ground, a male character (animal) creeps under the ground and fertilises her from below. | 6 | 8 |
| J36 | Antagonist - turtle. | The turtle drags the hero's parents under water. | 7 | 8 |
| J47a1 In J47 family | Goats – owners of food. | The character enters a house where goats live. He secretly eats the food he finds there, but is eventually discovered. | 7 | 8 |
| J50b In J50 family | The father remains half-dead. | The father (alone or with his brother) is only partially resurrected and is unable to live among people (he cannot be a warrior). The hero leaves him (in another world) or allows him to die completely. | 10 | 8 |
| J59c In J59 family | Reviving the dead with a whip. | A character strikes the remains of the deceased with a whip or a lash, and the deceased comes back to life. | 7 | 8 |
| K102a6 In K102 family | The enemy and a woman blind the hero. | The hero's wife, sister or mother participates in a conspiracy against him and helps to blind him. | 9 | 8 |
| K10h In K10 family | The bird feeds, but does not let go. | A bird carries a woman or boy to its nest, feeds them, but does not let them go. The captive runs away. | 10 | 8 |
| K123b In K123 family | Broken spinning wheel. | A boy or young man damages an elderly woman's spinning wheel or yarn. This episode forms the basis of the rest of the story. | 10 | 8 |
| K127b In K127 family | Brothers turned into oxen. | A group of brothers are turned into bulls (oxen) and then enchanted. | 8 | 8 |
| K156b In K156 family | A dog helps a girl remain unrecognised. | People suspect that the young man is a girl in disguise. She manages to avoid exposure thanks to a dog (rarely a cat) who learns how to determine his mistress's true gender and tells her about it. | 9 | 8 |
| K167 | The Child King. | A boy plays, pretending to be a king and demonstrating wisdom and/or magical abilities. | 12 | 8 |
| K176a In K176 family | The wind dries the laundry. | The hero searches for his magical wife who has left him. It turns out that one of the winds is flying to her to perform a certain task. The hero follows him. | 7 | 8 |
| K27u2 In K27 family | News from the tumbleweed. | An authoritative character orders to find out where the tumbleweed is rolling or what news it brings. | 7 | 8 |
| K27yy2 In K27 family | Catching the chick of a dangerous bird. | The hero is sent to bring the chick of a dangerous bird. | 7 | 8 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.