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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K145b In K145 family | The newlywed eats her groom. | After a man and a woman are left alone (usually on their wedding night), the woman turns into a predator or monster and eats the man. | 9 | 9 |
| K15 | No one but this beggar. | A woman swears that she has not been with anyone except (her husband and) a dirty beggar. Others do not know that her lover has taken on the appearance of a beggar. | 9 | 9 |
| K168b In K168 family | The bewildered man became a bear. | A person makes another person believe that he has turned into a bear (wolf), found himself in the forest, etc. When he wakes up, the bewitched person finds himself where he was before. | 10 | 9 |
| K19f In K19 family | Working stars. | A star or many stars descend from the sky to work in the fields. See motif K19B. | 5 | 9 |
| K27l In K27 family | The water body is covered with ice. | After the hero dives in, the antagonist freezes the water body or covers the surface with a net. | 7 | 9 |
| K27x In K27 family | The former husband of a magical wife. | A man marries a woman from another world; the wife leaves for her world, the man follows her; there, the woman has another fiancé(e) or husband, or the woman's brothers want to destroy the man; he undergoes trials and brings his wife back. See motif K27. | 19 | 9 |
| K27yy In K27 family | Approach a dangerous tree. | The hero is sent to a tree that is supposed to fall on him. | 11 | 9 |
| K27z4a In K27 family | The cripple demands the return of his leg, ATU 978. | The cripple claims that the father of the visitor is to blame for his physical disability. The man's wife or the man himself, on someone's advice, promises to return the leg (eye) if the cripple gives him the other one as a sample or brings him a part of a dead person's body and demands money. | 11 | 9 |
| K27zz4 In K27 family | The wife who cannot be beaten (ATU 888A). | A conceited prince (the son of a merchant) beats his wife every day (he marries on the condition that he will beat his wife every day). She saves him by demonstrating her superiority. | 11 | 9 |
| k33c9 In k33 family | The girl in the apple. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside an apple. | 7 | 9 |
| K51a In K51 family | Pushes a rival into boiling water. | One woman comes to another in the absence of a man and kills her by pushing her rival's head into boiling liquid or pouring boiling water or hot fat into her ear. See motif K51. | 10 | 9 |
| K52c1 In K52 family | Penis instead of fish. | Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion. One episode: the magical specialist orders those present to catch the birds or fish that have appeared with the water, or they begin to catch them on their own initiative; when the water disappears, people see that they are holding not caught animals, but their penises or something else. | 7 | 9 |
| K56a4d In K56 family | Ashes turn into flour. | A stepmother sends her stepdaughter to a house in the forest, giving her ashes, sand, etc. instead of food. The stepdaughter turns them into flour, groats, etc. | 5 | 9 |
| K73a3 In K73 family | The child is replaced with a doll. | The midwife's ill-wishers replace the baby with a statue or doll (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a doll). | 7 | 9 |
| K80c3 In K80 family | A name helps solve a murder. | Before his death, a man asks his murderer to tell his pregnant wife to give their newborn a certain name. Upon hearing the unusual name of the child, a powerful figure begins to investigate the case, and the murderer confesses to his crime. (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c) | 9 | 9 |
| K8b In K8 family | Woman – the soul of the whale. | A raven finds itself in the belly of a whale; the woman inside asks it not to touch a certain organ of the whale (usually the heart) or a burning lamp. The raven breaks the prohibition, the woman disappears, and the whale dies. | 8 | 9 |
| K99a2 In K99 family | The sold dream. 26.29.30.32.33. | One person has a dream, and another buys it and obtains what was predicted in the dream. | 8 | 9 |
| L122a In L122 family | Sewing up cracks in the earth. | The character is busy sewing up cracks in the earth, just as one would sew up torn fabric. (Motif identified by Ruslan Doutalieyev). | 6 | 9 |
| L134 | The Third Wave. | The hero's adversary (usually a demonic woman) is inside a sea wave (the third or ninth) or embodies the wave. | 10 | 9 |
| L16A In L16 family | Eyes on the feet. | The creature's eyes are located on its feet. | 7 | 9 |
| L1e In L1 family | The character creates monstrous birds. | A monstrous bird is created from a small amount of human or animal flesh (usually from the heart) or from lumps of manioc starch. | 9 | 9 |
| L39a In L39 family | Demon from the underworld. | A supernatural character emerges from the underworld and attacks a man who has climbed a tree. | 8 | 9 |
| L41b In L41 family | Tar basket. | A basket in which a cannibal puts people is smeared or filled with tar. See motifs L41, L42. | 10 | 9 |
| L42h In L42 family | Those gathered for the feast eat the host. | A cannibal catches the hero and invites other cannibals to a feast. The hero escapes, and the cannibals eat the one who invited them. | 9 | 9 |
| L42j In L42 family | The tree bends (children in the ogre's bag). | The ogre catches children (usually mice), puts them in a bag, orders a tree (pole, crossbar in the house) to bend over, hangs the bag, orders the tree to straighten up again, and leaves. Another character (usually a fox) orders the tree (pole, etc.) to bend over and frees the children. | 7 | 9 |
| L5d In L5 family | The head wants to drink. | The rolling head suffers from thirst. See motif L5. | 8 | 9 |
| L81d In L81 family | After fighting, the cripples recovered. | Two cripples with different physical disabilities quarrel and fight, and as a result become whole and healthy. | 10 | 9 |
| M106d In M106 family | My name is "Son-in-law". | By saying that his name is "Son-in-law" ("Husband," "Uncle," etc.), the character deceives others. The victims find no sympathy, since as a relative he has the right to behave in this manner. | 8 | 9 |
| M114g In M114 family | The long-bearded goat and the tall camel. | Only the boy, the young man, answers the questions of the authoritative character wisely. When he asks why someone older and taller was not sent to him, the boy says that the goat has the longest beard and the camel is taller than everyone else. | 9 | 9 |
| M114h In M114 family | Building a house in the air. | An authoritative character orders a house to be built in the air. A man finds a clever way out of the situation. | 9 | 9 |
| M123a In M123 family | Three-toed paw. | A raven marries or tries to marry, pretending to be a chief and a handsome man. One day, someone notices that he is eating carrion. Usually, everyone is forced to take off their moccasins, and they see that the raven has a three-toed paw. The raven is banished in disgrace or hastens to leave on his own. | 6 | 9 |
| M133 | The wind as saviour. | Cumulative tale: a bird is injured by a thorny plant and asks for it to be punished, but everyone refuses because someone else has failed to do something; the last to be asked is the wind, which blows and causes all the characters to perform the necessary actions one after another. | 13 | 9 |
| M13B In M13 family | Sausage sticks to the nose. | People are promised the fulfilment of two (three, four) wishes. Without thinking, they wish for something they do not want at all. The last wish is spent on returning to the original state. | 7 | 9 |
| M144B In M144 family | A burnt tiger becomes striped. | The stripes on the tiger's skin appeared after it was burned. | 7 | 9 |
| 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 |
| M170a In M170 family | The sinful camel. | The predator accuses the herbivore of sin and eats it. | 7 | 9 |
| M177a In M177 family | The one who looks away eats. | One zoomorphic character teaches another to remain silent, to look at him or away when a third character asks who ate the best piece. It is a trap: the third character decides that the second is guilty. | 10 | 9 |
| M192a In M192 family | Dried belts. | The character agrees to have a freshly removed skin put on him or to be wrapped in wet belts. The skin or belts cause suffering or death (usually because they dry out and shrink). | 9 | 9 |
| M197d In M197 family | Shortened stick, ATU 926C.2. | To find the thief, a man gives sticks to the assembled crowd and says that the thief's stick will become longer overnight. The thief cuts off the end of his stick and is thus discovered. | 9 | 9 |
| M198b3 In M198 family | The collapsed mosque. | A supposed fortune teller accidentally finds the missing items, is rewarded and brought close to the ruler. One day, for some reason, he rudely pushes him (or people in general) out of the room. Immediately afterwards, the roof of the building collapses. Since then, no one has doubted the fortune teller's abilities. | 9 | 9 |
| M29c In M29 family | Trickster - Jay | See the motives in square brackets. | 10 | 9 |
| M29j In M29 family | A trickster is a waterfowl or marsh bird | See the motives in square brackets. | 14 | 9 |
| M29y In M29 family | Trickster - Wren | See the motives in square brackets. | 10 | 9 |
| M39a5 In M39 family | Kills goats that have eaten pears | fool led the goats to the fruit tree and killed them because they ate the fruit he had thrown. | 7 | 9 |
| M56d In M56 family | Fill the vessel with flies | The character promises to fill the vessel with small flying living creatures. He bets with them that they will not be able to fill the vessel. Creatures climb inside, the character closes the lid. Cf. K60B motif. | 8 | 9 |
| M61a1 In M61 family | The character quarrels birds | The character (always a raven) provokes a seagull to quarrel with another bird, telling each one that the other was hostile or offensive towards her. | 5 | 9 |
| M78e In M78 family | Baby ear | A tiny boy comes from an animal's ear, compared in size to an ear, his name is “ear”. | 5 | 9 |
| M92 | Glued lashes | Something red is glued to the character's eyelashes, he thinks it's a fire. | 8 | 9 |
| N28d In N28 family | Sea cover | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a lid or covering for the sea, ocean or river are mentioned | 7 | 9 |
| N28g In N28 family | A horse has no bile | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a gall of horse or ass is mentioned | 9 | 9 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.