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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1a In A1 family | Before the sun, a parrot shone. | Before the sun appeared, the world was lit by a large bird with bright colours (a parrot or toucan). | 2 | 2 |
| A22a In A22 family | The Hot Sun and its Companion. | Two characters burn; one turns into the present sun, and the other into a less significant celestial object. See motif A22. | 14 | 2 |
| A23E In A23 family | The first to rise has the best voice. | Two birds argue about who will get up first, or agree to consider the one who gets up first to be the better singer. The bird that sings the most melodious trills wins, and the one with a shrill or hoarse voice loses. | 3 | 2 |
| A2G In A2 family | Several suns in one day. | At different times throughout the day, different suns shine in the sky. | 2 | 2 |
| A39B In A39 family | Full moon and crescent moon. | The full moon and the crescent moon are different characters. | 2 | 2 |
| B124a In B124 family | Dent on the back. | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's back, a dent has remained along the length of the spine. | 2 | 2 |
| B28c In B28 family | Lice drag a person into the water. | Lice grab a person and drag him into the sea. | 3 | 2 |
| B42c In B42 family | Bear hunting. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is a bear. See motifs B42 and B42P. | 30 | 2 |
| B69b In B69 family | Striped frog. | Wanting to reward or punish the frog, the character runs his hand or paw along its back, and since then, stripes have been visible on the frog's back. | 2 | 2 |
| D4k In D4 family | The deer obtains fire. | The deer obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 3 | 2 |
| F77B In F77 family | Hanging on the penis. | A man cannot free himself for a long time after copulating with his partner, as a result of which his penis ends up high above the ground. See motif F19, motif F21. | 4 | 2 |
| F80D In F80 family | Genitals flew like geese. | Female genitals flew like geese. | 2 | 2 |
| H32b In H32 family | Lost abundance: the offended child. | A girl and/or boy, who are the children of a deity, come to live with humans, leading to an abundance of food/resources. Due to the hurt they have caused, the children return to their own world, and human life becomes difficult or meagre. | 8 | 2 |
| h36k In h36 family | Trees try to destroy people. | Trees try to prevent humans from appearing on earth, fearing that they will cut them down. | 2 | 2 |
| H49A In H49 family | Husband, wife and innocently killed dog. | A man does not understand that a dog or cat wanted to save his wife or preserve her honour and kills the animal. | 2 | 2 |
| I13F In I13 family | Wintering with a bear. | In autumn, a man falls asleep in a bear's den. When he wakes up, he thinks that the night has passed, but it is already spring. Usually, the bear gives him advice before parting. | 2 | 2 |
| I14a In I14 family | Ejecting food through the mouth. | People without anuses regurgitate what they have eaten through their mouths or other (marked) orifices. See motif I14. | 2 | 2 |
| I15a1 In I15 family | Vertical slit eyes. | The demonic character has vertical slits for eyes. | 2 | 2 |
| I93A In I93 family | The Milky Way – the heavenly tail. | The Milky Way is the tail of a creature that is being pulled by its tail. | 2 | 2 |
| J12a In J12 family | Penis in a vessel. | A girl or two sisters come to an old woman who invites them to marry her son. In reality, he is a worm, a snake or a penis, which his mother hides in a vessel during the day. The girl (sisters) do not allow him to approach them and run away. See motif J12. | 7 | 2 |
| J12I In J12 family | Spitting beads. | A desirable marriage partner secretes beads instead of saliva or excrement. See motifs J12 and M57. | 12 | 2 |
| J25b In J25 family | Dead mother brings food to her child. | A pregnant woman dies and is buried. Her spirit leaves the grave to bring food to the child. The child is found and grows up. | 3 | 2 |
| K131c In K131 family | The kidnapped woman runs away while the archers compete. | A woman offers her captors to shoot arrows – she will marry the winner. While they are figuring out whose arrow flew farther, the kidnapped woman runs away. | 2 | 2 |
| K26a In K26 family | A stone covers the opening. | The hole in the sky is covered by a flat stone. Moving it aside, the character sees the earth. See motif K26. | 13 | 2 |
| K32c In K32 family | The real wife becomes an owl. | The deceiver takes the place of the real wife, and the real wife becomes an owl. See motif K32. | 2 | 2 |
| K56b3 In K56 family | Stench instead of fragrance. | A man's intestinal gases become fragrant. An envious person tries to achieve the same result, but the outcome is the opposite. | 2 | 2 |
| L21A In L21 family | Live and dead mice. | A character sitting in a tree throws small animals (snakes, mice) down, distracting the attention of a cannibal who is trying to catch them. When he throws dead animals instead of live ones, the cannibal grabs him. | 2 | 2 |
| L5j In L5 family | The rolling head laughs. | The rolling head laughs for no reason. See motif L5. | 6 | 2 |
| M13a In M13 family | Turned into stone. | A deity and a human meet so that the former can fulfil the latter's request. As a result, the human is turned to stone. Usually (except for the Squamish), one of the supplicants wants eternal life and is turned to stone. See motif M13. | 12 | 2 |
| M18b In M18 family | Obtaining a hook, spear. | The character turns into a fishing object in order to carry away the hook with which he is caught or the spear with which they try to harpoon him, or he turns into a hook to catch fish. See motif M18. | 18 | 2 |
| M199d1 In M199 family | The devil and the squirrel climb a tree, ATU 1073. | The devil (cannibal) challenges a man to a competition: who can climb a tree faster. The man puts his child, a squirrel, in his place. | 9 | 2 |
| M29T In M29 family | Trickster - Armadillo | See the motives in square brackets. | 4 | 2 |
| M45b In M45 family | Animals at the trough, ATU 179B* | The old man carries a trough and lies down to rest, covered with it. The animals take the trough to the table and bring food. The old man gets up, the animals run away, the old man gets the food. | 2 | 2 |
| M61a4 In M61 family | He tells everyone that the other is dying | character lies to each of the spouses as if the other had a misfortune. They run to each other in panic. | 2 | 2 |
| M97B In M97 family | A woman asks the trees | 2 | 2 | |
| M9a In M9 family | Turning into a tree frog | A character who eagerly sucks honey from a hollow and/or gets stuck in a hollow turns into a tree frog. See M9 motif. | 10 | 2 |
| A11D In A11 family | The Eye of the Moon and the Phases of the Moon. | The moon opens and closes its eyes (phases of the moon). | 4 | 3 |
| A2c3 In A2 family | Octagonal moon. | In extraordinary circumstances, the moon or sun are not round, but have corners and edges. | 4 | 3 |
| B107 | Black oyster. | During the (world) fire, the oyster burns, which is why oyster shells are black. | 2 | 3 |
| B32a In B32 family | Pursuers turn into aquatic mammals. | The enemies of a hero sailing the sea turn into seals or dolphins. | 2 | 3 |
| B3F In B3 family | An object dropped from the sky. | A character in the sky accidentally drops an object. The search for this object in the world below the sky leads to the creation of the earth or a change in its appearance. | 4 | 3 |
| B42e In B42 family | Hunting the rhea. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is the rhea (Rhea americana, a large flightless bird). See motif B42. | 7 | 3 |
| B44d In B44 family | Black and white beast - night and day. | Night and day alternate because the slain beast was black and white, spotted. | 3 | 3 |
| B4a In B4 family | Fish break off islands. | Fish beat against the ground, breaking off islands from the mainland. | 4 | 3 |
| C22 | The Toad in Search of Thunder. | During a severe drought or global fire, birds and animals are sent to the thunder gods living at the edge of the world to bring rain. The last of those sent achieves the goal. The toad plays an important role in the action. | 4 | 3 |
| C32 | A ship made of nails. | Demonic characters will make a ship out of nail clippings. | 3 | 3 |
| C6i1 In C6 family | A mound of earth rises above the water. | There is water everywhere. Earth is raked up from the bottom into a mound, its top rises above the water and turns into dry land. | 3 | 3 |
| D13B In D13 family | Menstruation passes to women. | Menstruation passes from men to women after women laugh at an old man. | 3 | 3 |
| D13e In D13 family | Hunters laugh at the carcass of an animal. | Hunters perish because they laughed at the killed (and revived) animal. | 3 | 3 |
| E1e In E1 family | Son-stalk. | The son of the first human couple initially takes the form of a small plant that has grown from the ground, a stalk. | 2 | 3 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.