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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B42m2 In B42 family | The boastful and hasty. | The stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three hunters chasing a beast. Each has a distinct character (one is boastful, another is hasty, etc.). In Siberia, the hunters are identified with people of different nationalities, and in the North American Northeast, with birds of different species. | 15 | 14 |
| B42s In B42 family | Wounded by a spear. | The Big Dipper or Polar Star – a small animal (ermine, marten, forest marmot) or anthropomorphic character with animal features, struck by a spear or arrow. | 14 | 14 |
| B44a In B44 family | Units of time. | Characters argue about the number of discrete units of time that determine the duration of a certain period of time (most often winter or night). See motif B44. | 57 | 14 |
| B46b In B46 family | Seven Star Sisters. | Each of the seven main stars of the Big Dipper is a separate female character. {Included in the online database, but not in the correlation table in *sav)}. | 15 | 14 |
| B48c In B48 family | Artefacts in the pike's head. | In the head of the pike there are (visible) tools used by people. | 18 | 14 |
| B69a In B69 family | Dispute about time, Chipmunk participant. | A chipmunk or a similar small animal (weasel, shrew) argues with another animal character (bear, moose, puma, snake) about whether there should be light and warmth or darkness and cold. | 13 | 14 |
| B87b In B87 family | Harnessed wolf. | The Great Bear – a cart harnessed by a wolf or bear. Usually, the shape of the handle of the dipper is explained by the fact that a wolf or bear attacked an ox harnessed to the cart and took its place. In this case, it is associated with Alcor or the last star of the handle of the dipper – η. | 10 | 14 |
| B91 | The sharp-eyed snail. | The snail had (the most keen-eyed) eyes. Another character borrows them and does not return them. | 9 | 14 |
| C28 | Rash promise. | A demonic character takes possession of a valuable item without which another character (and people) will perish. The demon is tricked into returning the valuable item. | 12 | 14 |
| D4d In D4 family | The opossum obtains fire. | The opossum obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 11 | 14 |
| E3 | New people from the bones of the old. | After the destruction of the previous world, new people (rarely: new earth) are made from the remains of the dead. | 14 | 14 |
| E31a2 In E31 family | One is her father, another is her brother, and this one is her husband. | The girl must be given to one of several men. She herself or someone else explains that one of the suitors can be called her father, another her brother (etc.), and only one can be her husband. | 14 | 14 |
| F28a3 In F28 family | Pleasant for girls, dangerous for others. | A girl (woman) possesses an object that is pleasant (useful). Once in the hands of others, it becomes harmful (dangerous). | 14 | 14 |
| f2a In f2 family | Improper birth. | The child deliberately leaves its mother's womb in an unusual way, making a hole in her body and often killing her. This is a sign of its malice and/or supernatural power. | 12 | 14 |
| F46a In F46 family | Woman in a tree. | Men (human-animals) discover a woman at the top of a tree and copulate with her there. | 10 | 14 |
| F70d In F70 family | The disgraced informer. | A girl pretends to be a man or a eunuch, or a girl hides a disability, or a man pretends to be a girl. Someone reveals a secret. At the last moment, the hero or heroine magically gets rid of the disability (acquires male or female nature), the informer is disgraced (executed). | 14 | 14 |
| F87b In F87 family | The snake wife and her children: transformation into trees. | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a bathing girl, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into plants. | 12 | 14 |
| F89 | The sister's cunning. | A sister and brother live alone. The brother refuses to commit incest. The sister resorts to cunning, as a result of which the brother mistakes her for a stranger and marries her. | 9 | 14 |
| F9e In F9 family | Mice in the vagina. | Small mammals with sharp teeth are found in a woman's vagina. | 9 | 14 |
| G12a In G12 family | Plants from drops of blood. | Cultivated plants arise from drops of blood or flow like blood from cuts on the body of a human or animal. | 10 | 14 |
| H1e In H1 family | The first to die opens the way for the rest. | A certain character is the first to enter the world of the dead, after which all people follow the same path; he paves the way to the world of the dead; the first to die becomes the master or guardian of the afterlife. | 15 | 14 |
| H23 | Fatty horns. | This hard and now inedible object originally consisted of fat. | 13 | 14 |
| I102 | The Milky Way – a tree. | The Milky Way – a tree, the trace of a tree. | 12 | 14 |
| I107 | Stars – nails. | Stars are nails or stakes driven into the sky, or stars are nailed down. | 12 | 14 |
| I5a In I5 family | Thunder tapir. | The tapir is associated with the upper world (thunder, sky, moon). | 10 | 14 |
| I68a In I68 family | The night of magical water. | Once a year, water briefly acquires unusual properties. | 12 | 14 |
| I80a In I80 family | Junior Thunder. | Upon meeting the Thunders, a person becomes one of them. | 12 | 14 |
| J26a In J26 family | Boys and puppies. | Among children of a woman or two women living together, there is a boy and a puppy, or a puppy was placed with a woman, and her son was thrown out. The puppy lives with the woman and helps her. | 14 | 14 |
| J27b In J27 family | Water Father. | An infant is thrown into a lake or river and occasionally comes ashore. In addition to his earthly parents, he has a father (and mother) in the underwater world. He does not want to part with them, nor do they want to let him go. | 16 | 14 |
| J32c In J32 family | The demon comes to harm the deceased. | At night, a demonic character comes to the grave of the deceased, intending to harm him. | 13 | 14 |
| J34 | Grandchildren scare their grandmother. | After killing a dangerous enemy, the heroes make a scarecrow out of him to frighten the household. | 11 | 14 |
| J41 | Foxes mock the abandoned. | The hero leaves for a long time. When he returns, his relative does not immediately believe that it is really him. All this time, someone has been mocking him or her, imitating the voice of the departed, saying that he has returned and/or throwing ashes in his or her face. | 14 | 14 |
| J49 | The Moon's wife falls down. | The wife and/or sister of the Moon unsuccessfully tries to climb up to him in the sky or reaches him but returns to earth. | 10 | 14 |
| J8 | Feathers at the crossroads. | A woman or girl sets out in search of a husband (fiancé, etc.). Bird feathers left on the trail, at a crossroads or near a dwelling mark the right or wrong path. See motif J7. | 21 | 14 |
| K13b In K13 family | A caiman bites off a leg. | A man crosses a body of water on the back of a caiman. The caiman bites off his leg. The cripple undergoes a metamorphosis, turning into a constellation or an animal. | 9 | 14 |
| K178 | The enchanted husband drives away and finds his wife again, ATU 425E, 425L. | A girl descends into the underworld to her magical husband, and when she breaks the ban, he drives her away (sends her away with a task). She comes to live with other people, she has a child from her magical husband. Her husband finds her, the spouses are reunited, the spell is broken. {Motif in the work} | 17 | 14 |
| K1d In K1 family | The hero's wife's brothers abandon him. | The hero's wife's brothers try to kill him by leaving him on an island. | 8 | 14 |
| K25a4a In K25 family | Rescue from the underwater world (broken chain). | A young woman finds herself in the power of a water creature, and when she comes ashore, she is chained. To free the woman, the chain must be broken. | 8 | 14 |
| K25b In K25 family | A woman follows a porcupine. | A woman climbs a tree trying to catch a porcupine and ends up in the sky. | 7 | 14 |
| K27f2 In K27 family | Get the same shoes. | A girl demands that her fiancé get her the same pair of shoes (or other items) as hers. These items either exist in a single copy, or it is not known what they look like. Having become invisible, the hero either steals the items (and the owner has to make new ones herself), or finds out what they look like. | 9 | 14 |
| K27x8 In K27 family | The guiding frog. | Only the frog (toad) knows the way to the object that is unattainable for ordinary people, which the hero is looking for (and helps him get there). | 13 | 14 |
| K27yy4 In K27 family | Obtaining tree bark. | The hero must obtain tree bark, which is fraught with danger. | 11 | 14 |
| K29c In K29 family | Brings a tree. | They hope to kill the hero by knocking a tree down on him or tying him to a tree. He comes back alive, dragging the tree behind him. | 10 | 14 |
| K32e In K32 family | Gold, silver, wood. | A negative character, object or locus is contrasted with one or two positive ones, such as wood with gold and silver. | 13 | 14 |
| K32l In K32 family | Horses are given for fattening. | The ruler distributes horses (cows) to his subjects for fattening. Only the heroine returns hers well-fed. | 12 | 14 |
| K33a2 In K33 family | The witch distorts what is said. | A brother takes his sister to her fiancé. She cannot hear her brother's words, and the witch distorts them (as if the brother is telling his sister to throw herself into the water, to blind her, etc.). Having got rid of the heroine, the witch replaces her with her own daughter. | 10 | 14 |
| K35c2 In K35 family | The hero in the underwater kingdom, (ATU 677). | When the ship unexpectedly stops, the hero descends to the bottom of the sea, behaves correctly with the local inhabitants, and returns to the ship. | 12 | 14 |
| K45a In K45 family | Fingers turn into aquatic animals. | A man sails away from a woman or girl in a boat or on a raft. When she tries to grab the edge of the boat (raft), he cuts off her fingers. The fingers turn into aquatic animals. | 9 | 14 |
| K56a2a In K56 family | Washing in red water. | A girl becomes beautiful or ugly after washing herself with water of a certain colour. | 15 | 14 |
| K56d In K56 family | Broken leg. | One man treats a bird, which brings a seed, and something valuable grows. Another deliberately cripples a bird, then treats it, and it brings a seed, and something harmful and terrible grows. | 17 | 14 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.