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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K67h In K67 family | Bear in the barn | When a worker is sent to a place where he is to be torn apart by a predator, he tames it and lets it into the barn (stable) at home. As a result, the predator destroys the owner's livestock. | 12 | 14 |
| K85a In K85 family | The horse-thought and the horse-wind. | When assessing the speed of a horse, the speed of thought (lightning, or something else) and wind are compared. | 12 | 14 |
| K89a In K89 family | Where to leave the sister? | Having escaped danger, the girl or boy goes with their sister or brother. The sister or brother is crippled, rejects a number of places where they are to be left, and remains in the last place offered. See motif K89. | 12 | 14 |
| K90b In K90 family | Deer antlers in the dragon's mouth. | The antlers of a deer or the tusks of an elephant, which a snake or dragon is trying to swallow, get stuck in its mouth. | 14 | 14 |
| L15c1 In L15 family | The righteous adversary suffers damage. | A dangerous character naively reveals what he fears or what his life consists of, and the hero takes advantage of this. | 12 | 14 |
| l15h3 In l15 family | The soul of a character in an insect (worm). | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final vessel of the soul is an insect or worm. | 11 | 14 |
| L15J In L15 family | Only with fire. | The character can only be killed by fire. | 17 | 14 |
| L1f In L1 family | Sister avenges her lover. | The sister, using magic or transforming herself into a monster, kills her brothers in revenge for the death of her lover or husband. | 14 | 14 |
| L22B In L22 family | Metamorphosis of the blind. | People who wake up blind in the morning turn into fish, birds or animals. See motif L22. | 15 | 14 |
| L33d In L33 family | The hero defeats the stone monster. | A rolling stone-monster kills people. The hero destroys it. See motif L33. | 8 | 14 |
| L42a In L42 family | Cannibal steals corpses. | The cannibal steals fresh corpses from graves. | 12 | 14 |
| L51 | The victim is thrown to aquatic animals. | A cannibal, spirit, or predatory beast regularly throws its victims down, where they are devoured by aquatic or chthonic creatures. | 9 | 14 |
| L65a2 In L65 family | Shot finger. | A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. | 11 | 14 |
| L81a3 In L81 family | Demon with a golden spoon. | A girl sees a demon in a frightening and repulsive form. When he asks her what she said about him (what she saw), the girl replies that she praised his beauty and manners (she saw him in an attractive form). Usually, the girl eventually tells the truth, and the men hiding in ambush kill the enraged demon. | 8 | 14 |
| L90b In L90 family | Fangs reaching the sky and the earth. | One tooth (fang) of the creature touches the sky, the other reaches the earth or the underworld. | 6 | 14 |
| L95a In L95 family | Light on water. | A person sees lungs or a liver lying on the ground or floating in the water. As soon as he touches them, a demonic character appears before him. | 12 | 14 |
| M112a In M112 family | The turtle catches the thief. | Animals take turns guarding water or food or using water. The deceiver takes what he needs or prevents others from doing so. The turtle, toad or frog proves to be more cunning than the deceiver and catches him. See motif M112. | 23 | 14 |
| M123d In M123 family | The raven – devourer of carrion. | A bird from the corvid family is rejected after its mate or relatives discover that it eats carrion or filth. | 15 | 14 |
| M171c1 In M171 family | In exchange for a bast shoe. | The character has only a bast shoe with him (or he pretends that he had a bast shoe). He asks for a place to stay for the night, and in the morning he claims that he had something more valuable with him. At each new place to stay, he continues to exchange something less valuable for something more valuable. | 12 | 14 |
| M171d In M171 family | Mena: receives a drum. | The character exchanges one thing for another and ultimately receives a musical instrument (usually a drum). | 13 | 14 |
| M186 | Competition in speed: fish and animal. | An animal (fox, wolf, leopard) runs along the shore, while a fish (burbot, goby, catfish) swims in the water. The animal calls out to the fish, which is always ahead (usually keeping other fish at a distance, but in the Negidal variant, the motif of competition is omitted). | 11 | 14 |
| M187a In M187 family | Fish race, ATU 250. | Two fish (a fish and a whale, a dolphin, a squid and a dolphin, etc.) agree to race each other. | 18 | 14 |
| M197b In M197 family | Rusted stallions and foaled mares. | The owner claims that other mares foaled or aborted because his stallions, which were far away from the mares, whinnied, that any foal born was from his mare, etc. The young man begins to kill the owner's dogs: they did not chase away the wolves (they scared away the game, etc.), although they were far from the scene. The owner acknowledges the absurdity of his claim. | 15 | 14 |
| M39a2a In M39 family | A fool buys spoons and a table | fool buys spoons and/or a table, tells the table to go on its own feet, throws away spoons because they rattle. The two episodes are usually combined. | 9 | 14 |
| M39a4b In M39 family | Frog strands | foolish woman thinks that frogs will make yarn or cloth for her, or buy yarn and throw the material into the water. | 13 | 14 |
| M39a4c In M39 family | The fool sells his property to the birds | Fool sells property to birds and believes that they will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 12 | 14 |
| M39a7 In M39 family | Misunderstood instructions: washing with boiling water, ATU 1013 | When instructed to wash the old man with warm water, the fool steams him with boiling water. | 23 | 14 |
| M39a9 In M39 family | Misunderstood instructions: a play on words | The character asks a member of his family to bring vegetable products, cook food, and feed someone. He understands words as if he must kill a child (dog, etc.) and serve his meat. [section incomplete] | 10 | 14 |
| M44a In M44 family | Food thieves are the first humans | The character discovers that someone is stealing game or fish from his trap, mountain, etc. or ravages his garden, field; he or his messengers wait and catch the thief [magical tales clearly of European origin (e.g. Chamacoco, Wilbert, Simoneau 1987a, No. 121) are not included]. The kidnappers are the first people to get out of the ground, the first men. | 5 | 14 |
| M56a In M56 family | The crocodile's secret | A weak character hits a crocodile, but the crocodile is safe. He says he would be killed if the attack hit a specific location. Next time, the same character hits this place and kills a crocodile. | 16 | 14 |
| M60b2 In M60 family | To make the bear beautiful, ATU 8 | A large predator asks (agrees with the proposal) to make his skin beautiful (variegated). The deceiver burns it (scalds it, burns his eyes, etc.). | 10 | 14 |
| M61a In M61 family | Owners quarrel to get valuables | To get valuables, the character provokes a quarrel between their owners. When they start fighting each other, valuables fall out of their bodies and end up at the character's disposal. | 10 | 14 |
| M81b In M81 family | Don't go after a stuck arrow | The character is warned not to try to reach an arrow if it gets stuck in a tree. He breaks the ban and gets into trouble. | 10 | 14 |
| M8c In M8 family | Cleaned eyes | Birds pierce through a layer of clay, wax, resin, etc., that covers the character's eyes or anus. | 10 | 14 |
| M94b1 In M94 family | The wolf under the mill wheel | The character is lured to look under the mill wheel, he dies or is maimed. | 12 | 14 |
| N10c In N10 family | The insides are visible | A girl is described, through whose body you can see her internal organs or the food she has swallowed. This is a sign of beauty. | 11 | 14 |
| N28b In N28 family | Stairway to Heaven | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a ladder or stairway to the sky (variant: a ladder in the sky) is mentioned | 10 | 14 |
| N32 | Sitting on three oaks | The ornithomorphic character is said to be sitting on several trees. | 10 | 14 |
| A13a In A13 family | The raven hides the sun. | The raven steals or hides the sun, or attempts to do so. | 12 | 15 |
| A31a In A31 family | Severed breast. | Upon learning that her husband or lover has committed an act incompatible with accepted norms, a woman cuts off her breast and shows it to him. | 11 | 15 |
| A38d In A38 family | The sun damages the cloak. | Because the Sun has harmed the character (ruined or burned his cloak, the fur on his skin, etc.), he catches it in a trap or kills it. | 17 | 15 |
| B101 | Stripes on a birch tree. | Angry at the birch tree, the character beats or cuts it, leaving stripes on the bark that remain to this day. | 11 | 15 |
| B1g In B1 family | Four brothers-transformers. | Four brothers change the world, freeing it from monsters, transforming its inhabitants and obtaining valuable resources (water, fire, cultivated plants, etc.). Usually one of the brothers is the leader, and the others help him. All four often have a common name. | 8 | 15 |
| B45b In B45 family | The bull of cold. | The bull or cow is the embodiment of cold, the reason why winter is cold. | 8 | 15 |
| B5c In B5 family | Mother and daughter at the beginning of time. | At the beginning of time, there are an old woman and a young woman. One or both of them conceive in a miraculous way. A son or twins are born, who settle the world. | 6 | 15 |
| B80 | Measurement of the world. | The process of creation includes measuring the dimensions of the earth or the world as a whole. | 13 | 15 |
| C15 | The walled-up jaguar. | A monstrous jaguar (puma) is locked in a cave or tree trunk. | 8 | 15 |
| C31c In C31 family | The wise bat. | The bat turns out to be smarter and wiser than other living creatures. | 12 | 15 |
| C32A In C32 family | Nails (hair) will be needed by the soul in the afterlife. | Nails will be needed in the afterlife to save oneself (to climb a steep mountain, climb into the sky, build a bridge, etc.). | 9 | 15 |
| D4b In D4 family | Retribution for fire. | Those who stole or asked for fire and/or those who received fire are punished by the deity. | 7 | 15 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.