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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K56a5c In K56 family | Conversation with the months. | A man who kindly answers the questions of characters representing the weather in certain months of the year is rewarded. Another man scolds them and is punished. | 14 | 16 |
| K61e In K61 family | The one who laughs rewards. | Seeing an absurd situation, a powerful (supernatural) character laughs and is thereby usually cured of his ailment. For this, the people involved in the situation are rewarded and saved from danger. | 14 | 16 |
| K65d In K65 family | Incorrect marriage rites and the birth of spirits. | The first human couple initially only have miscarriages, or their children are spirits or unpleasant and dangerous animals. After performing a formal marriage ceremony or repeating it according to new rules, the woman gives birth to real people or gods. | 7 | 16 |
| K75c In K75 family | The Unwashed Woman, ATU 361. | The devil promises a person wealth if he does not wash (cut his hair, etc.) for a certain period of time; both keep their promises. | 32 | 16 |
| L117 | Imposed companions. | A man is going to get married. An evil spirit, animal, etc. imposes itself on him as a companion (usually helping, feeding, or simply saying that it will then demand half of the wife). After the wedding, it takes or tries to take the bride or demands to share her. In the Gola text, a man obtains a wife for the spirit and demands to share her. | 14 | 16 |
| L120b In L120 family | The fighting hero wakes his brothers. | The hero fights the serpent and calls for help, but no one hears him. Then he throws an item of his footwear or clothing, and his awakened brothers or his horse come to his aid. | 12 | 16 |
| L125b In L125 family | Eats carrion. | After following his wife (husband), the husband (wife) discovers that she or he goes around devouring dead bodies. | 17 | 16 |
| L129a In L129 family | Man asks, wolf explains. | The wolf or demon is asked why its body parts and organs are the way they are. It explains sequentially. | 17 | 16 |
| L15a2 In L15 family | Not fully hardened. | The human body is tempered (in a furnace, etc.) to make it invulnerable, but one place remains unprotected. | 7 | 16 |
| l44a1 In l44 family | Louse- turtle. | A human and a demonic character agree to compare their lice. When the human shows a turtle or a frog, the demon believes that it is scarier and stronger than him. | 13 | 16 |
| L63 | Eats with the anus or vagina. | The character eats food with the womb or anus. See motif F9A. | 21 | 16 |
| L72e1 In L72 family | The pursuer hides the axe. | In order to destroy the obstacles created by the hero, the pursuer uses tools. Before continuing the chase, he is forced to spend time taking them home or hiding them, otherwise animals and birds will steal them. | 12 | 16 |
| L89 | One secretly feeds another. | One person, wishing to harm another, secretly gives him certain food to eat or a certain object to use. As a result, the other person dies (usually undergoing a metamorphosis). Cf. motif K82a. | 18 | 16 |
| m105a1 In m105 family | Allegedly killed children: two birds. | One of two birds, both of which (rarely: only one) are flightless, suggests that the other break its eggs. The other agrees, but then sees that the first has kept its eggs. | 5 | 16 |
| M114j In M114 family | All women are the same, ATU 983. | A woman does not refuse those who harass her, but calmly explains that there is no point in trying to possess many, since they are all the same (they differ no more than eggs painted in different colours). | 28 | 16 |
| M129 | Loss of birthright, K1988. | A parent intends to transfer primogeniture (royalty, other privileges) to a chosen son. Another son or brother comes under the guise of the chosen one and receives primogeniture. | 14 | 16 |
| M153b In M153 family | Wolf riding. | The wolf is killed or maimed after agreeing to a domestic animal's offer to ride it. | 15 | 16 |
| M157a5 In M157 family | Golden mortar. | A person finds a golden (rarely marble, etc.) mortar (bell) and brings it to an authoritative figure. Instead of gratitude, the latter demands that the pestle (the tongue of the bell, etc.) also be brought. | 16 | 16 |
| M197e1 In M197 family | The demon claims the harvest. | The demon claims that the harvest in a field belonging to a human belongs to him. But if the human brings him an animal unknown to him, he will renounce his claims. The man brings his wife, smeared with something sticky and covered in feathers, standing on all fours, with her hair loose, etc. The demon admits defeat. | 13 | 16 |
| M205 | Birds set fire to the city. | Soldiers besieging a city or palace capture or obtain as ransom the birds living there. They smear them with an oily liquid or tie objects to them (shells with resin, shavings, tinder, etc.), which are then set on fire. The released birds fly back to the city or palace. Thanks to the fire that has started, the warriors capture it. | 14 | 16 |
| M36 | Disassembled into pieces fits into the hole | The character finds himself inside wood, stone, ice, etc. He or someone else makes a hole, but it's too small. Then he disassembles himself (or turns into fog), pushes these parts into the hole and reassembles it. | 12 | 16 |
| M38d1 In M38 family | Hair neck | bubble-head, the straw leg, the hair-neck are successively dying, trying to act like ordinary people. | 11 | 16 |
| M39a4f In M39 family | Fool sells property to statue | Fool sells property to the statue and believes that it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 10 | 16 |
| M70 | The elder poisons the younger ones with intestinal gases | The oldest character poisons the youngest with his intestinal gases. | 14 | 16 |
| M75b2 In M75 family | Predetermined marriage: a bird tries to prevent | bird tries in vain to prevent the marriage, which she learned was inevitable when the future spouses were still children. | 17 | 16 |
| M7b In M7 family | The fox asks for help from people passing by | zoomorphic character (usually a fox) finds himself in a place he can't get out of, and consistently asks for help from animals (fish) passing by or approaching him. The latter helps. | 15 | 16 |
| M82 | Tail bells: tied voluntarily, J2155 | The character sees that something is tied to the other's tail. He also wants such a tail for himself, and as a result he suffers damage. | 10 | 16 |
| A38c In A38 family | The Sun's Cloak. | The Sun exchanges a cape made of animal or bird skins with a boy or girl, or spoils it. As a result, the boy or girl raises their status or takes revenge on the Sun. | 14 | 17 |
| B21 | Destruction of the world tree. | People climb trees to hunt, fish or gather honey. The tree is felled, people fall down and undergo a metamorphosis, or remain in the upper world. | 12 | 17 |
| B3c In B3 family | Attempt to drown God. | When the creator, having created the land, lies down to rest, the antagonist tries to drown him, dragging him to the edge of the earth. As a result, the earth expands, and the antagonist is unable to reach its edge. | 15 | 17 |
| B42r In B42 family | Orion's Belt: running after each other. | The three stars of Orion's Belt are three characters chasing each other. | 16 | 17 |
| B52a In B52 family | The vulture creates dry land. | Flying over the world, a bird (usually a vulture) dries the earth after a flood with its wings or otherwise gives it its present appearance. | 18 | 17 |
| B56 | The crocodile's fiery tongue. | The crocodile/caiman is left without a tongue after swallowing or losing the fire (which it previously possessed); something associated with heavenly fire (lightning, sunbeams, etc.) emerges from the crocodile's severed tongue. | 15 | 17 |
| B72b In B72 family | An offended child becomes a bird. | A girl or, less commonly, a boy turns into a bird after his mother (father, guardian) refuses to give him water or food or otherwise mistreats him. | 20 | 17 |
| B73a In B73 family | In search of a horse. | A girl (a young man, a girl with her brother; two little brothers) searches for a lost horse, cow, sheep and, as a result (alone or with her brother; both brothers), turns into a bird (usually a cuckoo) with a characteristic call. | 10 | 17 |
| B77b3 In B77 family | Placing a pancake on the sky. | In the past, either in a distant country, the sky was or is so low that various objects are placed on it as needed. | 14 | 17 |
| B83 | Unliftable weight. | A character attempts to lift a small object or creature, which turns out to be gigantic and unliftable. Cf. motif I87ab. | 18 | 17 |
| C24 | The world is in danger of falling. | Someone is gnawing or chopping at the pillar supporting the sky or the earth; certain creatures are trying to destroy the barrier separating their world from the world of humans; if the work is completed, humans will perish. | 12 | 17 |
| D2 | Birth of the sun/fire. | A woman gives birth to a son who is very hot. | 11 | 17 |
| E8a In E8 family | People in fruits. | Women or people in general emerge from fruits (often coconuts), or fruits or, less commonly, leaves turn into people or only women. Cf. motif k33c. | 11 | 17 |
| E9a In E9 family | The magical wife - the fox. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a fox. | 13 | 17 |
| F29a In F29 family | The worm is scalded with boiling water. | To kill a woman's lover, who has the appearance of a worm or snake and crawls into her vagina from under the ground, boiling water, resin or hot coals are poured on him. | 12 | 17 |
| F3a In F3 family | Pregnant man. | A man carries a child like a woman. | 17 | 17 |
| F52 | Bird's crest made of pubic hair. | The first ancestor bird puts pubic hair or part of a woman's genitals on its head; since then, birds of this species have had a crest. | 13 | 17 |
| H24c In H24 family | Death in a vessel. | People open a vessel (a bundle, a basket, etc.) containing death (or old age, illness), and therefore they are mortal. | 14 | 17 |
| I114 | The Golden Fleece. | Describes a ram or sheep with golden wool or the skin of such a ram. | 11 | 17 |
| I135 | Heavenly skin or cloth. | The sky (Milky Way, clouds) is an animal skin or a piece of cloth. | 15 | 17 |
| I32a In I32 family | The tree of destiny. | When a leaf or fruit from a certain tree falls, one of the people on earth dies. | 18 | 17 |
| I38a In I38 family | Dogs – husbands of women. | The husbands of human women are dogs or dog-headed creatures. | 11 | 17 |
| I4c In I4 family | Thunder in captivity. | The enemy of the thunderer temporarily defeats and captures him. | 12 | 17 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.