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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| J10 | Wasp sting. | A woman loses her way after being stung by a wasp (or bee, ant, snake). She slaps her stomach (either to kill the insect or to punish her unborn sons, because of whom she went to pick a flower and was stung; see motif J11). The offended sons fall silent, ceasing to show the way. See motif J9. | 14 | 17 |
| J19a In J19 family | Placing food on the stomach. | When a woman is left alone, a demonic character comes to her. He says that in order to perform certain actions, she must give him a certain part of her body, even though this contradicts logic and custom. After that, the character kills her (cuts open her stomach; tears out her tongue). | 10 | 17 |
| J2 | Tree husband. | Husband or lover – tree (temporarily transformed into a human). | 12 | 17 |
| J53c1 In J53 family | Grizzly bear and black bear. | Two women live together, both have children. One of them kills and (then) eats the other. The killer is associated with a grizzly bear, and the victim with a smaller species of bear. | 11 | 17 |
| K102a4 In K102 family | The wolf across the river. | A hostile young character is located behind a water barrier. The young man's sister or mother helps him cross and becomes his lover. | 12 | 17 |
| k136a1 In k136 family | The young man's hair carried away by the water. | Seeing the young man's hair carried away by the water, a woman decides to marry the owner of the hair. | 15 | 17 |
| K164 | A wife is not a best friend, ATU 921B. | The person himself or someone else creates a situation in which he becomes convinced that his wife is not his best friend. Usually, the treacherous wife is contrasted with a loyal dog. | 20 | 17 |
| K27h In K27 family | Depict a head that is not shown. | The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. | 8 | 17 |
| K27v In K27 family | Shooting a bird. | The character must hit the bird with an arrow or a stone. (Cf. motif K27M, where it is not the accuracy of the archer that is important, but the unusual appearance of the creature that needs to be caught). | 16 | 17 |
| K27x4 In K27 family | Not spilling water, climbing a tree. | The character is told to climb a tree (pole, mountain, etc.) while holding a full open vessel in his hand and not spilling a drop from it. | 14 | 17 |
| K27zz3 In K27 family | The pit by the apple tree. | The father or stepmother (werewolf) pushes/locks the sisters (the girl and her servants) into a pit. The heroine manages to escape and triumphs over her antagonists. | 14 | 17 |
| K30b In K30 family | Went out for a walk and disappeared. | A woman or girl is forbidden to go outside. As soon as she does, a flying creature kidnaps her. | 13 | 17 |
| K33c1 In K33 family | Transformation into a lotus. | A character thrown into the water is transformed into a flower (usually a lotus). | 14 | 17 |
| K56a4c In K56 family | Wash black until white. | A person is tasked with washing something black until it is white or something white until it is black (yarn, clothing, a board, etc.). | 16 | 17 |
| K56a4e In K56 family | The stepmother's daughter burned to death. | After meeting a supernatural character, a kind person receives valuables, while a greedy person burns to death upon returning home. | 14 | 17 |
| K93b5 In K93 family | Disguised as a puppy. | The character infiltrates the enemy camp disguised as a kitten or puppy. Usually, one of the enemies suspects deception, but the others believe that the cute animal is harmless. | 14 | 17 |
| L42k In L42 family | The ogre regurgitates the axe. | A demonic character regurgitates an axe (adze) to cut down a tree. | 8 | 17 |
| L62 | Stone Man. | The Stone Man kills people, but is then killed himself. | 19 | 17 |
| L74 | The Returned Hand. | A bear or other powerful character tears off and carries away another character's hand. A third character steals the hand and returns it to the one from whom it was torn off. | 11 | 17 |
| L84 | Unsuitable axes. | The character attempts to chop down a tree with an axe made of obviously unsuitable material. Cf. motif K27g5. | 16 | 17 |
| M106h In M106 family | Bird under a cap, ATU 1528. | A man puts his hat on the ground and pretends that there is something valuable under it. In reality, there is only shit. Those who believe the deceiver lose their property. | 34 | 17 |
| M114e In M114 family | Tie to winter or summer. | A girl offers a visitor to tie his horse to winter or summer, which means to a sleigh or a cart. | 20 | 17 |
| M127c In M127 family | Foolishly frightened. | Seeing an object that has been deliberately left behind or accidentally dropped, or hearing a sound it makes, the character sees it as a sign of danger and reacts inappropriately. | 16 | 17 |
| M157c In M157 family | You are hens, and I am a rooster. | To put a character in an awkward position, others present him with chicken eggs that they have prepared in advance, which the character does not have. (Usually, he crows and says that there are hens around him and only he is a rooster). | 16 | 17 |
| M163a In M163 family | What do cats eat? | A man sells a cat (rooster) to people who do not know about cats (or chickens). Having received a cat or rooster, people do not know what to feed them and fear that they will eat people. | 16 | 17 |
| M180a In M180 family | The unwashed monkey. | A zoomorphic character invites another to visit, but demands that they wash their hands or feet before eating. This proves impossible, and the guest leaves hungry. | 11 | 17 |
| M199e In M199 family | Horse between the legs, ATU 1082. | A man and his opponent compete to see who can carry a horse. The opponent struggles to lift the horse, while the man rides it, saying that he easily carried it between his legs. | 29 | 17 |
| M199o In M199 family | Who will pierce the tree, ATU 1085. | A man and his opponent agree to pierce a hole in a tree trunk (stump) with their head (finger, penis) or to knock down a tree with a blow to the head. The man has made a hole in advance (sawed the tree). | 22 | 17 |
| M78a In M78 family | The tail boy | A tiny little man emerges from the severed tail of a goat or sheep. | 13 | 17 |
| M84c In M84 family | Spirit Guest | Sleeping in a deserted place, a person finds himself among spirits. One of them explains that he has a guest, that is the same person. | 14 | 17 |
| N16 | Ice horse | fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator had a horse and/or harness made of wax, ice, linen, vegetables, etc. In most cases, the narrator loses them (they melt, they are taken away, eaten, etc.). | 13 | 17 |
| A26 | The sun bird. | The bird embodies the sun, daylight; it can be caught, released, killed. | 3 | 18 |
| A32j In A32 family | Shaman on the moon. | A shaman with a tambourine ascends to the moon and remains there, visible in the silhouette of the lunar spots. | 5 | 18 |
| a35b1 In a35 family | The moon hinders the thief. | The criminal tries to make the moon dim because its light annoys him or prevents him from committing crimes. | 10 | 18 |
| A37b In A37 family | The archer's severed finger. | A small animal (marmot, rabbit, mole, frog) or a person who turns into such an animal tries to hit a target in the sky (a celestial body or a bird) with arrows and as a result loses their thumbs. | 9 | 18 |
| A6B In A6 family | The dual-sex sun. | In the same ethnic group, the sun is described as both male and female. See motifs A3 – A5. | 26 | 18 |
| B114 | Old men-anteaters. | A woman or a man (usually old people) turn into anteaters (the origin of anteaters). | 10 | 18 |
| B14 | The character creates river rapids. | In order to regulate the flow of the river in a certain way, the character creates rapids and waterfalls. | 16 | 18 |
| B28a In B28 family | Nailed to the ground. | A character pinned to the ground by a rod, transported somewhere to the edge of the world and associated with an object that continues to influence people. | 7 | 18 |
| B28d1 In B28 family | Knives turn into deer antlers. | Not understanding who he is facing, the man promises to kill the Transformer. The Transformer turns his weapon into deer antlers and him into a deer. | 12 | 18 |
| B5a In B5 family | The pair of creators: dialogue. | At the beginning of time, female and male characters meet and engage in dialogue. | 14 | 18 |
| B64a In B64 family | Small bones: the war between fish and birds. | Fish and birds fight (usually by shooting arrows at each other). Since then, fish have had many small bones in their bodies and/or birds' legs have taken on their current form. | 15 | 18 |
| C17 | Fire pit for people. | The men of the community of the first ancestors destroy most of the people and/or themselves on a pyre or in a fire pit. | 11 | 18 |
| C6e In C6 family | Diver – crab, shrimp. | A crustacean retrieves earth from under water or from the underworld. | 14 | 18 |
| E9n In E9 family | The magical wife – an aquatic mammal. | A man marries a female seal, seal or dolphin that has taken the form of a woman and lives with her among people. | 15 | 18 |
| F28b In F28 family | Penis made of wax. | A woman uses a penis made of wax, wood, fruit or root. Usually her husband or male relative smears it with pepper, and the woman is maimed or killed. | 14 | 18 |
| F28c In F28 family | Bear penis in the hands of an old woman. | A woman masturbates with the penis of a large animal that one of the men killed while hunting. | 14 | 18 |
| F28d In F28 family | Children are born from a wooden penis. | By masturbating with an artificial penis, a woman conceives children. | 17 | 18 |
| F54a In F54 family | The invisible scar (the husband turns out to be the son). | In her husband's appearance, the woman discovers signs that are not immediately noticeable, indicating that he has hidden his true nature from her and is not the right marriage partner (he is an animal, or her son, brother or father); or the husband discovers in the same way that his wife is his sister. | 16 | 18 |
| F86a In F86 family | The pet is eaten. | The character cares for a fish, crab or other creature. Others watch the character, kill and eat his pet, or try to do so. | 17 | 18 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.