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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G9a In G9 family | The field turns into virgin soil. | The field that was cultivated the day before turns back into virgin soil by morning. | 12 | 18 |
| H49b In H49 family | The debtor gives his dog as collateral, Th B221.2.2; ATU 178B. | A man gives his dog to another man. The dog is of great use to him (it finds stolen goods and drives away thieves). The man who received the dog sends it back with a letter of thanks. The owner thinks that the dog has run away, kills it, and only then finds the letter. | 17 | 18 |
| H6c3 In H6 family | The stork and the otherworld. | Large birds that fly in wedge formations (storks, cranes, swans, geese – German: Zugvögel) are associated with the otherworld (they bring children from there, carry children away to the non-human world, control living and dead water, etc.). | 11 | 18 |
| H9b In H9 family | Children as plant shoots. | People have become like plants, which, although mortal, live on in their descendants (shoots). | 11 | 18 |
| I134 | Long neck on the Milky Way. | Along the axis of the Milky Way, a creature with a long neck (llama, emu, rhea) can be seen. | 9 | 18 |
| I136 | The demonic wheel. | The rolling wheel (and the character riding on it) is a creature or weapon hostile to the hero (people) that he uses. | 13 | 18 |
| I22d In I22 family | Living water behind the tumultuous rocks. | To obtain a miraculous life-giving (healing) remedy, one must penetrate the space behind the shifting rocks. | 13 | 18 |
| I35a In I35 family | Thunder – an old woman. | Thunder is produced by an old woman in the sky. | 14 | 18 |
| I60 | The Milky Way – the heavenly seam. | The Milky Way - a seam, a crack between the two halves of the sky. | 13 | 18 |
| I82f In I82 family | Venus – Wolf Star. | (Evening) Venus is associated with a predatory beast, usually a she-wolf. | 13 | 18 |
| I91 | A body of water at the foot of a tree. | At the foot or around the base of a tree connecting the tiers of the universe or of gigantic size and considered the main tree of the world, there is a spring or water body, the water of which usually has unusual properties. | 17 | 18 |
| I95b In I95 family | Orion – the balance beam. | Orion is a yoke. | 15 | 18 |
| J11 | Asks to pick flowers. | The son in his mother's womb asks her to pick flowers or fruit for him (usually when a woman picks flowers, she is bitten by an insect). See motif J9. | 19 | 18 |
| J12b In J12 family | Honey groom. | A honey groom or a skilled honey gatherer is attractive to a girl. | 7 | 18 |
| K116 | Choosing a companion (ATU 516C). | To choose an assistant, a young man asks the candidates to perform simple tasks (eat bread, set off on a journey). The behaviour of the chosen candidate shows that he will take care of the hero, while the behaviour of the others shows that they will only think of themselves. | 16 | 18 |
| K139 | The burnt pheasant. | A servant is so struck by the beauty of a girl (rarely: a boy) that he lets the meat or bread intended for his master burn. | 17 | 18 |
| K155a In K155 family | Bone in meat. | A man (usually a king) raises his daughter (less often his son) in a closed room, ordering her to be fed boneless meat. One day, a bone is found in the meat, and the girl (boy) uses it to make a hole in the wall and sees the outside world for the first time. | 16 | 18 |
| K25a5 In K25 family | Two brothers and bird maidens. | The older brother is a hunter, the younger brother (rarely a sister) is a housekeeper. Learning that bird maidens come down to the younger brother, the older brother teaches the younger brother what he must do so that the older brother can catch one of them and make her his wife. The wife finds feather clothing and flies away (often the younger brother, out of simplicity, gives it to her), and the husband sets off in search of her. | 12 | 18 |
| K27u1 In K27 family | From conception to birth day. | Some people demand that the child be born the morning after conception or speak immediately after birth. | 16 | 18 |
| K27z9 In K27 family | Why the fish smiled (ATU 875D). | (Dried) fish (water, satyr, etc.) laughs, smiles or spits. The reason is that there is a man dressed as a woman in the house. | 13 | 18 |
| k32g2 In k32 family | The daughter's meat is sent to her mother. | An authoritative character marries, and an evil woman replaces her with her daughter. After the false wife is exposed and executed, the woman receives cooked meat as a gift, not immediately realising that it is her daughter's body parts. | 17 | 18 |
| K54a In K54 family | Blow to the legs. | A man and a friendly giant live together. The friendly giant fights another giant and asks the man for help. The help consists of the man damaging the enemy's legs. | 16 | 18 |
| L100a In L100 family | The pursuer abandons the transformed fugitive. | The fugitive transforms into a small object (stick, stone) or hides in a similar object. The pursuer, in anger, throws the object far ahead, unwittingly helping the fugitive to escape. | 13 | 18 |
| L118a In L118 family | Imitation: knife to the throat. | In order to get rid of a dangerous but foolish character, a person performs certain actions, which the character imitates, not realising that he is harming himself. | 20 | 18 |
| L124 | The demon's treacherous gift. | A person extracts a vein, spinal cord, or intestine from the demon's body, cuts out a strip of skin, or receives a belt as a gift, but does not gird himself or another, instead placing the belt on a tree. The belt cuts or burns the tree. | 13 | 18 |
| L124a In L124 family | Cutting belt. | The belt (wire, intestine, strip of leather, etc.) cuts or burns whatever it is applied to (a tree or a person). | 13 | 18 |
| L128 | You are Lyuta, and I am Pra-Lyuta. | When a demonic character or predator reveals who he is, the hero or herbivorous animal responds by calling himself a name that implies his superiority over his opponent. | 17 | 18 |
| L130 | One eye for three, ATU 328*. | Two or more characters have only one eye between them. | 14 | 18 |
| L1c In L1 family | Fugitives turn into stars. | Those fleeing from the monstrous bear ascend to the sky and turn into stars. | 12 | 18 |
| L1c1 In L1 family | Flight to the heavens. | Fleeing from demonic characters, a group of men – relatives of a girl – ascend to the sky and remain there. See motif L1C. | 15 | 18 |
| L2 | Dried mask. | The mask or costume becomes part of the person wearing it; the character is transformed in accordance with the painting on their body, which reproduces the pattern on the animal's skin. See motif L1A. | 31 | 18 |
| L21 | The ogre runs away to pick up his prey. | A cannibal or demon under a tree intends to grab a person who has climbed a tree; the person throws his prey or some object far away, and while the cannibal is looking for, picking up or eating what has been thrown, he runs away. | 19 | 18 |
| L47 | Backwards – the slain enemy. | The hero's enemy approaches him upside down or backwards, giving the hero the opportunity to kill him or escape. See motif L46. | 21 | 18 |
| L72i In L72 family | Discarded soap. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws soap behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (a slippery mountain, river, etc.). | 15 | 18 |
| L9d In L9 family | Sharp hands. | The character has sharp nails or knife-like hands, which he uses to kill people. | 17 | 18 |
| M108 | The trickster takes away property. | The character is called upon to help perform a task (usually to transport property or provisions across a river) and takes away what has been entrusted to him. | 16 | 18 |
| M108a In M108 family | Trickster-adopted child. | A lonely elderly couple adopts a trickster. He steals from them (and runs away). | 17 | 18 |
| M118b In M118 family | The bull-hiding place. | Climbing inside the animal, the character obtains food there without harming the animal. | 14 | 18 |
| M174 | Eats from behind. | The weaker character manipulates the stronger one so that he loses the ability to move, although he is still alive. The weak one begins to eat the strong one from behind, refusing, under one pretext or another, to approach from the front, or refrains from eating while the victim is still alive. | 14 | 18 |
| M193a In M193 family | Kolobok, ATU 2025. | A woman baked a flatbread (pancake, pie, dough figure). It rolled away (ran away). On its way, it encounters various people and/or animals who want to eat it. It rolls away from each of them, but a fox (rarely another animal) eats it. | 28 | 18 |
| M199j In M199 family | The awl in the giant's shoulder. | A giant puts a man on his shoulders to carry him across a river. Believing that the man is strong, he asks why he is so light. The man replies that if he puts all his weight on the giant, the giant will not be able to carry him. The giant pricks him with an awl (knife, nail) and asks him not to put all his weight on him again. | 13 | 18 |
| M200 | The old donkey carries the young one, ATU 1215. | An old man and a boy set off on a journey, taking a donkey with them. They try all the options: only the old man rides the donkey, only the boy rides the donkey, both ride together, both walk alongside the donkey, they drag the donkey behind them. Each time, people make unflattering comments. | 46 | 18 |
| M26 | Ducks carry the catcher (grabbed by the legs) | The character dives under waterfowl and ties a rope to their legs to catch them. Birds soar into the air, lifting the catcher with them. It later falls. | 16 | 18 |
| M39a5a3 In M39 family | The master's devils were beaten | Realizing that a wife telling the truth will cause trouble for the family, the husband says that the sounds she hears are the screams of her master (official, etc.) who is beaten, dragged to hell, etc. She repeats this to the master (official), who declares her insane. | 17 | 18 |
| M4 | Careless step | When crossing a pond or descending from a tree, the character (usually despite a warning) steps at a specific animal or part of the animal's body . As a result, it falls into the water and often sinks. | 8 | 18 |
| M46c In M46 family | Swallowed needle | The character turns into a needle, a garbage, a small insect. A woman swallows it and becomes pregnant. See M46B motif. | 15 | 18 |
| M57b In M57 family | The sweat of the Sun and the tears of the Moon | Beads or metals are the bodily secretions of a deity. | 17 | 18 |
| M74d In M74 family | Who ate the kidneys? ATU 785 | God (the saint) travels with his companion. When he leaves, he eats the kidneys (heart, etc.) and says that the animal did not have kidneys. He continues to persist (even in the face of death), but confesses when he is promised wealth. | 31 | 18 |
| M75a In M75 family | Revenge for falling from heaven | The character lures a veteran to avenge his fall from the sky. Either the (potauatomi) shovel drops the character or leaves him on top to avenge being lured and caught. | 14 | 18 |
| M7c In M7 family | Fish help: offered and rejected | zoomorphic character is waiting to be transported across the water. Animals or fish consistently offer help. The character only accepts the latter's help - he was waiting for him to eat. | 9 | 18 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.