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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F40c In F40 family | The patriarch kills the boys. | An authoritative man systematically kills the boys born to his wives or his sister. | 16 | 23 |
| F53a In F53 family | The Bat or Owl hides its face. | The husband hides his face from his wife because she does not know that he is a bat or an owl. | 22 | 23 |
| F81 | The bride in the river. | The character does not recognise his reflection in the water, thinks that a person (usually a woman, with whom he immediately falls in love) is looking at him, and jumps into the water. (Cf. J1793, "Diving for a woman's reflection"; among the Kwinolts, diving for a real reflection of a woman; among the Menominee, diving for a woman in the water). | 19 | 23 |
| F83a In F83 family | Insult conveyed through children, ATU 36. | One character asks the children of another to convey an insult to their mother or father – usually announcing his intention to make love to their mother. {ATU data is included in the correlation table, but not in the text}. | 21 | 23 |
| F92 | A pair of pederasts. | A male character allows himself to be used as a sexual object. | 18 | 23 |
| H1d In H1 family | The one who returned to the people was rejected. | The deceased returns, but people send him back, dissatisfied with his appearance, refusing to accept him or burying him again. From then on, death is final. | 21 | 23 |
| H44a In H44 family | Heaven and Earth divide children. | Two characters, one associated with the sky or water, and the other with the earth or the world of spirits and humans, divide the child they have given birth to or the people they have created. Usually, the sky (water, spirit) takes the imperishable part, and the earth (human) takes the perishable part. | 7 | 23 |
| H7c In H7 family | Unfinished prayer, ATU 1199. | Death promises to take a man after he finishes his prayer or song (formerly ATU 1199B). The man breaks off his prayer (song) in the middle, and Death cannot take him. | 33 | 23 |
| I105 | Hand in the sky. | One of the constellations is associated with the hand (with five marked fingers). | 21 | 23 |
| I120a In I120 family | Entering the ear of an animal. | Entering the ear of an animal (usually a horse or a cow) and coming back out, the character becomes beautiful (well-fed, well-dressed). | 11 | 23 |
| I124 | Ursa Major – a boat. | The Big Dipper is considered a boat. | 30 | 23 |
| I39a In I39 family | The souls of the dead walk on the rainbow. | The souls of the dead walk across the rainbow to another world; a rainbow bridge spans the river separating the world of the dead from the world of the living. | 23 | 23 |
| I45c In I45 family | Prohibition on counting stars. | Those who count stars are destined for misfortune and illness. | 19 | 23 |
| I71 | Stars – roots. | Stars – roots of plants growing in the upper world. | 17 | 23 |
| I7c In I7 family | Rain or dew – urine. | When a character in the upper world urinates, it rains (dew falls) on earth. | 20 | 23 |
| I92b In I92 family | Treasures under the rainbow. | Where the ends of the rainbow reach the ground, there is treasure. | 16 | 23 |
| J54b In J54 family | Mother's enemy and brother's ally. | The antagonist's son and the hero are half-brothers or full brothers (uncle and nephew; sworn brothers). When the antagonist tries to destroy the hero, the antagonist's son takes the hero's side. | 26 | 23 |
| J60 | Sons of two fathers. | A woman conceives twins from two different fathers. | 17 | 23 |
| K112 | The worker takes revenge on the Sun. | A man accuses the Sun and other characters responsible for the weather, wild animals, etc. of causing him to lose his property; he punishes his offenders. | 23 | 23 |
| K141 | Tamed mischievous sisters. | Supernatural women harm people. The hero tames them and usually takes them as wives. | 18 | 23 |
| K25a7 In K25 family | Two brothers and a winged maiden. | The older brother hunts, the younger brother takes care of the household. After catching the winged maiden, the older brother takes her as his wife, while the younger brother, out of naivety, returns her wings to her. The older brother sets off in search of his wife. | 15 | 23 |
| k33c7 In k33 family | One fruit and a girl inside it. | A young man obtains a fruit from which a girl emerges (rarely: two girls from two fruits, both remain with the young man). There is no episode of the loss of the girls who were in the other fruits. Cf. motif k33c6. | 19 | 23 |
| K38e4 In K38 family | Palace made of gold and silver bricks, F771.1.1.2. | The narratives (in various contexts) mention a palace (castle, crypt, church, bridge, causeway) built of gold and silver modules – usually bricks, less often planks. | 21 | 23 |
| K45 | Sedna (severed fingers). | A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict. The man sails away from the woman in a boat or on a raft, or leaves her on a sledge. When she tries to grab the edge of the boat (raft, sled), he cuts off her fingers. (The common motif among the Warrau and Eskimos was first noted by O. Zerries [Zerries 1954: 346, 376]). | 13 | 23 |
| K52 | In pursuit of the kidnapped to the bottom of the sea. | A woman or young man who approaches the shore is carried away by predatory sea creatures to the bottom of the sea; a character descends to rescue the kidnapped person and brings him or her back with the help of cunning and shamanic powers. | 17 | 23 |
| k56a4g In k56 family | Ugly girl: growths on the face. | After meeting a supernatural character, growths (tail, horns, warts, etc.) appear on the face (back of the head) of an unkind girl. | 17 | 23 |
| K56a5b In K56 family | Any weather is good. | A person who responds kindly to the questions of characters representing the weather during certain periods of the calendar cycle is rewarded. Another person who scolds these characters is punished. | 15 | 23 |
| K56f1 In K56 family | The division of roosters, (ATU 1533.2). | Five chickens (geese, etc.) must be divided among six eaters (other numbers are possible). The solution is to give each pair of participants one chicken and take two for oneself (two chickens and one person – three, two people and one chicken – also three). | 24 | 23 |
| K68 | A clot of blood protects the father. T541.41.1. | A strong man takes food from a weak man and forces him to work for him (usually a son-in-law mistreats his father-in-law). A boy appears in the house of the wronged man from a clot of animal blood that has been collected. He kills the offender. | 13 | 23 |
| K71 | Coyote betrays and saves his brother. | The coyote's brother successfully defends himself against enemies until the coyote breaks a certain taboo. The enemies kill the brother; the coyote comes to the enemy camp, retrieves his brother's remains and either flees from the enemies or kills them. The brother comes back to life. | 13 | 23 |
| k76c1 In k76 family | A woman gave birth to a pumpkin. | A woman gives birth to a pumpkin, inside which there is a person (many people) or which turns into a person. | 22 | 23 |
| K76e In K76 family | Son (daughter) as a piglet. | The son (daughter) or foster child of a married couple is a pig. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man (she marries a handsome man). | 19 | 23 |
| K80a4 In K80 family | Hair turns into grass, (ATU 780A). | The hair on a character's head turns into grass (thorns, bamboo, bushes). | 20 | 23 |
| L100f In L100 family | Guest fleeing from his host, ATU 1741. | While the host is away, the guest is told that the host is going to kill or maim him, and imaginary evidence is presented. The returning host tries to stop the fleeing guest, who is convinced that he was warned for good reason. | 45 | 23 |
| L111 | Hook from the sky. | The inhabitants of the sky or shamans catch or want to catch earthly people with a hook, net, noose, etc., dragging them up into the sky (somewhere above) like fishermen pull fish out of the water; the inhabitants of the earth fish with hooks for fish, which in their own world are people or domestic animals. | 20 | 23 |
| L37a1 In L37 family | Let the wolf eat the fool, ATU 461A. | A man sets out to discover the reason for his misfortunes. Others also convey their questions to him. God (fate) replies that a predator (wolf, lion, bear) must eat the fool, and in order to help the others, one must dig up treasure, marry the queen, etc. The man refuses to marry, take the gold, etc., because he has not received direct instructions to do so. The predator decides that he will not find anyone more foolish. | 25 | 23 |
| L42g3 In L42 family | Gingerbread house. | In the forest or in the sky, the character sees a house that is made entirely or partially of edible materials. | 19 | 23 |
| L54 | The boiling lake. | To overcome the disaster, hot stones or ashes are thrown into the water. | 16 | 23 |
| L59 | The stingy woman: metamorphosis. | A woman eats the best food or eats fruit before it is ripe; as punishment, she undergoes metamorphosis. | 20 | 23 |
| M101 | Who is afraid of what (the fox and the bear). | The bear tells the fox (rarely the sable or the wolf) that he is not afraid of people (usually saying that he is afraid of flying partridges). After trying to attack people, he is killed or wounded. Cf. motif M101A. | 11 | 23 |
| M130a In M130 family | Bird saves deer, ATU 239. | A trickster lures an animal into a hunter's trap. Another animal advises the victim to pretend to be dead and helps it escape. | 24 | 23 |
| M171c In M171 family | In exchange for a thorn, ATU 2034F. | At the request of a character, another character removes a thorn from his body (cuts off the tip of his tail, etc.). The thorn (tip of the tail) disappears, or when it is removed, the character is wounded. As a result, he receives something more valuable than what he has lost. | 20 | 23 |
| M187b In M187 family | Harvest to the fastest runner. | Two animal characters agree to give the harvest from the field they have cultivated together to the one who runs faster than the other. | 19 | 23 |
| M198a1 In M198 family | Elder: round, middle: hard, younger: nut! | Three characters sequentially and without apparent reason determine the characteristics of an object or person they have not seen. | 28 | 23 |
| M199l In M199 family | Convinces the enemy that he can fly (ATU 1098*). | When the giant blew, sneezed, etc., or let go of the bent tree on which the man was sitting, the man was thrown far away. The man says that he did it of his own free will (to show how he can fly, to repair the roof, etc.). | 18 | 23 |
| M38b2 In M38 family | Three daughters-in-law at the king's feast | Each of the three brothers comes to his father with his wife (fiancée). The younger brother or his fiancée is considered worthless, but the girl turns out to be a sorceress and surpasses the brides of her older brothers in everything. | 16 | 23 |
| M53d In M53 family | Imaginary enemies | The character pretends to be enemies coming; when people run away in fear, the character takes what the deceived people owned. | 19 | 23 |
| M5b In M5 family | An Ungrateful Rat | rat drowns, has difficulty getting to the shore (usually an aquatic animal takes it), and mocks other animals (usually its savior). | 21 | 23 |
| M71 | Selected piece of wood | A character (usually carried away by a river or fallen from a height) turns into a piece of wood. Someone is picking it up. The character then takes on his true form, usually in the absence of the hosts. | 17 | 23 |
| M74ab In M74 family | The fox is in the boat | Travelling in a boat or on a sledge, animal person (always the fox) steals food supplies or ruins objects and accordingly to his deeds, names different places. These names seem strange to the person’s companions (“River of broken arrows” and the like) | 17 | 23 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.