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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| J61 | Descends on a feather. | The character has the ability to move or hover in the air like a feather or a fluff. | 26 | 29 |
| K127a In K127 family | The silent heroine. | The heroine must remain silent for a long time and therefore cannot respond to the accusations. They want to execute her, but at that moment the restrictions expire and she is saved. | 19 | 29 |
| K27g5 In K27 family | Wooden axe. | A person tries or must try to chop or dig with a wooden (lead, felt) tool instead of a steel one. Cf. motif L84. | 18 | 29 |
| K27yy1 In K27 family | Obtain the feather of a dangerous bird. | The hero brings the feather (feathers) of a dangerous bird. | 30 | 29 |
| L44a In L44 family | Give me your liver! | The demon demands that the man hiding in the shelter give him parts of his body. The man gives the demon parts of the body of a dead animal. The demon does not understand the deception and dies, giving parts of his own body in return. | 17 | 29 |
| L72e In L72 family | The pursuer returns for the axe. | In order to overcome the obstacles created by the fleeing hero, the pursuer is forced to return home for the necessary tools. | 17 | 29 |
| M127b In M127 family | Jug on a tail, ATU 68A. | A character attaches a vessel or part of a vessel to their body, lowers it into the water, and the vessel pulls them along. | 26 | 29 |
| M158a In M158 family | Harvest sharing, ATU 9. | Two animal characters work together on a plot of land. During field work, one of them is lazy (imposing his imaginary services on the other) and then demands (most of) the harvest for himself. | 27 | 29 |
| M204 | Money will go to those who are destined to receive it, ATU 841, 947A. | When a deity (an authoritative figure) tries to convey values to a person, they either get them or they don't, despite the unlikely circumstances (such is their fate, such is the will of God). | 52 | 29 |
| M39a6c In M39 family | The Tsar Craftsman | The poor girl agrees to marry the prince only if he learns a craft. The prince fulfills the condition, then falls into the hands of enemies. He promises to make them an expensive item, let them sell it. His wife or (father, vizier) learns the job, the prisoner is released, the attackers are executed. | 26 | 29 |
| M39aa In M39 family | Misunderstood instructions: a play on words | 26 | 29 | |
| M57d3 In M57 family | Wind donor | A person receives a reward from a character who is associated with the wind. Cf. Motive K175 (“The wind carried away the flour”). | 25 | 29 |
| N27c In N27 family | The bird does not have milk | It is claimed that the bird has no milk and/or breasts | 17 | 29 |
| A34 | The fox and the moon. | The jackal, coyote or fox are associated with the moon (usually with the appearance of lunar spots). | 22 | 30 |
| A43 | One foot is shod, the other is not. | The character runs away in a hurry and undergoes a metamorphosis, turning into a bird or rising into the sky. He is missing one trouser leg, or a shoe on one foot, or one mitten. | 17 | 30 |
| B33d1 In B33 family | Days of the week – (demonic) characters. | In narrative folklore, the days of the week (most often Friday and Wednesday) are special (female) characters with a more or less pronounced demonic nature. | 14 | 30 |
| B38b In B38 family | Two animals adorn each other. | Two quadrupeds (or a quadruped and another creature) adorn each other themselves or are adorned by someone else. | 21 | 30 |
| B44f1 In B44 family | The bear wants night. | In the dispute over whether the world should be light (warm), the bear is on the side of darkness (and cold); or the world is plunged into darkness because the bear hides the sun in his house. | 22 | 30 |
| B62 | Man and vulture. | Man believes that vultures live better than humans, changes his appearance to that of a vulture. The former vulture lives with the man's wife, and the man usually does not like his new life. | 20 | 30 |
| B8 | The frog hides the water. | The frog hides the water (usually drinks up a lake or river). Thanks to another character, the water returns to the body of water(s). (Among the Khan, Upper Tanana, and Varikho, the motif is not cosmogonic). | 15 | 30 |
| B85 | Calming the Wind. | The wind blows too strongly, it is forced to calm down. | 28 | 30 |
| C30a In C30 family | A pound of flesh, ATU 890. | A man borrows money on the condition that if he fails to repay it by a certain date, he will have to give the lender a certain amount of his own flesh. The lender cannot cut off the flesh, because he is unable to fulfil the formally logical but essentially absurd demand made of him. | 46 | 30 |
| E12 | The living drawing. | A character draws an object or creature on sand, ash, a wall or the surface of water, and it comes to life. | 25 | 30 |
| F45b In F45 family | Conception by the sun. | A woman gives birth to a son conceived by (the rays or light of) the sun. | 27 | 30 |
| F46 | One for all. | At the beginning of time, two or more men (human-animals) had only one woman. | 23 | 30 |
| F74 | The naked man pretends to be dead. | Upon seeing a dangerous character, a man or woman undresses and pretends to be dead (or the character undresses the woman). Examining and sniffing the supposed corpse, the character finds what he takes to be a wound or signs of decay and leaves. | 32 | 30 |
| H34b In H34 family | The river flows in both directions. | Somewhere there is or was a river that flowed or, according to the plan, was supposed to flow in two directions at once. | 25 | 30 |
| H6bb In H6 family | Lost objects. | A character is sent to deliver a certain object or substance to people, the possession of which is essential to them. The messenger loses these objects or brings others. Usually, this refers to the ability to be reborn after death. Traditions not related to the explanation of human mortality are marked with an asterisk*. | 23 | 30 |
| I131 | The thread of life. | Every person's life corresponds to a thread; when the thread breaks, the person dies. | 23 | 30 |
| I66 | Ashes on the Milky Way. | The Milky Way is ash or smouldering embers. | 20 | 30 |
| J32a1 In J32 family | Nocturnal pests – horses. | But at night someone tramples the field, steals hay, etc. The hero learns that it is horses doing this. | 24 | 30 |
| K142 | Burying one dead man three times, ATU 1536B. | After killing several people, a man asks a gravedigger to bury the dead and each time says that the dead man has returned. The gravedigger buries everyone, but believes that there is only one dead man. | 50 | 30 |
| K144 | Predicted death by an animal, ATU 934A, 934B. | When the animal, object, or person that was supposed to cause the character's death has already died or is far away, the character's remains or images become the cause of death. | 26 | 30 |
| K150 | The horse eats coals. | A magical horse (rarely: dog) eats (hot) coals, nails, etc., or attempts are made to feed these to the horse. | 18 | 30 |
| K155b In K155 family | A girl's hair serves as a rope to climb up (ATU 310). | A girl lets down her hair, which another character uses to climb up to her. | 24 | 30 |
| K25a4 In K25 family | Escape from the siren, ATU 316. | A man (rarely a woman) finds himself in the power of an aquatic-chthonic creature (usually a siren, fish, sea monster, sometimes a sorcerer). The captive is lifted above the water (above the ground; usually after the antagonist lifts him) several times. After that, the captive escapes (most often by flying away as a bird). | 26 | 30 |
| K27m In K27 family | Obtain an animal of unusual colour. | Task: to kill and bring an animal of a certain (often unusual) colour or shape. See motif K27. | 36 | 30 |
| K33a7 In K33 family | The widower, his daughter (son) and the teacher. | After the death of a woman, her daughter or son advises her father to marry a neighbour, teacher, etc., who usually persuades the teenager to give such advice. After marrying the widower, the new wife begins to tyrannise her stepdaughter or stepson. | 24 | 30 |
| K33h1 In K33 family | Replace the old ring with a new one. | The hero's wife (mother, servant) is unaware of the magical properties of an object kept in the house and exchanges it for something more attractive, but in reality incomparable in value. | 35 | 30 |
| K38f6 In K38 family | Fire creature. | A creature consisting of fire is mentioned. | 26 | 30 |
| K6 | Rope made from bodily secretions. | A vine or rope emerges from tears, snot, urine, saliva, and chewed substance. See motif K1A. | 21 | 30 |
| K62a1 In K62 family | A man nurses a wounded eagle. | A man saves (spares) and nurses a wounded bird. Having regained its strength, the bird puts him on its back and carries him to a distant land or to the sky. | 30 | 30 |
| K82a In K82 family | Pregnancy from snake eggs. | A malevolent woman forces a woman to swallow a snake egg (snake, something else) so that a man will think that the woman is pregnant out of wedlock (rarely: so that snakes will suck the juices out of her). Cf. motif L89. | 22 | 30 |
| L39d In L39 family | Give an apple to someone. | A boy climbs a tree to pick fruit. A demonic character asks him to share, but not to throw the fruit on the ground, but to pass it from hand to hand. He grabs the boy and carries him away. | 22 | 30 |
| L90E In L90 family | Heads on stakes. | Human heads are impaled on stakes outside the house of a dangerous character, and one head is missing (or there is a wall of heads, with one missing). It is assumed that the head of the hero of the story should be there. | 26 | 30 |
| M114d In M114 family | Boiled eggs: eaten a year ago, ATU 821B. | A man eats boiled eggs and leaves without paying. Much later, he returns to repay his debt. The owner demands payment for the chickens that would have hatched from those eggs, become hens, laid eggs themselves, and so on. Someone comes to court and pretends to be boiling seeds for sowing. The judge agrees that chickens cannot hatch from boiled eggs. | 45 | 30 |
| M164 | Traces in one direction, ATU 50A. | The character refuses to enter the predator's lair when he sees that all the tracks lead inside, but not outside. | 35 | 30 |
| M172 | The Hare Riding the Lion, ATU 72. | To show that a strong character is his slave, a riding animal, the weak one adjusts so that the strong one takes him along. Those around them are convinced of the truthfulness of the weak one. | 17 | 30 |
| M182b In M182 family | Animals in a sleigh, ATU 158. | Animals ask to be taken for a ride in a sleigh. The sleigh breaks down, and the animals bring unsuitable materials from the forest to repair it. While the owner of the sleigh goes into the forest to look for a replacement for the broken shaft (or leaves to chop wood), the animals eat the horse (bull) and leave a stuffed animal in its place. | 22 | 30 |
| M199i In M199 family | Whoever whistles louder, ATU 1084. | A man and a giant (devil, bear, etc.) compete to see who can make the loudest sound (whistle, shout, sneeze, etc.). The man blindfolds his opponent and hits him with a heavy object; blows a trumpet; wraps his head so that it does not burst; etc. The opponent admits defeat or refuses to compete. | 34 | 30 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.