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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

Showing 2,101–2,150 of 3,494 · Page 43 of 70

Ref	Title	Summary	Traditions	Narratives ▲
D8	Predator and fire.	The first fire (or summer) is stolen from a large predator – a lion or leopard in Africa, a tiger in Asia, a bear in northern Asia and North America, and a jaguar in South America.	28	33
e8c In e8 family	Woman hides in a splinter.	A woman hides inside a splinter or branch brought into the house and comes out when no one is around.	27	33
F14	Son of a man and a stone.	The hero is born as a result of the union of a man with a stone or rock.	13	33
F34a In F34 family	The common husband of the first women.	All women of the community of the first ancestors or all Amazons have a common lover of non-human nature or simultaneously mate with animals of a certain species, summoning them with a conventional signal.	18	33
F80a In F80 family	Removable genitals.	Genitals exist independently of people; they can be left behind, attached to the body, etc.	33	33
F90	Tragic incest.	A brother and sister marry. When the children born of this union learn of their origins, the marriage breaks down (the children kill their parents, the father kills or attempts to kill the children, the parents commit suicide, the wife/sister commits suicide after the death of her husband/brother, the wife/sister leaves her husband/brother).	24	33
H7b1 In H7 family	Get into the bag.	Having received a magic bag, into which any creature can be forced against its will at the owner's discretion, a person gains power over Death or devils.	26	33
I100a In I100 family	Pleiades – family.	The Pleiades – a woman or man with children, members of the same family.	25	33
I24	Snake bridge.	A snake (or fish) forms a bridge across a river.	32	33
I25C In I25 family	Calling blood wine.	On the way to their goal, the character expresses imaginary pleasure when encountering repulsive and dangerous objects and creatures, thereby ensuring their loyalty (on the way back).	24	33
J25a In J25 family	Son of the grave.	The mother dies or is killed. The child in her womb or the newborn baby is buried with her. He comes out of the grave, meets people, returns to the grave, or is found in the entrails of his dead mother. In the end, the child stays with the people. See motif J25.	26	33
J51a In J51 family	Ladder made of bones.	To climb a rock or tower, one must stick bones into it and climb them like a ladder.	13	33
K11a1 In K11 family	Birds arise from a monster bird.	Pieces of flesh or feathers from a monstrous/unusual bird turn into present-day birds (or their plumage).	26	33
K12b In K12 family	The sorceress's husband breaks the ban, ATU 400(1).	The hero enters a world beyond the human world and marries there. His wife allows him to visit his former world, but on certain conditions. The hero breaks these conditions, which leads to (irreparable) misfortune. Cf. motif F94 (the hero betrays his fairy wife in her world); K25a6 (the hero visits his world together with his fairy wife).	28	33
K134	Found treasures.	A guest is planted with treasure in order to accuse him of theft.	26	33
K165	Seeking to experience fear, ATU 326.	The young man has never experienced fear and wants to know what it is like. Robbers and evil spirits do not frighten him.	39	33
K27r1 In K27 family	The supposed burnt.	The antagonist believes that the hero was burned, but returned safely from the afterlife, so he orders himself or his representative to be burned.	30	33
K29d In K29 family	Drunken elephants.	To catch an animal or supernatural character, the water in a reservoir is replaced with wine, honey, etc., or containers with alcohol are left in plain sight. The creature, having lost control of itself, is captured.	23	33
K32h In K32 family	Buried alive.	The antagonist is executed by being buried alive.	23	33
K67e In K67 family	Before the First Cuckoo, ATU 1029.	Someone promises to fulfil their duties until they hear a bird singing at a certain moment in a temporal cycle (annual or daily). Another character imitates the bird. The first recognises the deception.	50	33
K73a7 In K73 family	Miraculous children: a sister with two brothers.	A woman gives birth to three (not two or many) miraculous children – two boys and a girl. They grow up and triumph over their enemies.	26	33
K75a3 In K75 family	Groom.	Appearing incognito to an authoritative character, the hero works for him as a groom.	27	33
K80c2 In K80 family	Those who find treasure kill each other, ATU 763.	Two (or more) people find (steal) valuables. Unwilling to share, one kills the other, but dies himself, poisoned by the poison that the victim manages to slip into his food.	53	33
L37c In L37 family	Two Shares, ATU 735.	A person encounters the incarnations of Fortune (and Misfortune) – his own or someone else's. He manages to influence their behaviour and change (for himself) the course of events for the better.	39	33
L81a In L81 family	The cat extinguishes the fire.	A girl offends a cat (rarely: a dog, a rooster) and the cat takes revenge by causing misfortune to befall the girl (usually by extinguishing the fire, after which the girl falls into the hands of a demon).	22	33
M101b In M101 family	Man past, future, present, ATU 157.	A large predator wants to see a human being. First, it meets a child and learns that this is a future human being, then an old man – a former human being. The encounter with a present human being (a hunter, a soldier) ends badly for the beast.	37	33
M123	The raven marries the goose.	A bird of prey or scavenger (raven, owl, hawk, coyote) marries (or attempts to marry) a partner who (or whose brothers) are geese or other waterfowl. The marriage is disrupted or proves unsuccessful.	24	33
M130c In M130 family	The Lion and the Mouse, ATU 75.	When a lion (tiger, bear, elephant, human) is trapped, a mouse or rat frees it (usually by gnawing through the ropes).	50	33
M136b In M136 family	Cuts the branch he is sitting on, ATU 1240.	A man cuts the branch he is sitting on and similar variants (cuts the rope he climbed up on; climbs onto a dry branch that breaks; climbs onto a tree that has been cut down in order to fell it).	33	33
M30d In M30 family	Holds to a stick carried by birds, ATU 225A	To get into the air, a character without wings (usually a turtle or a frog) grabs a stick with the ends held in their beaks by two birds.	27	33
M39e In M39 family	Under which tree? ATU 1543D*	When reviewing the dispute, the judge asks about the secondary circumstances of the case. The offender is exposed by showing that he knows (or, on the contrary, does not know) about them.	30	33
M56b In M56 family	Bring tears and skins	A weak character is tasked with bringing the skin (paw, tears, etc.) of animals that are stronger than him or are difficult to catch. He cunningly performs the task. Usually a rabbit or hare completes the task, but does not receive the reward he expected. {In the New World, the motive is from African Americans}.	30	33
M65b In M65 family	Lost loot	Having resorted to deception, the character kills the game, but the thieves take the loot. See M53 motif.	30	33
N36	Above the forest, below the clouds	is said about the horse that it jumps above trees (grass, the surface of the earth) and below the sky (clouds, clouds).	13	33
A12b In A12 family	The frog swallows the sun.	During an eclipse or at sunset (marked *), the luminaries are swallowed by a toad or frog.	23	34
A29	The sun and the demon compete for the hero.	A character associated with the upper world and a character associated with the earth or the lower world each strive to possess a human being and pull him towards themselves. One or both rivals are women. The character of the upper world and/or the one for whom the struggle is being waged is associated with the luminaries – the sun, the moon, Venus.	18	34
A32c1 In A32 family	Predatory beast on the moon.	The figure or imprint of a predatory mammal (fox, wolf, dog, coyote, jaguar, lion) is visible on the lunar disc. Either this animal is associated with the moon, belongs to it. See motif A34.	33	34
A46	The sun and moon arise from the eyes of a creature.	The sun and moon (Rigveda: only the sun) emerge from the eyes of an anthropomorphic creature.	21	34
B52	Before the flood, there were no mountains.	The floodwaters formed a rugged landscape.	29	34
C6c1 In C6 family	Birds: successful and unsuccessful divers.	Two or more different birds (in Siberia, often a loon and a duck) successively try to retrieve something from the bottom. Only one succeeds.	19	34
E15	Ducks and boats.	People learn how to build boats and row from birds; a bird or part of its body serves as a model for building a boat.	21	34
E9e In E9 family	A puppy received as a reward.	An animal or object received by a young man from supernatural beings as a reward for his kindness, upon the young man's return home (to earth), turns into a girl.	24	34
E9g In E9 family	The magical wife - the vulture.	Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a vulture.	20	34
F4	Child in a vessel, T561.	In the days of the first ancestors, children were conceived not through sexual intercourse, but in vessels, piles of earth, lumps of clay, etc.	23	34
F83	News precedes the hero.	The character does something forbidden and indecent in a place hidden from prying eyes, and then asks people what's new. They reply that there is no news – except that so-and-so (the character) did such-and-such.	28	34
F9c In F9 family	Snake in the vagina.	Snake (in Oceania – moray eel) in the vagina; vagina – snake's mouth; snake crawls out of a woman's mouth and bites off a man's penis during intercourse; woman with a toothy womb is associated with a snake.	30	34
G3	Rock of plenty.	Cultivated plants or fertile soil for their cultivation are hidden inside the rock. Birds or thunder gods pierce a hole in the rock.	16	34
I127	Ursa Major – bed.	Ursa Major – bed, couch.	23	34
I2	Lightning from the eyes or mouth.	Lightning bolts fly from the eyes or mouth {specified} of a creature embodying a thunderstorm. See motif I1.	37	34
I4b In I4 family	Thunder in trouble: fighting the enemy.	A person helps thunder defeat the enemy.	25	34

Showing 2,101–2,150 of 3,494 · Page 43 of 70

Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.