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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M136c In M136 family | The fool takes the prediction of death seriously, ATU 1313A. | Based on indirect signs or someone's words, the fool believes that he has died and lies motionless. | 55 | 35 |
| M197a In M197 family | The big cauldron gave birth to a small one, ATU 1592B. | A man took a cauldron (pot) and returned it with a small cauldron. The owner of the cauldron agreed that the big cauldron gave birth to a small one. The next time, the man did not return the cauldron: he died. The owner had to agree. | 46 | 35 |
| M29v In M29 family | The dwarf deer is a cunning winner | The character defeats or deceives strong opponents using cunning. The protagonists are dwarf ungulates, usually duker or deer - taxonomically distant from each other, but similar in appearance. In some publications on African traditions, it is difficult to determine which animal we are talking about, but it is certain that these are small cloven-hoofed animals, usually (always?) dukers. See the motives in square brackets. | 35 | 35 |
| M29z1 In M29 family | Anthropomorphic trickster (miscellaneous). | purely anthropomorphic character, or a character who bears the name of an animal or plant but does not act zoomorphic in the course of his adventures. See the motives in square brackets. {Data not fully entered} | 32 | 35 |
| M32 | Indigestion | The character swallows food or water, or his own entrails, pieces of flesh flow out and fall out of his ass. | 28 | 35 |
| N4 | Fused ribs | Fused ribs are a sign of heroic strength. {The motive was highlighted and the material was collected by Kostyantin Rahno}. | 23 | 35 |
| A19c1 In A19 family | The Sun Chariot. | The sun or moon travels across the sky in a chariot or sleigh. | 23 | 36 |
| D4c In D4 family | Obtaining summer. | Characters obtain the warm season from its original owners. | 24 | 36 |
| E30 | Wooden substitute spouse. | A man has no wife or a woman has no husband, and uses a wooden substitute as a spouse. | 25 | 36 |
| F76 | Animals teach love. | People learn how to make love by watching birds, fish or animals mating; animals teach people how to make love or arouse desire in them. | 26 | 36 |
| F82 | Incest with mother-in-law, T417. | The son-in-law resorts to trickery to sleep with his mother-in-law, or the mother-in-law with her son-in-law. Usually, the son-in-law insists that his mother-in-law, rather than his wife, accompany him on a hunt. | 35 | 36 |
| G8d In G8 family | The fall or growth of a tree threatens the world. | A tree (pillar, mountain) is cut down (gnawed, ground down) or prevented from being cut down in order to save the world (or the gods, the king, etc.) from danger. | 28 | 36 |
| H18b In H18 family | Cattle return to the water. | Having received livestock from supernatural characters, a person (usually due to violating a prohibition on looking, shouting, etc.) immediately loses all or most of the animals (they go into the water, into the sky, scatter, etc.). | 23 | 36 |
| H4a In H4 family | Interrupted renewal. | People no longer rejuvenate (usually, they do not change their skin), because they were disturbed at the moment of renewal or were not recognised as the same person after renewal. See motif H4. | 32 | 36 |
| I128 | Ursa Major – a ladle. | The Big Dipper – a ladle, a scoop. | 25 | 36 |
| I48a In I48 family | Those who fell through the earth. | The hero's adversary descends into the underworld. | 36 | 36 |
| J19 | The sinister guest: the death of a woman. | While her husband or brother is hunting, an evil spirit comes to his wife or sister; he kills her or takes her away. Her sons, who were torn from her womb or born at that time, are saved. | 26 | 36 |
| K100f2 In K100 family | The thirst-quenched breaks his chains. | A captured supernatural character breaks his chains and escapes to freedom after being given water (or wine, etc.) to drink. | 30 | 36 |
| K102a3 In K102 family | Dead tooth. | Someone (usually a woman) places a poisonous tooth (bone, nail, etc.) in the hero's bed. The young man dies, but is then revived. | 22 | 36 |
| K107d1 In K107 family | The magical wife cannot wake the young man. | Waiting for his magical wife, the young man falls asleep. The wife cannot wake him up and leaves (this episode is often repeated). | 26 | 36 |
| K173 | It is better to suffer when young (Placidas), ATU 938. | A powerful and wealthy man loses everything, is separated from his wife and children, and they are separated from each other. The man regains his power and wealth, and the family is reunited. | 54 | 36 |
| K1i In K1 family | Tree for descending from a cliff. | Near the cliff, at the bottom of the pit, or in the underworld, a tree, reed, or vine grows, which the character uses to descend or climb to the ground. | 19 | 36 |
| K27o1 In K27 family | Ball – human head. | Severed human heads are compared to balls. Either a character plays with a severed human head or skull as a ball. | 25 | 36 |
| K33d1 In K33 family | Hidden in a lantern, ATU 510B*. | The young man does not know that a beautiful girl is hiding inside the object brought to his house. | 25 | 36 |
| K53 | Animal skins – a means of transformation. | A character temporarily transforms into an animal or bird of a certain species by putting on its skin, or skins taken along with them come to life and serve the hero. | 24 | 36 |
| K58 | Canal builder. | To win the hand of his beloved, the character builds a canal or aqueduct or digs a well. Usually, the woman does not end up marrying the person who completed the work, and either she herself or the suitor perishes. | 14 | 36 |
| K61d In K61 family | From work became a beetle, ATU 501. | A young woman accidentally gives her fiancé, husband or mother-in-law the impression that she works a lot. To prevent the deception from being revealed, she or someone else makes others believe that women's work makes them ugly or turns them into animals. The husband forbids his wife to work. | 41 | 36 |
| K8c1 In K8 family | Swallowed by a herbivore, then by a wolf. | A tiny man is first accidentally swallowed by a large herbivore, then carried off by a wolf that began to eat the carcass of this animal. | 28 | 36 |
| L1b1 In L1 family | The female demon and her brothers. | A woman comes into conflict with her brothers and turns into a dangerous demon. | 33 | 36 |
| L65b2 In L65 family | Dogs with talking names. | The hero's dogs have names that speak of their strength and agility (Wind, Ironbreaker, etc.). | 21 | 36 |
| M118a In M118 family | Forty Robbers and Jugs of Oil, ATU 954(2). | The chieftain (demon) brings robbers (other demons) to the courtyard of someone else's house, hiding them in empty jugs, barrels, etc. At night, they are supposed to attack the owners. A girl or young woman (less often, the owner of the house) learns of the danger and destroys the robbers (usually by pouring boiling water into each jug or barrel). | 64 | 36 |
| M154a In M154 family | The ox, the donkey and work, ATU 207A. | One of the domestic animals (usually a donkey) persuades another to pretend to be sick. After that, the advisor has to work for both of them. Then he tells the pretend sick animal that the owner is going to slaughter him, and the animal rushes to work. | 42 | 36 |
| M178 | The Lying Goat, ATU 212. | The owner successively sends others to graze the goat (herd of goats). The goat eats grass to its heart's content, but each time replies to the owner that it has been kept on a starvation diet. The owner is outraged and kills or drives away the shepherds. Convinced of the goat's deceitfulness, he decides to kill it. Either the owner begins to skin the live goat, or the goat runs away. In most versions, both motifs are combined. | 39 | 36 |
| M17b In M17 family | Wife deceives blind man. | The wife directs the blind man's arrow at game, lies that he has missed, and eats the meat herself. | 29 | 36 |
| M195 | Two horses: which one is older? | The character must guess which of the two horses or cows is older. He does this by knowing the behavioural characteristics of these animals. | 25 | 36 |
| M199b In M199 family | He did not throw a stone, but released a bird, ATU 1062. | A man and his opponent agree to test their strength by throwing a stone. The opponent throws the stone, and the man releases a bird he had hidden beforehand. The bird does not return, and the opponent admits defeat. | 47 | 36 |
| M38a1 In M38 family | Imitates relatives or wives, ATU 552B, J2411.3. | The character imitates the sisters' sons-in-law or husbands, or the wife's brothers (shoshone's) or wives (comox and chalkomel). {ATU combines a motive with another}. | 26 | 36 |
| M39e1 In M39 family | Iron eaten and boy kidnapped, ATU 1592, 1592A | A person appropriates property. The owner or his assistant puts the kidnapper in such a position that he is forced to return everything (usually the victim kidnaps the child of the deceiver). {Apparently, all references in Ting 1978 do not refer to Chinese, but to Tibetans; Uther 2004 refers to the Dagestan text in Levin 1978, No. 52, but it is not clear which group we are talking about; there is also a deaf reference to the “Code of Japanese fairy tales - Tsukan”, it needs to be checked}. | 44 | 36 |
| A16 | Dangers on the path of the sun. | Every night, the sun passes by creatures or objects that try to swallow or destroy it. | 33 | 37 |
| B11 | The appearance of rivers. | A river (rarely: a chain of lakes, a narrow strait) or its current course is created by humans or animals. See motifs B12, B13. This section covers other variants of the motif. | 38 | 37 |
| B42k In B42 family | Cosmic hunting – Pleiades. | In stories about cosmic hunting, the object of pursuit or the hunters are identified with the Pleiades. See motif B42. | 36 | 37 |
| B64 | Bony fish. | Bones in the bodies of fish are the result of fights, battles, military expeditions; they are arrows stuck in them (gill openings – from stuck arrows), or small bones – fragments of the original large bones. | 27 | 37 |
| F56 | Temptation and incest. | Upon seeing the vagina of his mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, niece, or mother-in-law, a man or boy thinks about incest or commits it. | 29 | 37 |
| G8c In G8 family | They cut down a tree to get valuables. | The first ancestors try to cut down a tree (less often a high rock) to get useful plants hanging on the branches (at the top) or water or fish in the trunk. The damage disappears as soon as the workers are distracted from their work, or periodically. | 22 | 37 |
| I29 | To the underworld through an animal's burrow. | A character climbs into an animal's burrow and finds himself in the underworld, or digs a deep hole and finds himself in a world inhabited by burrowing animals. | 33 | 37 |
| I35a1 In I35 family | Challenging the thunderer. | The character claims the role of the thunder god and imitates him. | 21 | 37 |
| K126 | The wolf pays for the horse it ate. | A predatory beast or demon eats the hero's horse, but in return is forced or voluntarily helps him. | 31 | 37 |
| K168 | Imaginary life in an instant, ATU 664*, 681. | A person experiences an eventful long period of life. Everything turns out to be an illusion, and he finds himself back in the same place and at the same moment in time from which the story began. | 30 | 37 |
| K24b In K24 family | Dancing in magical clothes. | A magical wife deceives her naive mother-in-law into giving her wonderful clothes or some other item that enables her to leave the human world. | 31 | 37 |
| K3 | A tree or rock grows. | The hero climbs a tree or rock to get bird eggs, chicks, fruit, honey, etc. He cannot climb down because another character makes the tree (rock) very tall or makes the tree trunk thick. See motif K1A. | 67 | 37 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.