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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M65 | The trickster was pinched and the meat was eaten | trickster bakes meat obtained by trick, deception; immobilized by sticking to a tree, ground, or stone; at this time, another character (fox, wolf, coyote, birds) eats all the meat. See M53 motif. | 29 | 50 |
| B33h In B33 family | Mother of the Sun. | The sun has a mother who lives with him (less often with her) in the same house. Cf. motif K27x6b ("The character goes to the mother of the sun") | 41 | 51 |
| C7 | The Flood: The Destroyed Barrier. | Initially or after the flood, an earthen or stone barrier, the body of a character or creature prevents the flow of water. Later, this barrier is removed or destroyed. | 34 | 51 |
| F17 | Genitals out of place, A1313.3. | Human genitals were initially located, should have been located, or could have been located under certain circumstances not where they are now; either there were no genitals initially, or people did not know their purpose and copulated using other parts of the body. | 39 | 51 |
| F50 | Children born multiple times. | Children have the ability to leave their mother's womb and return to it again. | 33 | 51 |
| G21 | Coconut head. | A coconut palm grows out of the character's head. | 35 | 51 |
| G29 | Demon from artefacts. | The character consists of various artefacts of domestic and industrial use or transforms into them. | 40 | 51 |
| H6b In H6 family | The elixir of immortality is spilled on plants. | The elixir of immortality, intended for humans, is not delivered to its destination, but falls on plants, which become evergreen, capable of regeneration or bearing fruit. (Traditions in which the "elixir of immortality" is linked to the motif of false news are marked with an asterisk. Cf. motif B115). | 33 | 51 |
| H6c1 In H6 family | Values in exchange for a child. | To obtain the desired object, the character grabs the young or the female bird (snake, crab) and promises to release them if the father (mother, male) bird delivers the desired object. | 34 | 51 |
| I80 | The thunderbolt's apprentice. | A character who finds himself in the locus of a deity responsible for atmospheric phenomena violates certain prohibitions or instructions, thereby causing excessively strong thunderstorms, rain, snowfall or wind. | 36 | 51 |
| K27n3b In K27 family | The one who gives tasks dwells in the sky. | The character who gives the hero or heroine difficult tasks or subjects them to trials lives in the sky, but is not associated with the sun, moon, thunder or wind. See motif K27. | 70 | 51 |
| K27o In K27 family | Ball game. | The confrontation between heroes and antagonists unfolds in the form of a ball game. | 47 | 51 |
| K27o3 In K27 family | Competition between two teams. | Two groups of characters compete in overcoming trials or play a game, divided into two teams (at least two episodes with different characters on both sides). The participants are either anthropomorphic but possess different unusual abilities, or they are different animals (natural phenomena, elements, etc.). Cf. motif K27xy (Characters with different properties in opposing camps). | 39 | 51 |
| K38e2 In K38 family | The collapsed kingdom. | Returning from the underworld to earth, the princess places the objects surrounding her (clothes, house, "kingdom") into a small object (egg, ball of yarn, etc.), which she takes with her. | 26 | 51 |
| K85 | Horse brothers. | The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. | 29 | 51 |
| L100e In L100 family | The lover, the master and the guest, ATU 1358A, (ATU 1360B). | Before entering, the guest notices the mistress with her lover in the house. When the husband arrives, the guest pretends to be clairvoyant and shows the husband where the lover is hiding and where the food prepared for him is. | 41 | 51 |
| L34 | Burning hair. | The character kills or maims the enemy by setting fire to their clothes, mask, headdress, hair, or an object behind their back. | 57 | 51 |
| M151 | Hello, house! ATU 66A, 66B | A dangerous character pretends to be dead or absent, or pretends to be an inanimate object. The potential victim says aloud that the deceased (object or place – house, burrow, log, etc.) should do or say something. The character does so, revealing himself. | 31 | 51 |
| M168 | Who is more cowardly than a hare? ATU 70. | Hares are desperate because they are more cowardly than everyone else, but they rejoice when they learn that there are animals (frogs, sheep) that are afraid of them. | 57 | 51 |
| M39a3 In M39 family | Did he have horns? ATU (1381B), 1600 | fool kills a man, throws him into a pond, well, etc. A clever man throws a goat there. A fool searches for a corpse in the pond, asks if the victim had horns, etc. Everyone is obviously crazy, and the murder charge has been denied. {The Buryat and Yakut versions may be recent Russian borrowings. The ATU 1581B definition also includes an episode where a human corpse was replaced with a goat carcass, but most of the texts that have been verified do not contain this motive}. | 48 | 51 |
| M3a In M3 family | Count the inhabitants of the waters | The character invites aquatic creatures to count them, and to do this, form a chain; crosses it to the other side or climbs to land. See M3 motif. | 33 | 51 |
| M61 | Incitement to quarrel (by words), K1084, ATU 1577 | The character provokes a quarrel by telling each of his opponents how one of them allegedly used hostile or offensive language towards the other. | 53 | 51 |
| M75c In M75 family | Treasures on the mountain, ATU 936 | A person is offered to climb a rock or tree to get treasures. A return descent is not possible. Doomed to death, the hero remains alive. | 50 | 51 |
| B5b In B5 family | Universal mother. | A woman (alone or with her companion) creates or gives birth not only to humans, but also to various creatures, objects, and parts of the universe. | 39 | 52 |
| E35 | Webbing between the fingers. | The first humans or creatures created by the Creator's rival were incomplete, not fully anthropomorphic (they resembled larvae, had webbing on their fingers, etc.). | 42 | 52 |
| H7a In H7 family | Death and the healer, ATU 332. | Having received knowledge from Death (rarely: Happiness or a certain spirit) about whether the sick person will be healed or not, whether she is going to take his soul, the person will know whether he will recover. U.nyak praises him for his impartiality; U.t himself; the poor man scolds the doctor, becomes rich. Usually he sees where exactly Death (spirit, etc.) is near the bed, whether it is going to take his soul, whether the person will recover. U. praises him for his impartiality; U. himself; the poor man scolds the sick man, and on this basis knows what will happen to him. | 49 | 52 |
| I36 | Thunder and lightning – relatives or in-laws. | Thunder and lightning (two thunders, two lightnings) – characters related by kinship, marriage or property. | 39 | 52 |
| I46a In I46 family | The Old Woman's Rainbow. | The rainbow is associated with a woman, usually an elderly one. | 38 | 52 |
| I59b1 In I59 family | The Milky Way – the road to a distant city. | The Milky Way – the road to a distant city, usually with religious significance (Rome, Jerusalem, etc.). | 29 | 52 |
| I94 | Pleiades – holes. | The Pleiades are something holey. | 40 | 52 |
| k18aa In k18 family | Pregnancy from touch. | A girl becomes pregnant without her knowledge through contact with the bodily secretions of a male character or with objects that he has touched (i.e. not as a result of sexual intercourse, not as a result of the simple desire of the father of her future child, and not through mystical contact with a deity). The story ends with the happy union of the girl and the father of her child. | 46 | 52 |
| k56a4f In k56 family | The evil girl becomes ugly. | After meeting a supernatural character, the unkind girl becomes ugly. | 40 | 52 |
| K75a2 In K75 family | Gardener. | Appearing incognito to an authoritative figure, the hero works for him as a gardener. | 39 | 52 |
| L15d1 In L15 family | Imaginary container of the soul. | When a character is asked to reveal the location of his soul (death, power), he first gives an incorrect answer, and the questioner usually begins to show signs of attention to the corresponding locus or object. | 43 | 52 |
| M57a1 In M57 family | Where it comes, there's gold | When a beautiful woman walks on the ground, jewels appear under her feet, flowers bloom, etc. | 29 | 52 |
| M93 | Part of the body as a watchman | When falling asleep or going to do something else, the character tells a certain part of his body to wake him up in case of danger. The organ did not give a signal or the character himself did not listen to it, as a result, the misfortune happened. | 36 | 52 |
| N23 | They stayed there and I came back here | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters stayed or left where the action took place, and the narrator returned home and/or came to the place fairy tale performances. | 15 | 52 |
| B33d In B33 family | The Old Woman of Winter. | An elderly woman embodies winter, is associated with snow, and/or at the border between winter and spring (autumn) there are several very cold days associated with a certain old woman. | 35 | 53 |
| B57 | Bloody sunset. | Blood spurting from a killed or wounded person or animal colours the sky (dawn, northern lights) or other natural objects (moon, vegetation) red. | 39 | 53 |
| E38b In E38 family | People from a pumpkin. | After a global catastrophe or at the beginning of time, a pumpkin appears on earth, from which the ancestors of humans emerge. | 22 | 53 |
| G9 | The felled forest is reborn, D1602.1+. | The forest cut down during clearing is reborn by morning. | 28 | 53 |
| I120 | Cornucopia. | Food and clothing can be obtained from the horns of domestic animals (oxen, cows, goats). | 45 | 53 |
| J18 | A woman falls from the sky. | A pregnant woman or a woman with a child falls from the sky. She or her newborn daughter dies or undergoes a metamorphosis. Her son or her daughter's son survives and grows up. Cf. motif K9. | 26 | 53 |
| K103a In K103 family | The tree raises its branches. | A suddenly grown plant (tree, vine, lotus) bends (raises its branches, etc.), allowing only the hero or heroine to climb it or pick its fruits (flowers). | 43 | 53 |
| K125 | One of the subjects is a traitor. | The pursuer asks various objects where the hero is hiding or where he has run. Everyone remains silent, but one of the objects betrays the hero. | 45 | 53 |
| K152 | The devil runs away in terror, ATU 1164. | A man saves a devil who is suffering from the proximity of a certain character or object. To reward his saviour, the devil promises to possess a princess and leave her when the man comes to treat her. The devil either breaks his promise or warns the man not to try to cure those whom the devil will possess later. The man informs the devil that the character or object he fears so much is approaching again. The devil flees and never returns. | 61 | 53 |
| K152a In K152 family | The Devil and His Wife in the Pit, ATU 1164. | A man saves a devil (snake, predator) suffering from the proximity of a certain character or object. To reward his saviour, the devil promises to possess a princess and leave her when the man comes to treat her. The devil either breaks his promise or warns the man not to try to cure those whom the devil will later possess. The man informs the devil that the character or object he fears so much is approaching again. The devil flees and never returns. | 53 | 53 |
| K4 | Nest destroyer. | The character climbs a tree or rock to get a bird, bird eggs, or chicks, climbs into a bird's nest, comes into conflict with another character, and/or cannot climb down. See motifs K1, K2A. Traditions in which the nest destroyer is a woman are highlighted in italics; bold italics indicate those in which the character falls into the trap not through the fault of another person, but by accident, or, having climbed up to destroy the nest, does not fall into the trap at all, although he quarrels with his companion; an asterisk* marks those in which the character remains in the trap (undergoes a metamorphosis). | 96 | 53 |
| K78 | Swallowed, extracted from the little finger. | The cannibal swallows people. When he is killed, it turns out that they are not in his belly or that they are dead there. They are found alive not in the belly, but in the cannibal's finger, or there is a means of reviving them in the little finger, or the cannibal's finger must be cut or severed to find the people. | 37 | 53 |
| L107 | Ears-blankets. | People have disproportionately large ears (rarely: lips): they cover themselves with them like a blanket, use them as an umbrella, can step on them, etc. | 33 | 53 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.