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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L72c In L72 family | The abandoned mirror. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws a mirror behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (ice, lake, etc.) or attracts his attention and causes him to lose time. (In the Udmurt version, objects destroy obstacles in the character's path). | 46 | 56 |
| L94a In L94 family | Grabbed by the beard. | When a person leans over the water, a demon grabs him by the beard and releases him on the promise that he will fulfil his demand. | 39 | 56 |
| M127 | The tailless fox, ATU 2A. | The character is saved, but is left without a tail (without an ear), after which he tries to make other members of his species (social group) lose their tails (ears) as well. | 53 | 56 |
| M57d1 In M57 family | Donor Bird | bird consistently gives a person magical objects (or gives one, with which he receives the rest) or consistently fulfills his wishes. | 37 | 56 |
| A27 | Crowns of the sun and moon. | The light and/or heat of the sun and/or moon is contained in their crowns, necklaces or clothing (made of feathers or animal teeth). | 48 | 57 |
| B27 | Variants of metamorphosis. | The characters ponder what object or creature they should transform into, and once they have made their choice, they undergo metamorphosis. | 39 | 57 |
| E36 | Hard covering of the body. | The human body was or could have been covered with a protective layer (bone, rarely wool), but it has only been preserved on the nails (head). | 43 | 57 |
| F65b In F65 family | The imaginary dead man: eats alone, K1867. | The character fakes death in order to eat greedily alone. | 34 | 57 |
| H36ff In H36 family | The raven betrays man. | The raven (crow) or other large bird of prey tries to kill people and/or is responsible for the fact that humans (tigres: domestic animals) are mortal or susceptible to disease. | 39 | 57 |
| K15b In K15 family | The replaced barrel of water. | By secretly switching the vessels containing living and dead (giving and taking away strength) water (rarely: oil, etc.), from which the combatants drink during a duel, the hero defeats his opponent. | 37 | 57 |
| K27n3a In K27 family | The task giver – the Sun, Moon, Thunder or Wind. | The character who gives the hero difficult tasks or subjects him to trials is associated with the sun, moon, thunder or wind (cloud, downpour). See motif K27. | 55 | 57 |
| K80c4 In K80 family | Silent witnesses to crime, ATU 960, 960A. | In a deserted place, one person kills another. After some time, he is exposed thanks to facts and circumstances that do not seem important and do not directly tell about the crime (the victim's last words; objects or living beings that were or appeared at the scene of the murder). (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c). | 56 | 57 |
| L120 | Snakes turn into apple trees, ATU 300A. | After overhearing a conversation between demonic characters who are planning to turn themselves into something edible, attractive, and safe, and to destroy anyone who touches them, the hero neutralises the demons. | 37 | 57 |
| L52 | The hero flies away from the top of the tree. | A person escapes from a pursuer by climbing a tree and then flying away from it himself or on the back of a bird, or a bird helps the hero escape in some other way. | 37 | 57 |
| L96a In L96 family | Oh! | A person sighs, after which a character named Oh, Uh, Hey-way, etc. appears. | 31 | 57 |
| M45 | The predator pretends to be dead | When a zoomorphic character falls asleep or pretends to be dead (seriously ill), the animals he usually hunts gather to meet him. He catches or kills them, or they run away at the last minute. | 42 | 57 |
| M74b In M74 family | Who ate the fat? | The character adjusts so that the sign that identifies the thief who ate supplies or who should be eaten is not on him, but on another character (smears with leftovers or with the secretions of your body of another, replaces secretions, etc.). | 53 | 57 |
| A17 | Midday rest of the sun. | Having travelled halfway across the sky or the underworld, the Sun stops to rest. | 53 | 58 |
| B10 | Drunk water, A1013. | The character drinks a lake or all the water in the world, or the only water is in his stomach. They pierce his stomach or remove the plug, forcing him to burp up the water - the water pours out. See motif B7. | 45 | 58 |
| B42b In B42 family | Hunting hoofed animals. | In the cosmic hunting plot, the objects of pursuit are hoofed animals (elk, deer, mountain sheep). See motif B42. | 47 | 58 |
| B51a In B51 family | The snake is the enemy of the swallow. | The snake is the enemy of the swallow (usually because the swallow prevents the snake from destroying people – the snake sends a mosquito or other blood-sucking insect to find out whose blood tastes better; the mosquito returns to report that it is human blood; the swallow bites off its tongue, and the snake plucks the feathers from the swallow's tail). | 49 | 58 |
| F22 | Studying the partner's body. | The character asks a person of the opposite sex about the purpose of the part of the body used for sexual intercourse (usually after asking questions about other parts). Alternatively, the character tries out different parts of the body for sexual intercourse or for placing the genitals. Cf. motif M63. | 49 | 58 |
| J31 | Father's weapon. | Heroes receive weapons or other items that belonged to their deceased father and are necessary for fighting their antagonists. | 47 | 58 |
| K117b In K117 family | Stuck Together, ATU 571, 571B. | The hero causes various people (and animals) to stick to each other (or to objects). | 69 | 58 |
| K127 | Animal brothers, ATU 451. | A girl has many brothers, who are turned into birds or animals (rarely: into plants; killed by witchcraft), then usually disenchanted (brought back to life; usually all of them, in the Georgian version – one). See motif K127A. | 60 | 58 |
| K14a In K14 family | Thrown into the furnace, ATU 910K. | The antagonist orders the killing of the first person to arrive at the agreed place in the morning. The hero is accidentally delayed, and the antagonist himself or his wife or son are killed. | 49 | 58 |
| K161 | The Released Dragon, (ATU 302C*). | A character who has deprived a dragon (demon, thunder) of its freedom orders others not to unlock the dungeon (not to enter a certain room, not to give the chained creature anything to drink, etc.). The prohibition is violated, the chained creature is freed, which leads to disaster. Cf. motif K100f1. | 42 | 58 |
| K1h In K1 family | Walled up in a hollow. | The character finds himself inside a tree trunk or inside a rock; someone frees him by making a hole from the outside. | 36 | 58 |
| k32n In k32 family | The false wife - a supernatural character. | The false wife, who replaces the real one, is a supernatural character - a zoomorphic creature, a deceased woman, a female spirit, etc. See motif K32. | 82 | 58 |
| K56a6 In K56 family | Food asks her to taste it. | On the way to another world, people or objects ask a child (girl) to taste the food they offer or to do some work. The child (girl) does everything (rarely does not do) and therefore achieves the goal. | 41 | 58 |
| K56a9 In K56 family | The mouse helper rings a bell. | When a small animal (usually a mouse) rings a bell, beats a drum, etc., a blind or distant antagonist believes that these sounds are made by the hero (heroine). Thanks to this, the hero (heroine) is saved. | 35 | 58 |
| K56e In K56 family | Two Hunchbacks, ATU 503. | Two people have the same physical defect (a bump, a hump). The first one finds himself in a place where spirits gather, and they rid him of his defect. The second comes to the spirits, and they double his defect, giving him what they took from the first person. (Uther 2004 mentions Kasevich, Osipov 1976, No. 171; the Karen text is published there and does not correspond to the definition of the motif). | 51 | 58 |
| K65b In K65 family | People and spirits. | Spirits (deities) or unpleasant animals (snakes, frogs, worms, etc.) are generated by the same first anthropomorphic pair or the same pair of first ancestors as humans (deities). | 32 | 58 |
| M156a In M156 family | Answering objects. | A dangerous animal is about to kill a human or another animal that helped it. The predator and its prey agree to ask passers-by (people walking or sailing by) which of them is right. Among those who respond are inanimate objects (most often trees). | 45 | 58 |
| M198a In M198 family | The Clever Brothers (The Lost Camel), (ATU 655A). | Brothers (rarely: one person) determine the characteristics of a domestic animal they have not seen, or of the person who stole the animal, based on subtle clues. {In ATU, plots 655 and 655A are combined; in Aarne, Thompson 1961 and in regional indexes, our motif M198A corresponds to plot 655A} (Type 655A only in Aarne, Thompson 1984. In ATU mixed with 655). | 56 | 58 |
| M39c In M39 family | Horse egg, ATU 1319 | A fool is told that a round fruit is a mare's egg (donkeys, elephants, etc.). A fool buys fruit for a lot of money. When he throws it or drops it, a small animal (usually a hare) jumps out of the thickets. A person believes that this is a foal (donkey, etc.) that has hatched. | 64 | 58 |
| B4 | The elongated land. | Islands or mainland pulled out of the ocean, pulled by a rope. | 30 | 59 |
| B54 | Splinters turn into fish. D441.10+. | Wood chips, branches or pieces of bark that have fallen or been thrown into the water turn into fish and aquatic animals. | 46 | 59 |
| F73 | Imaginary wound. | The character mistakes the vulva or anus for a wound. See motifs F73A, F73B. (In the traditions of South and Central America, it is impossible to distinguish local variants from European borrowings). | 59 | 59 |
| F9f1 In F9 family | Snake inside a woman. | Inside the woman there is a snake (snakes, scorpions, just poison) that comes out of her mouth. {Motifs F9f1 and K100C are almost identical, but the first can be included in the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while the second belongs to the adventure category}. | 36 | 59 |
| H43 | One creates the body, and another the soul. | One character creates people's bodies, while another brings them to life. | 32 | 59 |
| K2b In K2 family | Gorynya and Dubyna. | The occupations or names of the hero's companions are unusual and different for each one, but their specific abilities, which can be inferred from these names, are insignificant for the development of the plot. Cf. motif K66, "Heroes with different abilities". | 46 | 59 |
| K38b3 In K38 family | The hero cares for the chicks. | A powerful bird or other flying creature helps a person for taking care of its chicks/offspring: feeding them, sheltering them, decorating them, etc. | 42 | 59 |
| K73a5 In K73 family | The child is replaced by a kitten. | Malicious women replace the newborn with a kitten (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a kitten). See motifs K73, K73A. | 37 | 59 |
| L114b1 In L114 family | Task: bring the cannibal himself, ATU 328. | The character sequentially steals various items from the cannibal's house and finally catches or kills him. | 45 | 59 |
| L19b3 In L19 family | Twelve-headed monster. | A creature with 12 heads is mentioned – either singly or at the end of a series of creatures with fewer heads. | 32 | 59 |
| L27 | The eaten maiden. | Sisters or friends encounter a demon. One or both do not understand the danger. One is eaten or maimed, the other escapes. | 38 | 59 |
| L42g1 In L42 family | A knock is heard, the father has left. | Father (stepfather) takes children into the forest and slips away unnoticed. To make the children think he is nearby chopping wood, father hangs a board, pumpkin, etc. on a tree, which bangs against the trunk in the wind. | 42 | 59 |
| L56 | Fire in the belly of a monster. | A large animal or monster perishes from a fire kindled in its belly. See motif K8A. | 47 | 59 |
| M199d In M199 family | Competition with the devil in wrestling and running, ATU 1071, 1072. | A man and his opponent agree to compete in wrestling and running. The man sends his "relatives" – a bear and a hare – to compete in his place. (ATU numbers 1071 and 1072 are combined, as they are almost always paired.) | 45 | 59 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.