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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H26 | Mosquitoes had to be drowned. | A vessel containing stinging insects or reptiles should be thrown into a river or the sea, or buried in a remote place. See motif H24B. | 33 | 63 |
| I56 | Spirits cannot see the living. | Moving between worlds, the same living person is visible to some and invisible to others. | 42 | 63 |
| I87a In I87 family | One creature is larger than another. | A character of gigantic size turns out to be small in comparison with a character of even greater size, or the same character turns out to be small in some episodes and gigantic in others. | 43 | 63 |
| K65e In K65 family | Midwife in the demonic world, ATU 476**, (ATU 156B*). | A woman is invited into the non-human world, where she delivers a child for one of the creatures (or serves as a nanny for a certain period of time, baptises the child). Then she returns to the human world. | 40 | 63 |
| L105 | The invisible hook, B5482.3. | A wounded animal, fish or anthropomorphic character runs or swims away – usually with a hook, harpoon, arrow or other hunting or fishing implement stuck in its body; local healers cannot cure the wounded creature (usually because they cannot see the object that caused the wound); a person comes to the wounded person's village and successfully treats them (usually by removing the object that caused the wound). Cf. motif M60A. | 54 | 63 |
| M90a1 In M90 family | Lice skin, H522.I.I,ATU857. | It is required to sew clothes from the skin of lice (fleas) or guess the origin of a large animal, a large skin, the contents of the box; the animal (skin) arose from lice (fleas), in the box - louse. | 72 | 63 |
| A13a1 In A13 family | The raven obtains the sun. | The raven rescues or obtains the hidden or stolen sun (daylight). | 31 | 64 |
| A22 | Into the sky from the bonfire. | One or two people fall into fire or boiling water and ascend to the sky, turning into the sun and/or the moon. | 34 | 64 |
| A23 | Who will become the sun? | The first ancestors come together to choose who will become the sun, to raise the sun to the sky, to see the sun rise for the first time, and to name the sun correctly. See motif A22. | 38 | 64 |
| B48 | Predators become herbivores. | Harmless and herbivorous animals were or could become dangerous predators. | 53 | 64 |
| B77b In B77 family | They touched the sky with a long object. | The sky moved away and/or the connection between people and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck with a long object (a pestle, a broom, etc.) during work. Cf. motifs B77b1 and B77b2. | 32 | 64 |
| H36gg In H36 family | The coyote betrays man. | The coyote is to blame for the fact that humans are mortal. | 37 | 64 |
| I20c In I20 family | Dwarves – inhabitants of the underworld. | Dwarves live in an underground world that partly resembles the earthly world. If dwarves and humans meet, it happens underground. | 43 | 64 |
| K107d In K107 family | Trying to wake up a wonderful spouse. | After overcoming difficulties, a girl (rarely a boy) finds a magical spouse, but at first cannot wake him (her) up. | 34 | 64 |
| K120a3 In K120 family | Dress in a nut. | The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. | 38 | 64 |
| K123a In K123 family | The broken jug. | A boy or young man accidentally, or more often out of mischief, breaks or overturns a vessel belonging to a woman or girl. This episode forms the basis of the rest of the story. | 41 | 64 |
| K131b In K131 family | Magical objects exchanged and returned, ATU 569. | Having received and then lost a magical object, the hero returns it with the help of a new one (a club, a box with an army, etc.), received in exchange for the first or obtained by the hero's brother. The episode may be repeated several times. | 54 | 64 |
| K13a In K13 family | Severed leg: a person ascends to the sky. | The character's leg (rarely: both legs) is cut off, bitten off, torn off, or damaged. The character ascends to the sky: to the moon; becomes the moon; turns into a star or constellation; becomes the sun; blood flowing from the leg colours the sky. | 30 | 64 |
| K14c In K14 family | Son mistaken for lover, ATU 910B. | Returning after a long absence and seeing signs that there is another man in the house, a man thinks that his wife has a lover, but does not rush to act and convinces himself that it is his own son or his wife's relative. | 61 | 64 |
| K1e In K1 family | Abandoned on an island, K1616. | The character is abandoned on an island or on the other side of a river or sea. See motif K1A. | 89 | 64 |
| K73b1 In K73 family | Mother and child in a barrel. | A woman with her newborn son (pregnant with a boy) or a girl with a young man are placed in a barrel (box; rarely: in a boat) and lowered into the sea (river). | 37 | 64 |
| M159 | The Lion's Share, ATU 51. | The strongest character (usually a lion) offers to divide the spoils (harvest). The more cunning character refuses his share, but remains unharmed. Usually a wolf (hyena, jackal) divides the spoils, giving the lion the larger share, but the lion beats him. The third character gives the lion everything. The lion asks who taught him to divide so well and receives the answer: the one whom the lion mauled. | 61 | 64 |
| M163 | Dear Cat, ATU 1281, 1651. | A man arrives in a country where there are many mice (rats, snakes) but no cats. He sells a cat there and receives a reward. | 67 | 64 |
| M196 | Who will speak first? ATU 1351. | A husband and wife agree to award a small prize to the one who remains silent the longest. Both or one of the spouses continue to remain silent even when others mistake them for dead or commit violence against them. | 63 | 64 |
| M25 | A holiday in heaven, K1041 | To take part in a festival in heaven or visit a deity, a flightless character manages to climb high into the sky. He usually cannot go down the same way, falls and as a result dies, maims or metamorphoses. | 40 | 64 |
| M39a4a In M39 family | Sells a lizard a cow, ATU 1643 | fool sells or gives an animal (plant, statue) meat, pet, cloth, etc., believing that the buyer will pay; or the fool works where no one asked him to, and takes the animal for its owner. When he comes for money, he beats an animal (a tree, a statue, follows an animal) and as a result finds a treasure. | 72 | 64 |
| M60 | Imaginary physician: finished off enemy, K824, K1955 | After injuring a demon (robber), the hero goes to his locus. There he, or (rarely) his assistant, pretends to be a doctor and finishes off an opponent. | 38 | 64 |
| A2b In A2 family | The extra suns are extinguished. | In addition to the current sun and/or moon, other suns and moons shone in the sky, which were then destroyed. See motif A2A. | 84 | 65 |
| B40a In B40 family | The one who lost his horns. | Nowadays, hornless animals lose their horns or are deprived of the opportunity to grow them. See motif B40. | 52 | 65 |
| C4 | The Flood: Falling Fruit. | During the flood or at the beginning of time, fruits, seeds, or other objects fall into the water one after another. As this happens, the water begins to recede, exposing the earth. | 40 | 65 |
| E31c In E31 family | Rescuers of the Abducted Maiden, ATU 513A, ATU 653. | Several men, each possessing a unique skill, bring a (kidnapped) girl from a distant country. | 66 | 65 |
| G8b In G8 family | They cut down a tree to get the one who climbed it. | A person hides in a tree or (Kazakhs) hides behind walls. Another tries to cut down the tree (break down the walls) to get the person, but the cut tree grows back (or the already felled tree rises, the wall is restored). | 48 | 65 |
| I4 | Thunder rides across the sky. | When a vehicle moves across the sky, thunder rumbles. | 43 | 65 |
| J37 | A bird carries away the antagonist. | Transforming into a powerful bird or creating one, the hero lifts his opponent into the air and carries him away. | 40 | 65 |
| J40 | Enemy from the sky. | The sky is inhabited by creatures that descend to kill people. Usually, the creature carries away a person or many people, or a human head. The hero (usually a close relative of the deceased) avenges the killer and/or returns the kidnapped person (persons; the carried-away body part). | 41 | 65 |
| J47a In J47 family | Bob to the sky, ATU 328A, 804A. | A plant (usually not a mighty tree, but a legume) grows unusually fast, and a character climbs it to reach the sky. | 34 | 65 |
| K101 | Night dances of girls, ATU 306. | A girl or boy disappears at night. Usually, the girl's clothes or shoes are worn out overnight, or the boy looks sick and tired in the morning. The girl or boy is followed and seen spending the night in another world. | 57 | 65 |
| K27z1 In K27 family | Don't take the cage, don't take the bridle! ATU 550. | The assistant teaches how to steal the desired object, but not to take anything else (take the bird, but not the cage, the horse, but not the bridle, etc.). The character takes what he should not, is caught, released on the promise to deliver another object, then the girl. In the end, the hero keeps both the girl and everything he stole. {ATU 550 includes a much wider range of texts; in particular, the Indian, Burmese and Persian variants mentioned in Uther 2004 do not correspond to our definition}. | 70 | 65 |
| K77b1 In K77 family | Wolf's Head, ATU 125. | When they see predators, domestic animals consciously or accidentally behave in such a way that the predators flee in fear. | 59 | 65 |
| M199c In M199 family | Whoever throws the club higher, ATU 1063. | A person pretends to throw or is about to throw an object somewhere from which it cannot be retrieved (often into the sky, the clouds, or the sea). The opponent asks them not to do so and to stop the contest. | 44 | 65 |
| M29a In M29 family | Trickster - Raven (a) | See the motives in square brackets. | 80 | 65 |
| M90a In M90 family | Marry a guesser | The girl will marry the person who guessed her name, or someone who will fit the ring, or someone who says what material a particular object is made of or originated, etc. The deceiver fulfills the condition. | 65 | 65 |
| N33 | Drives the enemy into the ground | hero drives the enemy into the ground, or he and the enemy alternately drive each other into the ground (ankle-deep, waist-deep, etc.). | 47 | 65 |
| C25b In C25 family | The Moon Spinner. | In the sky, on the moon (rarely – on the sun), somewhere outside our world, a certain character spins, weaves, knits, embroiders or makes bast fabric. | 54 | 66 |
| F9 | Dangerous woman. | For various reasons, sexual intercourse with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man, or so it seems to him: Teeth, blades or sharp stones in the vagina or on the inside of the thighs; the vagina is a toothy mouth. See motif F9A. | 62 | 66 |
| I104 | Stars - fragments. | Stars are formed from particles of the body, fragments of a larger celestial body (usually the moon); stars (usually also the sun and moon) are formed from the body of a single being. | 43 | 66 |
| K157 | Robbers killed one by one, ATU 304. | The character lures his opponents out one by one and cuts off each one's head as soon as they appear. Less commonly, a multi-headed opponent sticks out its heads one by one, and the hero cuts them off. | 56 | 66 |
| K66d In K66 family | Bear fosterling. | A boy who grew up (was conceived) in a bear's den (lion's cave) becomes a bogatyr. | 57 | 66 |
| M113 | Birds are forbidden to drink. | In summer, during the height of the heat, or constantly, birds of a certain species are not allowed to drink from ponds and springs. It is generally believed that they drink only rainwater and cry out, begging for rain. See motif M112. | 52 | 66 |
| A7 | The sun chases the moon. | The sun and the moon (month) are two characters, one of which eternally pursues the other across the sky or pursued it when they rose into the sky from the earth. | 50 | 67 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.