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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I78 | Square Earth. | The earth is thought of as rectangular (usually square). | 60 | 71 |
| K27p1 In K27 family | The enemy father-in-law takes the form of an animal. | The father-in-law (less often the mother-in-law) orders the hero to kill or tame a dangerous animal or not to kill a certain animal while hunting. This animal is himself or his daughter (wife). | 51 | 71 |
| K27z In K27 family | Gambling for life and death. | A character gains power over another by winning a game of chance or an intellectual game (not a sporting competition). The motif includes all texts with motif K27z4. | 67 | 71 |
| K32a In K32 family | A man leaves on a journey. | A man is carrying his wife or daughter. Another woman or demonic character replaces her when the man leaves on a journey (rarely: falls asleep). | 54 | 71 |
| K67a In K67 family | The Drowned Wife, ATU 1120. | A character of low status annoys characters of high status. Learning of the intention of the characters of high status to drown him or his property (rarely: to strangle him), he arranges for one of them or their property to be drowned instead. | 67 | 71 |
| L106 | Demand to return the harpoon. | A person takes an object belonging to another and loses it; the owner demands that the object be returned; the hero goes after it (to another world), usually finds it and brings back what was lost. See motifs K56a3 and L105. | 53 | 71 |
| L19b2 In L19 family | Nine-headed monster. | A creature with nine heads is mentioned – either singly or at the end of a series of creatures with fewer heads. | 48 | 71 |
| L1a In L1 family | The woman became a bear. | A young woman turns into a bear (in Asia, a tigress) and attacks her close relatives or husband. | 51 | 71 |
| M39a In M39 family | Deer don't want to wet their shoes | fool lives with his brother (and mother), is sent on business, does ridiculous things (all or part of the above): releases animals from the trap, kills (trapped) mother ; cuts off the pet's legs or skins; takes the fontanel on the baby's skull for a boil and squeezes it out; tears a large piece of cloth and ties the pieces to swaying reeds; hearing the murmur of water, throws food into the water; puts the plague in the water; wants to salt the water and pours all the salt into the river. (There are other common episodes as well). | 33 | 71 |
| I79A In I79 family | Kirtimukha/Sisiutl. | The creature has a head or bulge in the middle of its body and snake-like protrusions extending on both sides (from the head, cheeks, mouth) or across the head in profile symmetrically at both ends. In the art of the Nanai, Ulch, Orochi, Udegei, Nivkh, and Ainu peoples (less obviously, the Negidal and Uilto peoples), it is curvilinear. The Orochi, Udegei, and Nivkh peoples draw from a well, then thin out. The goat finds him asleep, the kids jump out, the goat puts a vmnament with central symmetry based on a similar image. | 31 | 72 |
| I82h In I82 family | Venus – Cholpan/Cholbon. | The name of Venus sounds like Cholpan, Cholbon, Tsolmon, etc. (čol- 'to sparkle, to shine' [Vámbéri 1879: 155]). | 50 | 72 |
| K100c In K100 family | The snake bites the girl's suitors, ATU 507 (main part, variant 2). | A woman (rarely a young man) does not know that inside her (him) there is something dangerous for her (his) marriage partner (usually a snake), or that on her wedding night she will turn into a snake, or that a snake will crawl in on her wedding night. The hero or his companion eliminates the danger. {Motif K100C is similar to F9f1, but the latter belongs to the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while K100C is adventurous}. | 48 | 72 |
| K122 | The queen of the other world finds the hero (ATU 551). | Having penetrated the world of a powerful woman, unattainable without the support of supernatural helpers, the man returns. The deceiver tries to take credit for the feat. The woman whom the hero met in her world finds him and punishes (rejects) the deceiver. | 45 | 72 |
| K38c In K38 family | A bird carries a hero. | After the hero helps the bird (usually by doing good to its chicks), it takes him to the place he desires, or instructs its chicks to do so. (This does not involve movement between levels of the universe; in the Sumerian version, the bird gives the hero the ability to move with lightning speed and directs him to his goal). | 60 | 72 |
| K98 | The slain man turns into a camp. | An animal or (less commonly) a woman who gave birth to a hero or helped him turns into a house and property. | 55 | 72 |
| M157b In M157 family | Take the most precious thing (ATU 875). | The husband drives his wife away, allowing her to take what is most precious to her. She takes her sleeping or intoxicated husband. He returns with her. {Traditions mentioned in El-Shamy 2004 are highlighted in bold; it is highly likely that this motif is indeed present in them; some traditions mentioned in ATU 875 are given in brackets; they are not included in the correlation table, the original publications are required}. | 69 | 72 |
| M95 | Take the gift home, ATU 311 | weaker character asks a stronger character to take the gift to his family and climbs into a basket, bag, etc. A strong character brings and leaves a gift without knowing that brought whoever sent this gift. Usually a girl hides her sisters in a bag (chest), and next time she sits there herself, and the cannibal believes that there are gifts for the girls' parents in the bag and carries the bag. | 55 | 72 |
| B98a In B98 family | The bat becomes an outcast, ATU 222A. | The bat becomes an outcast among other creatures (usually after trying to join either the animals or the birds). | 70 | 73 |
| F44 | Quarrel between men and women. | In the community of the first ancestors, women and men quarrel, leave, kill, maim each other, etc. | 46 | 73 |
| H46 | The dog's share. | A character (usually God) is about to deprive people of their food (most often grain), but does not do so for the sake of the dog (and/or cat; rarely for the sake of birds). Either God gave the ear of corn to the dog, and the man took it for himself. | 43 | 73 |
| H54b In H54 family | Deadly gaze. | The character's gaze brings death (and destruction). | 50 | 73 |
| I115 | Orion and the Pleiades. | Orion and the Pleiades appear in the same story. | 62 | 73 |
| J17 | Frogs in the hair. | Instead of lice in the character's hair, there are other creatures, or he pretends that such creatures live in his hair. | 58 | 73 |
| K27u In K27 family | Hide, ATU 329. | Task: to hide (the hero finds the antagonist, and/or the antagonist cannot find the hero). See motif K27. | 80 | 73 |
| K32M In K32 family | The heroine is transformed into an animal (not drowned). | To take the heroine's place, her rival turns her into an animal or bird without pushing her into the water. Cf. motif k33. | 44 | 73 |
| L33 | Rolling Stone, R261. | The stone rolls after the character, trying to crush him. | 47 | 73 |
| M45a In M45 family | The old man and the beasts | A person is sleeping or pretending to be asleep or dead. Animals take him for a dead man - they mourn him, carry him to bury him, they are going to eat it, etc. A person beats the crowd and/or obtains benefits. | 50 | 73 |
| B26 | Gone to the animals. | A person who follows wild animals (temporarily) turns into one of them or their master, or lives with animals that look like humans to him. | 56 | 74 |
| B33 | Woman-wind. | There is a female character who embodies the wind or is considered the mother or mistress of the winds. | 48 | 74 |
| B98 | The bat between beasts and birds, ATU 222A. | The bat (rarely: ostrich) tries to join either the beasts or the birds, or finds itself excluded from both. | 73 | 74 |
| D7 | Toad and fire. | The frog or toad possesses the first fire, steals it from its original owner, and tries to extinguish it or save it from dying out. See motif D4. | 41 | 74 |
| F63 | Man marries, K1321.1, ATU 1538*. | A male trickster transforms into a woman and gets married. In the end, he is exposed or runs away from his husband. | 64 | 74 |
| H11 | The call of God. | People are mortal or defective because they respond to the call (or pronounce the name) of a creature that brings death, or do not hear the call (do not pronounce the name; do not respond to the call, do not notice) of a creature that promises immortality (power). | 47 | 74 |
| I5 | Thunder – animal. | Thunder (lightning, rain) has the appearance of a four-legged mammal - a pig, buffalo, camel, anteater, tapir, dog, cat, leopard, monkey, etc. | 48 | 74 |
| K56a4 In K56 family | The messenger dog. | When a kind girl returns home, an animal or bird (usually a dog) announces that she is well, but when an unkind girl returns or when her dead body is brought back, the dog (rooster, crow) announces that something is wrong with her. | 40 | 74 |
| K77b In K77 family | Bremen Town Musicians, ATU 130. | Having left their owners, domestic animals find an empty house or build a house. Robbers or predatory animals come there. Domestic animals attack or simply scare them away. Predators do not understand who they are facing and flee. | 75 | 74 |
| M13 | God does as he is asked, ATU 750A, 775. | A person appeals to higher powers with a request, without considering that his words may have a different meaning than he intended. Either a person accidentally utters the wrong word or accidentally and hastily expresses an empty or absurd desire. As a result, something happens that he did not want at all. Cf. motifs I58B and M13A.Most of the references in ATU 775 (Midas' short-sighted wish) are either incorrect or impossible to verify. In connection with this plot, the reference to Uther 2000 is taken into account only for the Lithuanian variant, since there is a summary of the Latvian one, and for the Greek one, since the motif exists in Ancient Greece and among the neighbouring South Slavs. For ATU 750A, the reference to Bäcker 1988 in connection with the "Chinese" is incorrect; these are Manchus, not Chinese, and the stated motif is not present in the text. | 73 | 74 |
| M98 | Who's more? AA 981.1. | The character counts the number of members in two huge and alternative sets (dead and alive, men and women, etc.). Usually numbers are distributed equally, and one term (or some) is endowed with the properties of both. By referring it to one of the sets, the character proves a thesis. | 54 | 74 |
| B43 | Purusha, D287.5. | Elements of the landscape or parts of the universe are created from the body of the original being. | 46 | 75 |
| C20 | The drunken cannibal. | A dangerous character is killed, neutralised, and deprived of his (her) values after being cheered up at a party, lured into a trap with music, promises of alcohol, women, etc.; the same method is used to enlist the favour of a powerful helper. | 62 | 75 |
| I37f In I37 family | Mushrooms - ears. | Mushrooms are called "ears". | 54 | 75 |
| I55 | Stars – holes. | Stars – holes in the sky; or holes in the canopy, in the roof of a dwelling, appear to be stars. | 65 | 75 |
| K16 | The bird becomes a young man. | Taking the form of a bird, bat, insect, small animal, or fish, the man enters the young woman's home (her father's house). | 59 | 75 |
| K27r In K27 family | Passing away. | The person giving the task requires an item or message to be brought from the world. | 65 | 75 |
| K65c In K65 family | Eve's Unwashed Children, ATU 758. | A woman (rarely a man) hides some of her children (less often, all of them) or some of her domestic animals from God. According to God, the hidden children become either poor people or creatures of a non-human nature, and the hidden domestic animals become wild. | 47 | 75 |
| M180 | The Fox and the Crane, ATU 60. | A zoomorphic character invites another to visit, but serves food in such a way that the other cannot take it in his mouth. The other, inviting the first to visit, puts him in a similar position. | 60 | 75 |
| M29w3 In M29 family | Leo is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the lion dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 115 | 75 |
| M46d In M46 family | The child asks for a toy | A small child cries and calms down only after being given a valuable item hidden in the house to play with. After receiving an item, a child or an associated character takes it away. | 41 | 75 |
| A32dd In A32 family | Man with brushwood on the moon. | The lunar disc shows the figure or imprint of an anthropomorphic character carrying a bundle of wood or brushwood. | 24 | 76 |
| B17 | Night in a vessel. | Darkness is a special object that can be carried and transferred (usually brought from the original owner in a vessel or bag). | 52 | 76 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.