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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 ▲ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I57 | Thunder pursues the enemy. | Thunder's enemies are animals, reptiles, and spirits that live in burrows. They usually hide from him in various objects and items, and Thunder (a god, angel, etc.) strikes his enemies or these objects with lightning. | 88 | 133 |
| K35a In K35 family | The hero brands his rivals, ATU 530A. | In exchange for improving his current situation, the character agrees to have his body injured or branded. | 84 | 133 |
| L40 | Reflection and shadow, R351. | The character discovers (rarely: cannot discover) another person on a tree or rock, noticing their reflection or shadow. See motif L39. | 108 | 133 |
| M81 | Blind people | Wandering, the hero finds himself in a place where blind or blind (two or more) live. | 103 | 133 |
| M75 | Taken from vultures | The character attracts and catches corpse eaters (usually birds) and as a result obtains valuables or returns something valuable (fire, woman, animals, etc.). | 74 | 134 |
| F38 | Women and secret knowledge. | Women were the keepers of secret knowledge, shrines, or ritual objects that are now forbidden to them; they attempted to regain this knowledge or these objects. | 65 | 135 |
| K77a In K77 family | Verlioka, ATU 210. | Various objects and animals (rarely: only animals, but including those that are safe in reality) defeat a strong enemy (usually joining the hero who is going to take revenge on the strong enemy for an insult and hiding in the house where the enemy is supposed to appear), attacking him in turn; he dies or flees. Either someone or the attacked character himself places objects in his dwelling that then harm that character. | 99 | 135 |
| L39 | The hero is forced to climb down from the tree. | By force or deception, the character forces another to climb down from the tree in order to harm him. | 90 | 135 |
| A12a In A12 family | A predatory beast eclipses the luminaries. | During an eclipse or under other circumstances, predators attack the luminaries: wolves, bears, jaguars, pumas, dogs, foxes, raccoons. See motif A12. | 103 | 136 |
| A14 | Eclipses: the relationship between the sun and the moon, A737.7. | The meeting of the sun and the moon is the cause of eclipses or lunar phases. | 111 | 136 |
| B42q In B42 family | Ursa Major – cart. | Ursa Major – chariot, cart. | 57 | 136 |
| I7 | Cloud serpent. | The reptile produces rain and thunderstorms. | 75 | 136 |
| J15 | The road to the home of dangerous creatures. | Having set out in search of their husband, relatives, etc., a woman, girl or children accidentally take the wrong road and encounter creatures that kill or harm them. | 86 | 136 |
| K60b In K60 family | Invitation to the Coffin, ATU 330B, G514.1. | The character is invited to find out whether the box or pit is the right size for him, whether he can crawl through the opening, climb into the bag, etc., after which he is locked in a coffin, box, barrel, buried, etc. Cf. motif M56D. | 87 | 136 |
| M39 | Misunderstood instructions | After receiving instructions, the character understands (or pretends to understand) them incorrectly or too literally, committing absurdly ridiculous or violent acts. | 109 | 136 |
| F35 | Feeding meat from a lover. | A character offers another person the meat of his sexual partner, and the other person, unaware, eats or cooks it. | 99 | 139 |
| F70 | Potiphar's Wife, K2111, T418, ATU 318. | A woman falsely accuses a man of assaulting her. | 105 | 139 |
| M158 | Tops and roots, ATU 1030. | A human and an animal (devil) or two animals decide to cultivate a field and divide the harvest so that one gets the above-ground part and the other gets the underground part. One of the characters (always) loses out. | 87 | 139 |
| K27s In K27 family | Running, racing. | Competition: running, racing. See motif K27. | 133 | 140 |
| I46 | Rainbow belt. | Rainbow – an ornamented part of clothing, bright fabric, decoration, belt. | 96 | 141 |
| K88 | Two Travellers (Truth and Falsehood), ATU 613. | Two people set off on a journey or argue about which is stronger: truth or falsehood (stinginess or generosity, etc.). The evil one abandons the good one, crippling or robbing him, but the good one regains his health and achieves success. The villain usually perishes. | 117 | 141 |
| A2 | Several suns. | There was a time when several, i.e. more than two, suns shone in the sky at the same time. | 67 | 142 |
| K131 | Three Wonderful Objects, ATU 518. | Certain characters argue over the possession of magical objects, but the objects go to the hero. Usually, he suggests that the disputants race each other or asks them to let him try out the objects, after which he hides, taking the objects with him. | 94 | 142 |
| K30 | The flying enemy carries off the woman. | A flying creature carries a woman away. The kidnapper is killed and/or the woman escapes from him. See also motif L102A (Escape from a seagull husband). | 95 | 142 |
| K39 | Feeding the Simurgh bird, B322.1. | The character must feed a powerful creature by regularly throwing it pieces of meat. When the prepared meat runs out, he cuts off the last piece from his own flesh. See motif K38 (the bird carries the hero where he needs to go; on the way, he throws pieces of prepared meat into its beak; when the supplies run out, he gives the bird a piece of his own flesh). | 107 | 142 |
| M84 | Revived from bones, E32, E33 | A person, animal, fish, or (rarely) a large fruit is killed and eaten. After a meal, what is eaten revives, usually after the bones (seeds) are put together. Cf. motive C16. | 96 | 142 |
| F34 | Connection with terrestrial quadrupeds. | A woman takes a large land animal as her lover. Her husband, brother or (adopted) children kill or maim the lover and (sometimes) the woman herself. Sometimes there is mention of a group of women and their husbands. (Unlike motif K102, "The Demon's Mistress," the lover is not dangerous to the hero and plays a passive role, and the woman, if she becomes hostile and dangerous, does so only after the lover's death. Unlike motif K76, the woman and her husband/lover of non-human nature are clearly evaluated negatively). | 90 | 143 |
| I14 | Creatures without an anus, F529.2. | Creatures without an anal opening are described. | 101 | 145 |
| K27x5 In K27 family | Helpers of different ages. | When setting out in search of a woman or miraculous objects, a person consistently encounters characters of a non-human (often demonic) nature who help him. The characters are similar, but usually each subsequent one is older (younger) than the other. | 85 | 146 |
| K83 | Sick Father, ATU 550, 551. | To heal, rejuvenate or save one's father, father-in-law or sister, one must bring medicine (bring a doctor) from a distant country. The medicine is brought and the sick person recovers. | 111 | 146 |
| L18 | Multi-headed bird. | A bird with two or more heads in descriptions or images. | 67 | 146 |
| M29g1 In M29 family | Trickster - Hare, Rabbit (main trickster) | In episodes involving deception, ridiculous, obscene, or antisocial behavior, the hare or rabbit is the main trickster. Traditions in which 1) a hare or rabbit occurs only once as a trickster, and another trickster (usually a fox/jackal/coyote) is typical; 2) Mesoamerican traditions in which a small rabbit is associated with a small a set of episodes and a high probability of recent African influences. See the motives in square brackets. | 110 | 146 |
| A36 | The moon and immortality. | The moon (month) is contrasted with humans as immortal to mortals; it decides whether humans will be mortal; those who live on the moon are immortal. (Cf. Latvians, Dolgans). | 79 | 147 |
| L19a In L19 family | Creature with an even number of heads. | Creatures (any except ornithomorphs) with an even number (but not more than ten) of heads at one end of the body are described or depicted, except when such creatures are mentioned among others and the series ends with an odd number or a number greater than ten. | 105 | 147 |
| K64 | Escape from the cave of the herd owner, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. | Finding himself in the dwelling of the master of the herds or the owner of wild animals, the character fears that the master will kill him. To escape to freedom, he clings to the underside of one of the animals leaving the pen or cave. | 82 | 148 |
| M11 | Unclean food. | The character gives others food extracted from his or someone else's body or contaminated with bodily secretions, without revealing the source of the food. | 114 | 148 |
| M182 | Smolyan doll, ATU 175, Th K741. | A character threatens to hit another character and, as a result, gets stuck with all his limbs. Usually, it is a doll covered with something sticky, which the character mistakes for a living creature. | 93 | 148 |
| C6c In C6 family | The Diver – Bird. | The bird dives and brings up the desired object from the bottom. See motif C6. | 68 | 149 |
| K36 | Turned into an animal, (ATU 449). | The hero (heroine) is temporarily transformed into an animal (usually a dog/coyote or a donkey, with the face of the former]: 151-152t to the ground; and the strength of 99 men; if she had taken the hundredth, she would have remained a woman; if the young man had ground, a horse). When he or she is helped to regain their former appearance, the antagonist is transformed into an animal. In some texts, either only the hero or only the antagonist undergoes metamorphosis. Cf. motifs K62B, J62b1 (the character transforms many people into animals). | 100 | 150 |
| M106 | Significant name, ATU 1135, 1137, 1138, 1541. | The character calls himself by a fictitious name, which others understand not as a proper name, but as a common noun with a specific meaning. | 107 | 150 |
| C25 | Eschatological expectations. | If a certain event occurs, the world will be destroyed. | 97 | 151 |
| H34 | In the past, there was no need to work. | Work did not require effort. Some people do not believe that this is possible, or do not consider it to be right, or do not fulfil the necessary conditions, which is why people have to work. See motifs H34A – H34H; H34 contains only texts that are not classified in more detail. | 96 | 151 |
| M109 | Tail in the ice hole, K1021, ATU 2. | A zoomorphic character sits down, lowering his tail (penis) so that something edible will stick to it, but as a result he is left without a tail (penis) or dies. Cf. motifs M109A, M109C. | 102 | 151 |
| I52 | Fish – the support of the earth. | The world rests on a fish or fish-like creature, or the earth itself is such a creature or originated from a fish. See motif I8B. | 93 | 152 |
| K119 | Animal marries a princess, ATU 545B. | An animal promises to make a poor man rich (usually by marrying him to a rich bride; or by marrying a poor girl to a prince) and, resorting to deception, fulfils its promise. | 120 | 152 |
| K27x3 In K27 family | The king and the hero's wife, ATU 465. | The ruler seeks to take possession of the wife or bride of a man of lower social status and, in order to get rid of him, gives him impossible tasks or secretly kills him. {Both ATU and some regional indexes (e.g., Cardigos 2006: 110) list texts that do not meet the definition of plot 465: the king's desire to take possession of the hero's wife is not explicitly stated as the reason why the king seeks to get rid of the hero}. | 113 | 152 |
| M49 | A hero in someone else's skin | The hero meets a character from the enemy camp and, taking on his form, penetrates enemies. Usually, the hero kills the person he meets and puts on his skin. | 102 | 152 |
| B44 | Dispute about time, A1150, A1172. | The first ancestors (usually human-animals) argue about how long the year, winter, night, or other periods of time should last, and whether cold and darkness should be replaced by warmth and light. | 90 | 153 |
| A37 | The sun is subjected to armed attack. | The character deliberately and by resorting to special means (usually shooting with a bow) strikes the sun or several suns or attempts to do so. | 77 | 154 |
| G24 | Food from the sky. | The first seeds (shoots, tubers) of cultivated or important wild food plants and/or agronomic knowledge were brought from the sky (received from the gods). | 99 | 154 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.