Folklore Database · Browse
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C13 | Rebellion of things. | During or before the onset of a global catastrophe (flood, darkness) or (surui) at night, household items and/or stones, trees, domestic animals, and cultivated plants turn into wild birds and animals or come to life. | 36 | 50 |
| C14 | Monsters destroy people. | During or on the eve of a global catastrophe (flood, darkness), animals or monsters attack people. (See motif C13A (rebellion of things: animated objects and/or domestic animals threaten people, attack them).) | 48 | 62 |
| C15 | The walled-up jaguar. | A monstrous jaguar (puma) is locked in a cave or tree trunk. | 8 | 15 |
| C16 | Products of labour become animals, E161, E168. | Contrary to human desire, processed skins, tools, and (meat) food (again) turn into (those) animals (from whose body parts they were made). Cf. motif M84. | 64 | 83 |
| C16a In C16 family | The offended mistress of animals. | The offended mistress of animals or fish takes them and food supplies away. See motif H32A. | 9 | 1 |
| C17 | Fire pit for people. | The men of the community of the first ancestors destroy most of the people and/or themselves on a pyre or in a fire pit. | 11 | 18 |
| C18 | Luring the sun. | A character embodying or controlling the sun hides or is hidden. In order to restore or obtain light and warmth for the first time, the character's attention is attracted or distracted by songs, music, dances, unusual gifts, indecent or strange behaviour, offers of sex, food and/or alcohol. | 25 | 40 |
| C18a In C18 family | The sun lures out the rooster. | The hidden sun is lured out by the rooster, or people believe that without the rooster's crow, the sun will not rise. | 36 | 54 |
| C19 | Finding the sun. | The missing, hidden, concealed or stolen sun (daylight) reappears. See motif C18 | 197 | 336 |
| C19a In C19 family | The child is playing with the sun | The character (except Quileut: Raven) turns into a child, asks for and receives heavenly bodies to play, or (Chukchi) comes to play with the little daughter of the owner of the stars. | 23 | 69 |
| 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 |
| C21 | Drought. | During a severe drought, birds (and animals) go in search of the rainmakers and bring them back. | 6 | 6 |
| C22 | The Toad in Search of Thunder. | During a severe drought or global fire, birds and animals are sent to the thunder gods living at the edge of the world to bring rain. The last of those sent achieves the goal. The toad plays an important role in the action. | 4 | 3 |
| C23 | The tree blocks the sun. | The growth or fall of a giant tree determines the state of the sky and the celestial bodies in it (the tree blocks the light of the sun or threatens to destroy the sky, pulls the sun from the sky when it falls, etc.). | 21 | 29 |
| C24 | The world is in danger of falling. | Someone is gnawing or chopping at the pillar supporting the sky or the earth; certain creatures are trying to destroy the barrier separating their world from the world of humans; if the work is completed, humans will perish. | 12 | 17 |
| C25 | Eschatological expectations. | If a certain event occurs, the world will be destroyed. | 97 | 151 |
| C25a In C25 family | Cooking soup on the moon. | In the sky, on the moon, somewhere outside our world, a character (usually an old woman) cooks soup. The fate of the universe depends on his (her) behaviour. | 7 | 7 |
| 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 |
| C25c In C25 family | The Big Dipper and the end of the world. | A change in the configuration of a certain constellation (usually the Big Dipper) or its disappearance from the sky will signal a global catastrophe. | 19 | 24 |
| C26 | Guardian at the edge of a foreign world. | Monsters are ready to invade our world from another, but a powerful character protects people from the invasion. | 31 | 28 |
| C27 | Monster under the ice. | The monster breaks the ice on a river or lake. Usually people walk on the ice, see a protruding horn (fin), and try to saw it off. The monster breaks the ice, and many people die. | 21 | 20 |
| C28 | Rash promise. | A demonic character takes possession of a valuable item without which another character (and people) will perish. The demon is tricked into returning the valuable item. | 12 | 14 |
| C29 | Overheard secret. | People (God) learn a secret by overhearing (spying on) a character talking to himself or his relatives (or performing actions that should be remembered). The knowledge gained is related to cosmogony or the acquisition of cultural values. | 29 | 43 |
| C30 | Impossible condition. | In order to free himself from an obligation, the character sets a condition that is formally logical and uncomplicated, but in reality impossible to fulfil. | 60 | 68 |
| C30a In C30 family | A pound of flesh, ATU 890. | A man borrows money on the condition that if he fails to repay it by a certain date, he will have to give the lender a certain amount of his own flesh. The lender cannot cut off the flesh, because he is unable to fulfil the formally logical but essentially absurd demand made of him. | 46 | 30 |
| C30b In C30 family | Remove traces from the field. | In response to the claims of an animal or spirit, a person offers to remove their traces from the field or to walk without leaving any traces. The spirit is unable to do so. | 4 | 4 |
| C30c In C30 family | Drinking the sea. | A man promises to drink the sea (to count how many drops of water there are in the sea), but asks his opponent to first separate the sea water from the water of the rivers flowing into the sea. | 13 | 13 |
| C30d In C30 family | Not to spill a drop of urine. | The character agrees that his locus will be contaminated with excrement, but only on condition that not a drop of urine is spilled. It turns out to be impossible to fulfil this condition. | 4 | 4 |
| C31 | The wise hedgehog (cosmology). | The hedgehog is wiser or more cunning than all the gods and animals; it possesses knowledge that is vital for human existence. | 23 | 40 |
| C31a In C31 family | Lights or fire promised to the devil. | The master (mistress) of the underworld receives (should receive) heavenly lights or fire. Due to a trick or accident, they are not given to him or are returned. | 9 | 11 |
| C31b In C31 family | The wise owl. | The owl is wiser and more intelligent than other living creatures. | 28 | 31 |
| C31c In C31 family | The wise bat. | The bat turns out to be smarter and wiser than other living creatures. | 12 | 15 |
| C32 | A ship made of nails. | Demonic characters will make a ship out of nail clippings. | 3 | 3 |
| C32A In C32 family | Nails (hair) will be needed by the soul in the afterlife. | Nails will be needed in the afterlife to save oneself (to climb a steep mountain, climb into the sky, build a bridge, etc.). | 9 | 15 |
| C32B In C32 family | Nails – material for the devil. | Demonic characters will make something useful for themselves (and harmful to humans) out of nail clippings. | 11 | 12 |
| C32c In C32 family | Nails must be preserved. | Nails (and hair) have special significance for a person's fate, their soul or the world as a whole. (Compound motif). | 40 | 61 |
| C33 | Prometheus (the chained strongman). | A strongman-god-fighter is chained to a rock or a pillar for centuries. | 16 | 42 |
| C33a In C33 family | The restored chain. | Throughout the year, someone tries to saw through or break the chain or rope that holds him or another character. On a certain day of the year, when the chain has become completely thin, it is restored to its former state, or the pole to which the chain is attached is reinserted into the ground. Cf. motif G8d. | 27 | 41 |
| C33a1 In C33 family | Bird pecking at the liver. | A bird of prey flies to the chained character every day and pecks at his internal organs. The character recovers overnight, and the cycle repeats itself. | 4 | 16 |
| C33b In C33 family | Ancient windlessness. | The demise of the first race is associated with the appearance of wind. | 3 | 8 |
| C34 | The Flood: the wounded creature. | The flood begins after people kill (harm, maim) some kind of creature (usually aquatic). | 65 | 91 |
| C34a In C34 family | Buried in the sand. | A supernatural character goes with people to catch fish or lives on the sand by the river; he is buried in the sand or thrown into the river, into a swamp, or otherwise persecuted. Usually, he himself or his father sends a flood. | 6 | 7 |
| C35 | The cosmic marriage will not take place. | It becomes known that if characters representing natural phenomena and parts of the universe marry, it will lead to disaster. The marriage is broken off. | 18 | 32 |
| C35a In C35 family | The good advisor is punished. | A zoomorphic character gives wise advice concerning the state of the Sun. The advice is accepted, but the advisor is punished by the Sun or is henceforth pursued by the Sun. | 8 | 9 |
| C35b In C35 family | Frogs – enemies of the sun. | The frog (toad) prevents more than one sun from shining in the sky. | 8 | 11 |
| C36 | The Last Battle. | The gods and their powerful adversaries clash in a decisive battle that changes the fate of the world. See Bray 2000, especially pp. 360-361. | 10 | 10 |
| C37 | The sloth's catastrophe. | The sloth causes a global catastrophe or saves people from it. | 8 | 8 |
| C38 | People will appear soon. | Characters from the time of creation say that real people will appear soon, so we must do this and that. | 19 | 23 |
| C39 | Repairing the sky. | When the sky split or partially collapsed, it was repaired. | 4 | 13 |
| C39a In C39 family | The sky was patched up with ice. | A hole in the sky or a crack in the ground was plugged with a piece of ice, which is why it is cold in the north (north-west, north-east). | 1 | 8 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.