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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G27 | Harvest from urine. | Cultivated plants appear together with urine or in the place where the hero urinated. | 6 | 10 |
| G28 | Tree with fish. | The tree contains a fish in its trunk. | 19 | 28 |
| G29 | Demon from artefacts. | The character consists of various artefacts of domestic and industrial use or transforms into them. | 40 | 51 |
| G30 | The penis turns into plants. | A long penis is cut into pieces, which turn into many edible plants or different types of trees. Cf. motif B53. | 7 | 7 |
| G31 | Trees tied with rope. | A character ties trees with rope and effortlessly knocks them all down at once or pretends to do so. | 35 | 40 |
| G32 | Food from the underworld. | People obtain cultivated plants from the underwater or underground world. | 41 | 47 |
| H1a In H1 family | He who wished death upon another is himself in mourning. | The character decides that people should die. His or her child, mother, or some other being whose life is dear to him or her dies. Now the decision-maker agrees to make people immortal, but it is impossible to change the decision that has been made. | 57 | 86 |
| H1b In H1 family | Death of someone else's child. | The character performs actions that lead to death, because he is indifferent to or desires the death of the child or woman loved by another character. See motif H1A. | 35 | 9 |
| H1bb In H1 family | They did not spare the dog. | One character refuses to resurrect another's beloved dog, and this conflict is linked to the loss of the ability to resurrect people. | 5 | 5 |
| H1c In H1 family | Trampled grave. | People cease to be reborn (or no longer come to the living) after the deceased is buried in the ground for the first time or someone tramples the earth on a fresh grave, preventing the deceased from rising from the grave. | 36 | 40 |
| H1d In H1 family | The one who returned to the people was rejected. | The deceased returns, but people send him back, dissatisfied with his appearance, refusing to accept him or burying him again. From then on, death is final. | 21 | 23 |
| H1e In H1 family | The first to die opens the way for the rest. | A certain character is the first to enter the world of the dead, after which all people follow the same path; he paves the way to the world of the dead; the first to die becomes the master or guardian of the afterlife. | 15 | 14 |
| H1f In H1 family | People learn to bury the dead. | People learn how to treat the dead by observing the behaviour of crows. | 7 | 5 |
| H2 | The selfish animal. | Animals ask God to make humans (tigers: domestic animals) mortal or otherwise reduce their numbers, as they fear that humans will trample them, deprive them of food or habitat, force them to work, etc. | 33 | 42 |
| H3 | Funeral games end in death. | Death is sent to people as punishment for excessive sympathy for a dead animal or for funeral games, during which they bury an animal, tree, etc. | 14 | 16 |
| H3A In H3 family | Violated sexual taboo. | People die (fall ill) and cannot come back to life because a taboo related to sexual contact or pregnancy was once violated. {The motif may be composite, including historically unrelated variants}. | 52 | 62 |
| H4 | Skin change as a condition for immortality, D1889.6. | Those who change their skin (bark, clothing) are immortal (forever young). (Cf. motif K56a5a: Skinning oneself to become young: To become a young beauty, an old or ugly woman asks to have her skin skinned off). | 123 | 256 |
| H4a In H4 family | Interrupted renewal. | People no longer rejuvenate (usually, they do not change their skin), because they were disturbed at the moment of renewal or were not recognised as the same person after renewal. See motif H4. | 32 | 36 |
| H5 | People and snakes. | Reptiles or invertebrates possess a life-giving agent; they are contrasted with humans as immortal mortals and/or responsible for the fact that humans die and are not reborn; the dead turn into snakes. See motif H4. (The first death comes from a snake bite (centipede), but snakes are not opposed to humans as immortals to mortals.) | 145 | 181 |
| H6a In H6 family | People and plants. | Mortal humans are contrasted with plants, which regularly shed their bark, bloom in spring after winter dormancy, or reproduce vegetatively. See motif H4. | 45 | 42 |
| H6b In H6 family | The elixir of immortality is spilled on plants. | The elixir of immortality, intended for humans, is not delivered to its destination, but falls on plants, which become evergreen, capable of regeneration or bearing fruit. (Traditions in which the "elixir of immortality" is linked to the motif of false news are marked with an asterisk. Cf. motif B115). | 33 | 51 |
| H6bb In H6 family | Lost objects. | A character is sent to deliver a certain object or substance to people, the possession of which is essential to them. The messenger loses these objects or brings others. Usually, this refers to the ability to be reborn after death. Traditions not related to the explanation of human mortality are marked with an asterisk*. | 23 | 30 |
| H6c In H6 family | The immortal raven. | The raven (crow, vulture) is associated with death or contrasted with humans as immortal among mortals (sent to bring the elixir of immortality or water that revives the dead; drinks this water himself; teaches people funeral rites; etc.). | 54 | 86 |
| H6c1 In H6 family | Values in exchange for a child. | To obtain the desired object, the character grabs the young or the female bird (snake, crab) and promises to release them if the father (mother, male) bird delivers the desired object. | 34 | 51 |
| H6c2 In H6 family | Living water in the land of darkness. | At the edge of the world lies the land of darkness. Those who want to obtain living water or gold strive to get there. | 6 | 7 |
| H6c3 In H6 family | The stork and the otherworld. | Large birds that fly in wedge formations (storks, cranes, swans, geese – German: Zugvögel) are associated with the otherworld (they bring children from there, carry children away to the non-human world, control living and dead water, etc.). | 11 | 18 |
| H6d In H6 family | Stolen immortality. | Having obtained a means of ensuring immortality, the character falls asleep or leaves the means unattended. At this time, another character steals the means. | 13 | 20 |
| H7 | Personification of death. | Death (as well as illness and old age) is a special character, distinct from the lord of the underworld. It takes away a person's soul or otherwise causes their death. | 183 | 370 |
| H7a In H7 family | Death and the healer, ATU 332. | Having received knowledge from Death (rarely: Happiness or a certain spirit) about whether the sick person will be healed or not, whether she is going to take his soul, the person will know whether he will recover. U.nyak praises him for his impartiality; U.t himself; the poor man scolds the doctor, becomes rich. Usually he sees where exactly Death (spirit, etc.) is near the bed, whether it is going to take his soul, whether the person will recover. U. praises him for his impartiality; U. himself; the poor man scolds the sick man, and on this basis knows what will happen to him. | 49 | 52 |
| H7b In H7 family | Death sticks to a tree or a bench, ATU 330. | A person asks Death (a spirit) to climb a tree or sit on a bench, to which they stick and can only be freed with his permission. | 52 | 56 |
| H7b1 In H7 family | Get into the bag. | Having received a magic bag, into which any creature can be forced against its will at the owner's discretion, a person gains power over Death or devils. | 26 | 33 |
| H7b2 In H7 family | Immortal poverty. | A man named Poverty makes Death swear that it will never come to him. Therefore, poverty is inevitable in the world. | 10 | 16 |
| H7c In H7 family | Unfinished prayer, ATU 1199. | Death promises to take a man after he finishes his prayer or song (formerly ATU 1199B). The man breaks off his prayer (song) in the middle, and Death cannot take him. | 33 | 23 |
| H7c1 In H7 family | The trickster enters paradise. | The trickster first deceives Death (the devil), and then, also by deception, enters paradise. | 16 | 19 |
| H7d In H7 family | Death and a bundle of firewood, ATU 845. | A man calls Death, and when it comes, asks it to help him lift a bundle of firewood or pull a cart with firewood. | 24 | 21 |
| H7e In H7 family | People knew when they would die, ATU 934H(4). | In the past, people knew when they would die, so before their death they stopped doing their work or performed their duties half-heartedly. | 21 | 21 |
| H7f In H7 family | Death asks who is there, ATU 332C*(1). | God gives instructions that certain categories of people must die and suffer. The character who receives the instructions, caring for the people, passes on other orders to the executors. | 6 | 9 |
| H7f1 In H7 family | Death as a devourer. | Death devours the dead and thus satisfies its hunger. | 13 | 10 |
| H7f2 In H7 family | Death becomes invisible. | The character embodying death had a body visible to humans. Then death became invisible. | 14 | 4 |
| H7g In H7 family | Life as a candle. | A person sees many burning candles or lamps. When one of them burns out, someone dies. | 19 | 22 |
| H7g1 In H7 family | Death is more just and richer than God. | A man (usually looking for a godfather for his newborn son) rejects God (the saints) and the devil, but praises Death: it treats everyone without prejudice (or is richer than everyone else). | 22 | 26 |
| h7g2 In h7 family | Escape from death from land to water. | Knowing that Death is approaching, a person hopes that it will seek him on land, so he settles on the surface of the water or under the water. But Death finds him. | 3 | 4 |
| H7h In H7 family | Death follows man. | Despite the warning, man goes to where Death is at that moment. Death enters his body or follows him, and since then, people have been mortal. | 2 | 9 |
| H7i In H7 family | Old Age, Hunger, Illness. | Old Age, Illness, or Hunger are special characters, but Death is not mentioned. | 7 | 9 |
| H8 | Those who did not pass the test. | Unable to bring themselves to touch something unclean, poisonous, dangerous or hot, people lost their immortality (var.: did not receive the blessings that came to Europeans). | 21 | 27 |
| H9 | Strong and fragile. | People are mortal (they get sick and grow old) because they are compared to something weak, fragile, easily subject to destruction or decay (upper Tanana: people have not died out because they are made of durable material rather than ephemeral material). | 66 | 99 |
| H9a In H9 family | Who will give birth first. | Of two women, one of whom is associated with a stone and the other with a plant, only the plant woman leaves offspring, which is why people are what they are (mortal, capable of speech, etc.). Alternatively, children born to two women have opposite characteristics (skilled and unskilled, etc.). | 9 | 9 |
| H9b In H9 family | Children as plant shoots. | People have become like plants, which, although mortal, live on in their descendants (shoots). | 11 | 18 |
| H10 | The sunken stone. | People are mortal, as they are likened to a stone thrown into water; they usually miss the opportunity to resemble organic matter that floats in water. | 29 | 47 |
| 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 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.