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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I69 | Heavenly excrement. | Luminous celestial objects or atmospheric phenomena are bodily secretions of celestial beings. | 55 | 38 |
| I70 | Reptile with trees on its back. | Trees or reeds grow on the back or head of a reptile. | 6 | 9 |
| I71 | Stars – roots. | Stars – roots of plants growing in the upper world. | 17 | 23 |
| I72 | Stars – people. | Stars – anthropomorphic beings. See motif K19 (marriage to a star). Cases where the Star is a unique object, e.g. Venus, rather than one of many Star-people, are not included. | 239 | 278 |
| I72a In I72 family | Stars – children of the moon, A764.1.3. | Stars – children of the moon and/or sun. | 66 | 79 |
| I73 | Stars – sparks. | Stars (rarely suns and moons) – sparks, hot coals. | 17 | 21 |
| I74 | Stars – stones. | Stars – (bright) stones, sequins, beads. | 31 | 34 |
| I74a In I74 family | Stars – fireflies. | Stars – fireflies. | 9 | 9 |
| I75 | Previous worlds. | Before the emergence of the present world or present humans, there were others (at least two worlds or races). | 31 | 68 |
| I76a In I76 family | The snake becomes a dragon. | After a certain period of time, a snake or fish transforms into another creature, usually a dragon. | 35 | 50 |
| I76b In I76 family | A mouse becomes a bat. | After a certain amount of time or after performing certain actions, an ordinary mouse turns into a bat. | 13 | 13 |
| I77 | The lame thunderer. | A powerful character associated with thunderstorms and rain, lame. | 14 | 13 |
| I78 | Square Earth. | The earth is thought of as rectangular (usually square). | 60 | 71 |
| I79 | Kirtimukha. | The monster is beheaded or deprived of its body. Its head is depicted on temples and vessels (narrative texts and/or iconography). | 1 | 1 |
| 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 |
| I80 | The thunderbolt's apprentice. | A character who finds himself in the locus of a deity responsible for atmospheric phenomena violates certain prohibitions or instructions, thereby causing excessively strong thunderstorms, rain, snowfall or wind. | 36 | 51 |
| I80a In I80 family | Junior Thunder. | Upon meeting the Thunders, a person becomes one of them. | 12 | 14 |
| I80b In I80 family | The forgotten wind, ATU 752B. | Man is allowed to control the weather in his own interests. He sends rain at the right time, but cannot take all factors into account (he usually forgets about the wind). The bread will not grow or will be unpalatable. | 23 | 8 |
| I81 | Waters fall into the abyss. | Earthly waters fall into the abyss. | 26 | 29 |
| I81a In I81 family | Chthonic crab. | The giant crab causes earthquakes or floods, closes or can close the water outlet. | 14 | 22 |
| I81a1 In I81 family | Crab and snake. | The struggle between the crab and the snake (eel) determines the features of the relief of a particular area or has cosmic proportions. | 5 | 6 |
| I81b In I81 family | Charybdis (ebb and flow). | During high tide, a certain creature spews seawater or displaces it with its body, and during low tide, it swallows the water or makes room for it (or it is simply reported that the water is either spewed or recedes). | 14 | 15 |
| I82a In I82 family | Male Venus. | The Morning and/or Evening Star – a male character. | 148 | 218 |
| I82b In I82 family | Venus-woman. | The Morning and/or Evening Star – a female character. | 170 | 234 |
| I82c In I82 family | Wife of the Moon. | Venus or an unidentified star in the eastern and/or western sky – the wife of the Moon. See motif I82b. | 63 | 78 |
| I82c1 In I82 family | The Moon's two wives. | The Moon has two wives (usually the Morning Star and the Evening Star). With the caring one, he grows fat, with the other, he starves and grows thin. | 8 | 7 |
| I82d In I82 family | Morning and Evening Stars – Man and Woman. | The Morning and Evening Stars are contrasted as man and woman. See motifs I82a, I82b. | 32 | 29 |
| I82e In I82 family | The star that sold its mother. | It is said that Venus or another star sold her mother or father in order to adorn herself luxuriously and dress up. | 3 | 8 |
| I82f In I82 family | Venus – Wolf Star. | (Evening) Venus is associated with a predatory beast, usually a she-wolf. | 13 | 18 |
| I82g In I82 family | Venus – Shepherd's Star. | Venus or another star (Arcturus, Sirius, etc.) is called the Shepherd's Star (the star of the Shepherd, Sheepherder, Cowherd, Swineherd, etc.). | 21 | 20 |
| 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 |
| I82i In I82 family | Venus – Zahra/Zura. | The name of the object in the night sky (usually Venus) sounds like Zukhra, Zahra, Zura, etc. | 25 | 29 |
| I82j In I82 family | Venus – husband of the Moon. | Venus-man or another star is the husband of the Moon-woman. See motif I82a. | 3 | 3 |
| I83 | The sky of birds. | Birds (especially vultures and eagles) lived or live in the sky, usually on one of several tiers of the upper world. | 64 | 107 |
| I84 | The Milky Way – a ski trail. | The Milky Way – ski tracks. | 31 | 68 |
| I84a In I84 family | The frozen son of a god. | Contrary to the warning of his father or mother, a young man or woman sets off on a journey in winter and freezes to death. Cf. motif B33A ("Frozen in Spring"). | 10 | 16 |
| I85 | The Polar Star – a stake or a nail. | Polar Star – stake, nail, hitching post, etc. | 77 | 108 |
| I85a In I85 family | Animals around the North Star. | Animals walk around the North Star, or the movement of the stars is compared to the movement of animals around a pole. See motif I85. | 23 | 25 |
| I85a1 In I85 family | The North Star – a hole in the sky. | The North Star – a hole leading to the upper world. | 14 | 13 |
| I85b In I85 family | The North Star – Man. | The North Star – one person. | 31 | 35 |
| I85c In I85 family | Vessels with weather. | The character goes up to the sky and finds vessels containing various (two or more) types of precipitation, weather phenomena, seasons and/or celestial bodies. | 18 | 20 |
| I85c1 In I85 family | Heavenly vessel for rain, A1131.4, A1131.4.1. | In the sky there is a vessel, a box or an indescribable container for storing rain (rain clouds). | 38 | 47 |
| I86 | Down in birds, scales in fish. | The inhabitants of the upper world produce down, wool, and scales, which turn into birds, animals, and fish. | 18 | 16 |
| I86a In I86 family | Down turns into snow. | Snow arises from bird down when a bird shakes itself in the sky or when a character shakes out down or fur clothing, plucks birds, etc. | 21 | 24 |
| I87 | Skull cave. | The characters use an object belonging to the world of giants (a skull, an animal shoulder blade, a mitten) as a shelter. Cf. I87C: animals use an object belonging to the world of humans (a skull, a mitten, a sieve, etc.) as a shelter. | 19 | 29 |
| 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 |
| I87a1 In I87 family | Small or large – dialogue. | Two people engage in a dialogue, contradicting each other in their descriptions of the sizes of creatures and objects. | 19 | 27 |
| I87a2 In I87 family | What are two? Dialogue, ATU (812*), 2010, H602.1.1., †H602.1.1. | The antagonist names numbers from one to 7, 12, etc., the hero answers what each number corresponds to, and the antagonist is unable to refute him. | 53 | 62 |
| I87aa In I87 family | The Great Bull, ATU 1960A. | Describes a giant bull (rarely: horse): head in one field, body in another; a bathhouse on its tail, a lake on its back; people standing at its head and tail have to walk a long way to meet each other; etc. Usually the bull is killed and eaten (by people in Baltic-Finnish traditions and in Olonets antiquity; by birds in most southern traditions). | 28 | 50 |
| I87ab In I87 family | Only a child can move it. | Strong men or a crowd of people cannot move the body of a dead animal or the leg of a motionless person, but a child or a woman can do it easily. Cf. motif B83. | 15 | 24 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.