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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I87ac In I87 family | A bone in the eye. | Something huge gets into a person's eye, which he mistakes for a speck of dust. Usually, a bird carries away an animal or fish and drops a bone into the man's eye. It is difficult to find and remove (to do this, they get into a boat and float it inside the eye, throw a net into the eye, pull it out with oxen, etc.). | 17 | 29 |
| I87ad In I87 family | Hidden in a tooth cavity. | A giant hides a persecuted person in his mouth – usually (perhaps always) in a tooth cavity; or the person remains alive in the giant's mouth, hiding in a tooth cavity. Cf. motif M21a. | 11 | 10 |
| I87b In I87 family | The braggart meets the strongest, ATU 650B. | When a character boasts of his strength, his wife or mother says that there is someone stronger than him. He sets off in search and meets a character who is much stronger than him. {ATU gives a definition of the plot (or rather, the first half of it) similar to ours, but some of the references given refer to our motif i87a, not i87b}. | 32 | 50 |
| I87c In I87 family | The mitten house, ATU 283B. | Animals use a small object belonging to the human world (skull, mitten, jug, etc.) for shelter or transportation. Cf. motif I87: characters use an object (skull, animal shoulder blade, mitten) belonging to the world of giants as a shelter. | 19 | 39 |
| I87c1 In I87 family | Mouse in a boat. | A mouse makes itself a boat out of a small object. | 8 | 8 |
| I87d In I87 family | People in the time of giants, ATU 701. | In the past, giants inhabited the earth. One of them finds a tiny human being and brings him to his father or mother. They usually say that such people will replace the current giants. | 25 | 35 |
| I87e In I87 family | Dwarves after humans. | After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. | 7 | 7 |
| I87f In I87 family | Suicide of the Narts. | Before modern humans, there lived others who differed in strength, height, nobility, or other qualities. They disappeared after committing suicide. | 9 | 7 |
| I88 | The multi-tailed beast. | Describes a creature with several tails. | 13 | 16 |
| I89 | The lost caravan. | There is a star that brings death and misfortune; it is usually told how people mistake a star or constellation rising at night for the Morning Star, set off on a journey and lose their way. | 27 | 39 |
| I90 | Behind the rolling ball. | The character goes towards their goal, following a rolling ball of thread (less often an apple or a ball). | 52 | 81 |
| I91 | A body of water at the foot of a tree. | At the foot or around the base of a tree connecting the tiers of the universe or of gigantic size and considered the main tree of the world, there is a spring or water body, the water of which usually has unusual properties. | 17 | 18 |
| I92 | The rainbow changes gender. | A person who has come into contact with a rainbow in a certain way (walked under it, drunk water where the rainbow drinks, etc.) changes their gender. | 41 | 56 |
| I92a In I92 family | Jumping over the rainbow. | A person who jumps or steps over a rainbow changes their gender. | 9 | 10 |
| I92b In I92 family | Treasures under the rainbow. | Where the ends of the rainbow reach the ground, there is treasure. | 16 | 23 |
| I93 | The Milky Way – the backbone of the sky. | The Milky Way – the backbone, support, pillar of the sky or world. | 26 | 20 |
| I93A In I93 family | The Milky Way – the heavenly tail. | The Milky Way is the tail of a creature that is being pulled by its tail. | 2 | 2 |
| I94 | Pleiades – holes. | The Pleiades are something holey. | 40 | 52 |
| I95 | The Pleiades – a sieve for grain. | The Pleiades are a sieve or riddle for sifting agricultural products. See motif I95. | 29 | 45 |
| I95a In I95 family | Orion – scales. | Orion (probably always Orion's Belt) is Libra. | 19 | 21 |
| I95b In I95 family | Orion – the balance beam. | Orion is a yoke. | 15 | 18 |
| I95c In I95 family | Orion – staff. | Orion's belt – staff, stick, three sticks, rod, crutch, etc. | 24 | 21 |
| I96 | The bloody rainbow. | A rainbow consisting of blood either heralds war and death. | 15 | 20 |
| I97 | Rainbow horse. | Rainbow – hoofed animal (horse, bull, goat, sheep). | 24 | 24 |
| I98a In I98 family | The Pleiades – a hen with chicks. | The Pleiades (in Tajikistan – Giady) – hen, brooding hen with chicks, chicks, rarely – rooster. | 58 | 107 |
| I98b In I98 family | The Pleiades – a duck's nest. | The Pleiades – ducks, nest or wild duck egg. | 10 | 16 |
| I98C In I98 family | Pleiades – a flock of birds. | The Pleiades - a flock of (flying) birds. | 11 | 10 |
| I99 | The Pleiades – boys or men. | The Pleiades – a group of boys, young men, men or people of different genders, but predominantly male. | 90 | 129 |
| I100 | Pleiades – girls, young women, women. | Pleiades – a group of girls or women (with children). | 96 | 127 |
| I100a In I100 family | Pleiades – family. | The Pleiades – a woman or man with children, members of the same family. | 25 | 33 |
| I100b In I100 family | Pleiades - people. | The Pleiades - a group of people of any gender and age. See motifs i99 - i100A, aggregate data. | 1 | 1 |
| I100c In I100 family | The Pleiades and the Cuckoo. | God turned the husband into a cuckoo, and the wife and children into the Pleiades. | 3 | 4 |
| I100d In I100 family | Stars – kids. | Stars are associated with kids. | 8 | 7 |
| I101 | The Great Bear – stakes. | The Big Dipper or several bright stars of another constellation are stakes, pillars supporting a platform, or some object is stretched, dried, or stored on these stakes. | 19 | 41 |
| I102 | The Milky Way – a tree. | The Milky Way – a tree, the trace of a tree. | 12 | 14 |
| I103 | Dog Star. | Sirius is associated with a dog or a wolf. | 29 | 47 |
| I104 | Stars - fragments. | Stars are formed from particles of the body, fragments of a larger celestial body (usually the moon); stars (usually also the sun and moon) are formed from the body of a single being. | 43 | 66 |
| I105 | Hand in the sky. | One of the constellations is associated with the hand (with five marked fingers). | 21 | 23 |
| I106 | The Great Bear is a single character. | The Great Bear is one anthropomorphic character, not a group of people. | 26 | 31 |
| I107 | Stars – nails. | Stars are nails or stakes driven into the sky, or stars are nailed down. | 12 | 14 |
| I108 | The Pleiades – a single character. | The Pleiades are a single character, not a group of people. | 76 | 91 |
| I109 | The Milky Way – the road of the heavenly bodies. | The Milky Way – the road along which the Sun and Moon travel. | 4 | 4 |
| I110 | Heavenly farmers. | Constellations are associated with agricultural tools or with people engaged in agricultural work (most often ploughing and haymaking). See motifs I110A (plough), I110B (haymaking). | 61 | 119 |
| I110a In I110 family | Star Plough. | Orion (rarely - another constellation) - plough. | 45 | 56 |
| I110b In I110 family | Orion – reapers. | Orion – people or agricultural tools associated with harvesting or haymaking. | 29 | 62 |
| I111 | Reptilian Earth. | The earth as a whole or a mountain range is the body of a crocodile, dragon, or snake (eel). | 11 | 16 |
| I112 | Monster boat. | The boat is a living creature with a mouth, a fish. | 15 | 20 |
| I113 | The piglet – the golden bristle, (ATU 530A). | A pig or boar made of gold or with golden bristles is a precious object. (In ATU, "a pig with golden bristles" is one of the possible miraculous objects; the presence of a corresponding number in regional indexes does not necessarily mean the presence of an image; only cases where the image is directly named are taken into account). | 15 | 28 |
| I114 | The Golden Fleece. | Describes a ram or sheep with golden wool or the skin of such a ram. | 11 | 17 |
| I115 | Orion and the Pleiades. | Orion and the Pleiades appear in the same story. | 62 | 73 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.