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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K76b In K76 family | Son-snake and husband-snake. | The son or foster son of snake spouses. He turns into a human. The snake is the princess's magical spouse, lost and returned. | 69 | 89 |
| K76c In K76 family | Pumpkin child. | The son (rarely – daughter) or foster child of a married couple emerges from a pumpkin (rarely: watermelon, nut) or is found inside it. | 20 | 22 |
| k76c1 In k76 family | A woman gave birth to a pumpkin. | A woman gives birth to a pumpkin, inside which there is a person (many people) or which turns into a person. | 22 | 23 |
| K76d In K76 family | The Hedgehog Son, ATU 441. | The son or foster child of a married couple is a hedgehog. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. | 13 | 12 |
| K76e In K76 family | Son (daughter) as a piglet. | The son (daughter) or foster child of a married couple is a pig. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man (she marries a handsome man). | 19 | 23 |
| K76f In K76 family | The calf-boy. | A young man with the appearance of a calf marries and then turns into a handsome man. | 9 | 8 |
| K76g In K76 family | The crab son. | The son or foster son of a married couple – a crab. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. | 8 | 11 |
| K76h In K76 family | The magical groom threatens disaster. | A young man, temporarily having a strange or monstrous appearance (freak, animal, etc.), woos a princess, but is rejected. Then he causes natural disasters or creates personal troubles for the king, who is forced to give up his daughter. | 10 | 13 |
| 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 |
| K77b In K77 family | Bremen Town Musicians, ATU 130. | Having left their owners, domestic animals find an empty house or build a house. Robbers or predatory animals come there. Domestic animals attack or simply scare them away. Predators do not understand who they are facing and flee. | 75 | 74 |
| K77b1 In K77 family | Wolf's Head, ATU 125. | When they see predators, domestic animals consciously or accidentally behave in such a way that the predators flee in fear. | 59 | 65 |
| K77b2 In K77 family | Weapons of the goat. | The goat (goat, ram, etc.) responds to the predator's questions in the sense that parts of its body are weapons and other objects designed to kill the questioner, or that the goat is actually armed. | 26 | 39 |
| K77b3 In K77 family | The goat with three bellies. | Goats encounter a wolf. One goat has one stomach, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. The goat with the most stomachs kills or scares away the wolf. | 5 | 7 |
| K77c In K77 family | Those hiding in the house frighten the enemy. | Various objects and/or animals hide in the house where a strong enemy is expected to appear. They take turns attacking or frightening him, and he either dies or flees. See motifs K77a and K77b. | 0 | 0 |
| K78 | Swallowed, extracted from the little finger. | The cannibal swallows people. When he is killed, it turns out that they are not in his belly or that they are dead there. They are found alive not in the belly, but in the cannibal's finger, or there is a means of reviving them in the little finger, or the cannibal's finger must be cut or severed to find the people. | 37 | 53 |
| K78a In K78 family | Swallows and heals. | A demonic character swallows cripples and regurgitates them healthy and beautiful. | 16 | 24 |
| K79 | The snake shows how to recover. | Finding himself in a helpless situation, a man sees how a small animal finds a cure for itself or another animal. The man uses the same cure, saves himself or saves another. | 88 | 101 |
| K80 | The indestructible woman. | The character transforms into objects or creatures, which another character systematically destroys. However, the character (usually a young woman) is reborn each time in a new form and eventually in her original form. | 106 | 174 |
| K80a In K80 family | A bird or object tells of a crime, ATU 720, 780, 780B. | An object or creature that has emerged from the remains, jewellery, etc. of the murdered person tells about the murder, exposing the criminal. The East Slavic texts in this section were mainly provided by K.Y. Rakhno. | 87 | 194 |
| K80a1 In K80 family | The bird tells of the crime. | A bird (usually arising from the remains of the murdered person or embodying their soul) tells of the crime committed or takes revenge on the murderer itself. | 45 | 55 |
| K80a2 In K80 family | The pipe tells of a crime, ATU 780. | A part of the victim's body or a plant that grew at the site of the murder tells people about the crime that was committed, usually after it has been made into a musical instrument. | 54 | 127 |
| K80a3 In K80 family | To the forest for berries. | Members of the same family (girls, young women or children) go to the forest to pick berries and kill (bewitch) the one who is the object of their envy. | 12 | 43 |
| K80a4 In K80 family | Hair turns into grass, (ATU 780A). | The hair on a character's head turns into grass (thorns, bamboo, bushes). | 20 | 23 |
| K80a5 In K80 family | The boar and the fratricides. | Brothers, competing as suitors or heirs, must hunt a boar. The younger brother succeeds. The older brothers kill him and take the boar for themselves. The truth comes out. | 8 | 20 |
| k80a6 In k80 family | Talking pipe made from a plant that grew there. | A musical instrument is made from a plant that grew where the character was killed (fell, touched the ground). When played, it produces a text with a specific meaning. | 33 | 100 |
| K80b In K80 family | Mother killed, father ate, ATU 720. | The mother or stepmother kills the boy (rarely a girl) and usually feeds her husband, i.e. the child's father, his flesh. The boy is reborn, usually (at first) in the form of a bird that tells the story of what happened. Cf. motif K80A. Traditions in which the boy is killed by his own mother are highlighted in bold. | 59 | 67 |
| k80bb In k80 family | Grown from the remains of the slain. | A boy is killed and eaten. His sister gathers his remains, from which a tree grows, and on it – the dead boy, often in the form of a bird. | 3 | 4 |
| K80c In K80 family | Ivico's cranes, ATU 960, 960A. | Before dying, the murderer's victim turns to birds (stars, animals, plants, etc.). Later, seeing these birds (the moon, the sun, this plant, etc.), the murderer recalls his deed aloud or otherwise gives himself away. Or the birds, being the only witnesses to the crime, lead the investigators to the murderers. | 49 | 45 |
| K80c1 In K80 family | Melon and severed head, ATU 780C. | Someone brings meat or fruit to another person or keeps it for themselves. At the decisive moment, the food turns into the remains of a (supposedly) murdered person. The owner is executed or is about to be executed. Cf. motif K168A. | 24 | 19 |
| K80c2 In K80 family | Those who find treasure kill each other, ATU 763. | Two (or more) people find (steal) valuables. Unwilling to share, one kills the other, but dies himself, poisoned by the poison that the victim manages to slip into his food. | 53 | 33 |
| K80c3 In K80 family | A name helps solve a murder. | Before his death, a man asks his murderer to tell his pregnant wife to give their newborn a certain name. Upon hearing the unusual name of the child, a powerful figure begins to investigate the case, and the murderer confesses to his crime. (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c) | 9 | 9 |
| K80c4 In K80 family | Silent witnesses to crime, ATU 960, 960A. | In a deserted place, one person kills another. After some time, he is exposed thanks to facts and circumstances that do not seem important and do not directly tell about the crime (the victim's last words; objects or living beings that were or appeared at the scene of the murder). (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c). | 56 | 57 |
| K80d In K80 family | The stuck pin. | A young woman or man is enchanted (turned into a bird, animal, immobilised) when a pin or other sharp object is stuck into their body. | 52 | 91 |
| K81 | Bezruchka, ATU 706. | For a minor offence or on false charges, a young woman is maimed and expelled from her home (rarely: she is killed or maims herself). The cripple miraculously recovers (the dead woman is resurrected). | 103 | 126 |
| K81a In K81 family | Bezrucha in the prince's garden. | A girl with severed hands comes to a fruit tree (garden) to find food. Seeing her there, the prince takes her as his wife. | 19 | 22 |
| K82 | The evil sister-in-law. | A man's wife or another woman tries to destroy his sister. | 68 | 97 |
| K82a In K82 family | Pregnancy from snake eggs. | A malevolent woman forces a woman to swallow a snake egg (snake, something else) so that a man will think that the woman is pregnant out of wedlock (rarely: so that snakes will suck the juices out of her). Cf. motif L89. | 22 | 30 |
| 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 |
| K83a In K83 family | Where the father did not go. | To fulfil the task, the character's sons must travel to a place where he has never been (or once was). | 15 | 19 |
| K84 | Sisters married to animals, ATU 552.1. | A young man gives his sisters to the first ones who come to woo them (less often, unknown creatures kidnap the sisters one by one, demanding a ransom for them). These are animals or demons, which then usually help him. | 79 | 121 |
| k84a In k84 family | Give to the first person who asks. | On his deathbed, a father instructs his son, without specifying any conditions, to give his sister (sisters) to whoever comes for her. | 25 | 42 |
| K85 | Horse brothers. | The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. | 29 | 51 |
| K85a In K85 family | The horse-thought and the horse-wind. | When assessing the speed of a horse, the speed of thought (lightning, or something else) and wind are compared. | 12 | 14 |
| K85b In K85 family | Three-legged horse. | The three-legged horse is distinguished by its strength and speed, and is ridden by a rider of non-human nature. | 21 | 31 |
| K85c In K85 family | Four legs are faster than three. | A three-legged horse is strong and fast, but its four-legged brother is faster. | 12 | 11 |
| K85d In K85 family | A horse whose skin cannot be bitten through. | Covered with skins (coated with resin and sprinkled with sand, etc.), the mighty horse becomes invulnerable to the bites of other horses. | 19 | 28 |
| K85e In K85 family | Sea horses. | Magical horses live in water. | 33 | 43 |
| K86 | The Crying Child. | A small (usually capricious) child is ignored, sent away from home, abandoned on the road, or given to another person for a time. As a result, the child is carried away by an animal or a spirit. | 71 | 83 |
| K87 | Marriage to an animal ends badly. | A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rarely another non-human creature). The husband takes care of her, but the marriage ends with the murder of the husband, the woman, their offspring, the woman's relatives, the transformation of the woman herself into an animal, leading to hostility between humans and animals, etc. | 47 | 78 |
| K87a In K87 family | The stolen boy. | A forest woman receives or kidnaps a little boy and raises him to be her lover. | 15 | 10 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.