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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L72j In L72 family | A needle (awl) turns into many needles (awls). | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him an awl or needle, which turns into many awls or needles. | 11 | 11 |
| L72k In L72 family | A discarded bottle of oil. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws a jar of oil behind him. Spilling out, it turns into a lake or river. (Only North American materials are taken into account. In the Old World, the motif is rare and unsystematic. In North America, it most likely refers to hair oil in all cases). | 7 | 12 |
| L73 | Drink the river! G522 | Trying to drink a river, lake, or sea, the antagonist bursts. | 61 | 90 |
| L73a In L73 family | Darkness behind, light ahead. | The fugitives make sure that darkness spreads behind them, hindering their pursuers (while light pours in front of them). | 11 | 10 |
| l73a1 In l73 family | The fugitive creates fog. | Throwing some object behind him, the fleeing character creates fog or darkness in the path of his pursuer. | 22 | 21 |
| L73b In L73 family | A line drawn. | The fugitive draws a line on the ground (ice), creating an obstacle in the path of the pursuer. | 7 | 11 |
| L73c In L73 family | The scarf opens and closes the way. | By waving a piece of cloth (towel, scarf, item of clothing) or throwing it, placing it on water, etc., the character creates obstacles (in the path of the pursuer) or a means of overcoming them (bridge, etc.). | 35 | 62 |
| L74 | The Returned Hand. | A bear or other powerful character tears off and carries away another character's hand. A third character steals the hand and returns it to the one from whom it was torn off. | 11 | 17 |
| L74a In L74 family | Hanged over the hearth. | The enemy carries the hero away or tears off and carries away part of his body, after which he hangs his victim or part of his body (usually over a fire) in order to cause the victim torment. Another character rescues the hero himself or returns the stolen part of his body to him. | 13 | 15 |
| L75 | Flint kills his mother at birth. | One of two brothers is the embodiment of evil; at birth, he cuts open his mother's body, killing her. | 16 | 20 |
| L76 | Severed testicles. | When a female cannibal attacks a man, she devours or tears off his testicles. | 3 | 7 |
| L77 | The girl seems like a pineapple. | The character devours people because he sees them as a delicacy. | 9 | 12 |
| L78 | Toad-jaguar. | In the images, the character has the features of a jaguar and a toad; the toad/frog turns into a jaguar; the toad/frog is the mother or wife of the jaguar. | 21 | 22 |
| L79 | Two wives: a girl and a monster. | The girl marries a powerful, benevolent character; his first wife is a monster; he kills her or is satisfied that she has been killed by his new wife. | 16 | 22 |
| L80 | Drop of blood. | A demonic creature or animal is killed, but comes back to life or can come back to life if even a small piece of its flesh or blood is left behind, unnoticed. | 16 | 22 |
| L81 | Demon's fire. | A man who goes in search of fire finds it with a demon. The demon pursues the man, harms him, and kills him. Traditions in which there is only a story about men who are promised fire for a fairy tale (a tall tale) are marked with an asterisk*. | 128 | 208 |
| L81a In L81 family | The cat extinguishes the fire. | A girl offends a cat (rarely: a dog, a rooster) and the cat takes revenge by causing misfortune to befall the girl (usually by extinguishing the fire, after which the girl falls into the hands of a demon). | 22 | 33 |
| L81a1 In L81 family | Red bead in the hearth. | Noticing a red bead (pebble) that has fallen into the hearth, the character thinks it is a coal and does not understand that the fire in the hearth has gone out. | 5 | 5 |
| L81a2 In L81 family | The demon comes to drink the girl's blood (ATU 709A). | While the men are away, a demonic character comes to a girl or woman to drink her blood or otherwise torment her. The men notice that the girl is wasting away, but at first they do not know the reason. | 42 | 50 |
| L81a3 In L81 family | Demon with a golden spoon. | A girl sees a demon in a frightening and repulsive form. When he asks her what she said about him (what she saw), the girl replies that she praised his beauty and manners (she saw him in an attractive form). Usually, the girl eventually tells the truth, and the men hiding in ambush kill the enraged demon. | 8 | 14 |
| L81b In L81 family | The hero's severed legs. | The hero's rivals abandon him, cutting off his legs (usually leaving a sword at the entrance to his tent, and when the hero rushes out, the blade wounds him). | 22 | 32 |
| L81c In L81 family | The legless, the blind, and the armless. | The legless man lives together with the blind and armless man (or with one of the two). By working together, they are healed. | 28 | 37 |
| L81d In L81 family | After fighting, the cripples recovered. | Two cripples with different physical disabilities quarrel and fight, and as a result become whole and healthy. | 10 | 9 |
| L82 | Burns his leg in a fire. | A person deliberately or accidentally burns his foot in a fire or burns himself completely; he turns into a demonic creature. See motif L9 (man with a sharp foot). | 16 | 24 |
| L83 | An incomplete body turns into lightning/thunder. | A character who has only a head left (motif L5) or who has burned his leg (motif L82) turns into lightning/thunder (or emits lightning/thunderclaps). | 7 | 8 |
| L84 | Unsuitable axes. | The character attempts to chop down a tree with an axe made of obviously unsuitable material. Cf. motif K27g5. | 16 | 17 |
| L85 | Half-creatures, F525. | The character has only half a body (vertically). See also L85C, "Half-chicken". | 124 | 243 |
| L85a In L85 family | The half-child. | The character is born as half a person or becomes one as a result of an accident. He or she does not belong to a special category of mythical half-beings and usually regains physical completeness. See motif L85, cf. motif L112. | 41 | 32 |
| L85b In L85 family | A woman who has offended a god gives birth to a freak. | A pregnant woman curses the Sun, Rain or another powerful character. Because of this, the child is born physically disabled. He possesses magical powers and usually acquires a normal body. | 11 | 12 |
| L85b1 In L85 family | Ascending to heaven, he regains his physical wholeness. | After ascending to the sky (meeting God, returning from the sky to earth), a physically disabled young man (usually with only half a body) becomes whole. | 16 | 20 |
| L85c In L85 family | Polukurochka, B171.1, ATU 715. | A character with half a body – a hen, a chick. Sometimes it is only a name, and the character's appearance is more anthropomorphic. | 23 | 28 |
| L85d In L85 family | Without arms and legs: the crippled ploughman. | The hero encounters a giant and a strongman (usually a ploughman) with one arm, one leg, or one eye. He was crippled by a character who turned out to be much bigger and stronger than him. | 9 | 13 |
| L85e In L85 family | Temporarily splits in two. | The character is temporarily split vertically into two halves and then rejoined. | 2 | 3 |
| L85F In L85 family | One-legged. | The character has only one leg (and one arm), which does not prevent him from moving. Unlike motif L85 (half-creatures), the character has a complete body, not divided in half vertically. | 39 | 43 |
| L86 | Children run away from their demon mother. | Having turned into a demon, a woman pursues her children. Cf. motif K102a2: A mother seeks to destroy her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair and/or sides with his father in a conflict between his parents. | 26 | 38 |
| L87 | He who has tasted blood becomes a cannibal. | A character accidentally tastes blood or human flesh, after which he devours himself and/or others. | 31 | 31 |
| L88 | The demon comes to life from touch. | A man kills a demon, but when he touches its remains some time later, it comes to life. | 8 | 11 |
| L89 | One secretly feeds another. | One person, wishing to harm another, secretly gives him certain food to eat or a certain object to use. As a result, the other person dies (usually undergoing a metamorphosis). Cf. motif K82a. | 18 | 16 |
| L90 | Mouth to the sky. | One lip (one fang, horn, etc.) of the creature reaches the sky, while the other drags along the ground. | 61 | 103 |
| L90a In L90 family | A hut on chicken legs. | Describes a house that stands on the legs or a single leg of a bird or small animal and/or rotates (is capable of turning). | 23 | 70 |
| L90b In L90 family | Fangs reaching the sky and the earth. | One tooth (fang) of the creature touches the sky, the other reaches the earth or the underworld. | 6 | 14 |
| L90c In L90 family | Horns reaching the sky and the earth. | One horn of an animal (deer, ram, bull, goat, wolverine) touches the ground, while the other is raised to the sky or reaches the sky. | 8 | 8 |
| L90d In L90 family | Lips nailed to the sky and the earth. | The hero attaches the upper lip (jaw) of the monster to the sky, and the lower lip to the earth. | 4 | 3 |
| L90E In L90 family | Heads on stakes. | Human heads are impaled on stakes outside the house of a dangerous character, and one head is missing (or there is a wall of heads, with one missing). It is assumed that the head of the hero of the story should be there. | 26 | 30 |
| L91 | The Long Serpent. | Two or four young men go on a journey or return from one. Their path is blocked by a long creature that cannot be bypassed. They burn a passage through it. One eats roasted meat, turns into a snake himself, or dies. See motif L28. | 7 | 1 |
| L92 | Imaginary help to a cannibal. | A demon, a cannibal, chops down a tree or rock on top of which the hero has climbed. Another character offers the cannibal a rest and takes over the chopping, but only spoils his work or (among the Athapaskans) kills him as soon as the cannibal hands him his axe. (African variants are clearly borrowed from Eurasia). | 30 | 48 |
| L93 | The discarded axe. | A demon, a man-eater, chops down a tree or a rock on top of which the hero is hiding. While he is resting, the animal throws his axe into the water, carries it away or damages it. See motif L92. | 17 | 7 |
| L93a In L93 family | The fox as helper. | The fox, jackal or coyote, resorting to cunning, helps the hero, heroine or people in general, saving them. | 162 | 324 |
| L93b In L93 family | The hare as helper. | The hare or rabbit, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saving them. | 30 | 53 |
| L93c In L93 family | The monkey helper. | The monkey, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saves them. | 13 | 11 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.