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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| k73a5a In k73 family | A baby is replaced by a monkey. | Malicious women replace a newborn baby with a monkey (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a monkey). | 3 | 4 |
| m198b6 In m198 family | A fortune teller named Zhaba (Frog). | An authoritative character asks a person to guess what is in his box. The person says that now he, so-and-so, has been caught, or utters an exclamation. This exclamation or name sounds like "toad" or "frog," and the character believes that the person has a special gift. | 6 | 7 |
| k34a In k34 family | A rival lures a woman onto a swing. | A rival puts a woman on a swing to get rid of her by throwing her into the water. She (almost) drowns or temporarily loses her human form, but manages to return to the world of humans. | 20 | 22 |
| k102c1 In k102 family | A splinter turns into a duck. | The enemy systematically destroys the objects and creatures into which the hero is reincarnated. The hero wins after turning from a splinter into a waterfowl (duck, goose). | 15 | 16 |
| k93b6 In k93 family | A sword grown in the garden. | The fish eaten by the woman gives birth to sons, and what is buried in the garden are objects or items that are further associated with these young men. These are either weapons (swords, sabres, rapiers) or objects whose appearance allows one to judge what is happening to the young men. | 15 | 20 |
| 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 |
| b87d In b87 family | Alcor - infant. | Alcor (a faint star next to the second star of the Big Dipper's handle) – infant. | 9 | 10 |
| m105a1 In m105 family | Allegedly killed children: two birds. | One of two birds, both of which (rarely: only one) are flightless, suggests that the other break its eggs. The other agrees, but then sees that the first has kept its eggs. | 5 | 16 |
| c8aa In c8 family | Brother and sister give birth to humans. | At the beginning of time, or as a result of a catastrophe, the only human couple are a brother and sister. They marry and give birth to people. | 93 | 237 |
| k67i In k67 family | Cows carried in pieces. | The worker is instructed to follow a straight line or overcome the obstacle without breaking it. He kills and cuts up the animals entrusted to him, throws the pieces over the fence or breaks the fence, even though there is a passage nearby. | 8 | 8 |
| k57e In k57 family | Daughter is persuaded to kill her mother. | Due to her naivety or by accident, a young girl causes her mother's death. | 11 | 12 |
| c6h1 In c6 family | Earth was taken from the belly of an invertebrate. | The earth brought from the underworld was found in the belly of a worm or insect, from where it was taken. | 5 | 6 |
| k56a8d In k56 family | Eaten by a boa constrictor. | A girl agrees to become the wife of a snake, which turns into a handsome man. Another girl (or her mother or father) brings the snake to her or offers it to become her husband, but it does not turn into a man and kills her. | 18 | 27 |
| 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 |
| k185 | Father fights son. | Not recognising his son, the father fights him and kills him. {In this formulation, the motif is rare, and in more general ones it has no clear boundaries}. | 14 | 13 |
| j23e In j23 family | Flies through the body of a cannibal. | Wanting to make sure that the enemy is really dead, an insect or bird penetrates its body from one end and exits from the other. | 4 | 4 |
| k33c2 In k33 family | Girl in a pomegranate. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a pomegranate. | 10 | 12 |
| k33c4 In k33 family | Girl in a pumpkin. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a pumpkin, eggplant or cucumber. | 9 | 11 |
| k33c8 In k33 family | Girl in a walnut. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside a nut (walnut or hazelnut, but not coconut). | 4 | 4 |
| k33c5 In k33 family | Girl in an egg. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside an egg. | 5 | 5 |
| 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 |
| k27x6b In k27 family | Greeting addressed to the wind, ATU 298A*. | Upon encountering the sun, moon (frost) and wind, a person greets only the latter. (In progress) | 5 | 4 |
| 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 |
| k27q2 In k27 family | Gusli-samogudy. | The hero is sent to obtain a musical instrument, usually a gusli-samogudy. | 11 | 16 |
| f2a In f2 family | Improper birth. | The child deliberately leaves its mother's womb in an unusual way, making a hole in her body and often killing her. This is a sign of its malice and/or supernatural power. | 12 | 14 |
| h54d In h54 family | Lord of the spirits. | A character whose eyelids (eyelashes, eyebrows) are so heavy that he cannot open his eyes without help, possesses enormous power and is dangerous to heroes and people in general. He is often associated with the underworld or with a bygone era. | 25 | 46 |
| l44a1 In l44 family | Louse- turtle. | A human and a demonic character agree to compare their lice. When the human shows a turtle or a frog, the demon believes that it is scarier and stronger than him. | 13 | 16 |
| l118a1 In l118 family | Man deceives monkey. | A man deliberately performs certain actions in front of a monkey. The monkey imitates him, causing harm to itself. | 5 | 5 |
| b33e2 In b33 family | March breaks the bull's horns. | The severity of the cold in early spring is said to break the horns of large hoofed animals. | 6 | 5 |
| e9j1 In e9 family | Monkeys - ancestors of humans. | Humans are considered descendants of monkeys. | 4 | 4 |
| k33c7 In k33 family | One fruit and a girl inside it. | A young man obtains a fruit from which a girl emerges (rarely: two girls from two fruits, both remain with the young man). There is no episode of the loss of the girls who were in the other fruits. Cf. motif k33c6. | 19 | 23 |
| k33c6 In k33 family | Only one girl survived. | A young man receives several fruits (eggs, reeds). When he opens the first one, the girl who comes out of it disappears, either because the necessary provisions (usually drinking water) have not been prepared for her, or because the fruit has been cut incorrectly. Only the one who comes out of the last fruit (egg, reed) remains. Cf. motif k33c7. | 23 | 44 |
| k18aa In k18 family | Pregnancy from touch. | A girl becomes pregnant without her knowledge through contact with the bodily secretions of a male character or with objects that he has touched (i.e. not as a result of sexual intercourse, not as a result of the simple desire of the father of her future child, and not through mystical contact with a deity). The story ends with the happy union of the girl and the father of her child. | 46 | 52 |
| m187d In m187 family | Race: turtle (toad) - participant. | Participating in a race, the turtle or frog (toad) defeats its faster opponent. See motif M183. | 45 | 22 |
| i41b2 In i41 family | Rainbow from the mouth of an animal. | A rainbow emerges from the mouth of a reptile, amphibian or invertebrate animal. | 8 | 8 |
| j25c In j25 family | Raised by a wolf. | A she-wolf nurses an abandoned infant. He becomes an outstanding leader. | 3 | 4 |
| j4b In j4 family | Revenge within the family. | The children (son, sons, son and daughter) of the murdered person take revenge on characters who are related to the victim by marriage or close kinship. | 63 | 109 |
| m11d In m11 family | Salt from bodily secretions. | The character makes food taste good by adding salt to it. Another character learns that the cook extracts this salt from his own body (it is contained in his bodily secretions). | 8 | 7 |
| c8f In c8 family | Salvation in a drum during the flood. | During the flood, a brother and sister float in a drum. | 6 | 11 |
| c8e In c8 family | Salvation in a pumpkin during the flood. | During the flood or at the beginning of time, people (usually a brother and sister) float in a large gourd. | 21 | 47 |
| k33f1 In k33 family | Source of oil according to a vow. | A person promises to create a source from which a valuable product (most often oil) flows and honestly fulfils their promise (rarely: promises to distribute a large amount of such a product). | 10 | 16 |
| 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 |
| j23f In j23 family | Temporarily incarnated in a human being. | Something inanimate incarnates in a human being to solve people's problems and then returns to its original state. | 3 | 3 |
| b125c In b125 family | The beaver and the muskrat swapped tails. | Previously, the beaver had the same tail as the muskrat now has, and the muskrat had the same tail as the beaver. | 5 | 5 |
| m203b In m203 family | The cat is associated with spirits. | A person learns that a cat familiar to him and living in the human world also belongs to the world of spirits. | 5 | 8 |
| l15h4 In l15 family | The character's soul in a needle. | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final container of the soul is a needle, which the hero breaks. | 5 | 6 |
| m195c In m195 family | The clever or lucky person solves riddles. | People of high status cannot determine the hidden difference between two or more outwardly similar objects or beings, or between two sides of the same object or being. Thanks to their own intelligence or chance, a person of low status does so. | 39 | 53 |
| k135a In k135 family | The coward put out the door. | The coward or lazybones has become so tiresome to his family that they leave him outside. He sets off on a journey and defeats powerful enemies, thanks to chance or cunning. | 15 | 21 |
| k32g2 In k32 family | The daughter's meat is sent to her mother. | An authoritative character marries, and an evil woman replaces her with her daughter. After the false wife is exposed and executed, the woman receives cooked meat as a gift, not immediately realising that it is her daughter's body parts. | 17 | 18 |
| i50a1 In i50 family | The dog's severed legs. | The character sequentially tears off the dog's legs, but the dog continues to do what it considers necessary. | 3 | 3 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.