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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F19 | Dangerous relationship with a frog. | After copulating with a frog, a man's penis is crippled (unless otherwise stated: it becomes long, see motif F18A). | 11 | 16 |
| K34 | Dangerous swings, K855. | The character puts others on the swing and, after swinging them, throws them (or threatens to throw them) into the water, onto rocks, etc. | 61 | 87 |
| K100e In K100 family | Dangerous tales. | Fairy tales act as separate characters: they usually try to harm people, believing that a certain person does not treat them with due respect. Cf. motif L94d, "The Tale with a Tail". | 17 | 16 |
| I34 | Dangerous tree. | It is necessary to approach a tree that is surrounded by fire, spews fire, throws sharp splinters, etc. | 10 | 10 |
| F9 | Dangerous woman. | For various reasons, sexual intercourse with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man, or so it seems to him: Teeth, blades or sharp stones in the vagina or on the inside of the thighs; the vagina is a toothy mouth. See motif F9A. | 62 | 66 |
| I26 | Dangers on the path of souls. | On its way to the other world, the soul must distract its guardians with gifts or defend itself from attack. | 21 | 20 |
| A16 | Dangers on the path of the sun. | Every night, the sun passes by creatures or objects that try to swallow or destroy it. | 33 | 37 |
| 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 |
| F70e1 In F70 family | Daughter in the role of son, AT 884B. | An old man needs a son to do men's work. (Only the youngest) daughter takes on this task (successfully passing the test set by her father), pretending to be a man. | 38 | 42 |
| B33d1 In B33 family | Days of the week – (demonic) characters. | In narrative folklore, the days of the week (most often Friday and Wednesday) are special (female) characters with a more or less pronounced demonic nature. | 14 | 30 |
| J25b In J25 family | Dead mother brings food to her child. | A pregnant woman dies and is buried. Her spirit leaves the grave to bring food to the child. The child is found and grows up. | 3 | 2 |
| K49 | Dead mother nursing a baby, E323.1. | A woman who has been transformed into an animal or found herself outside the human world returns to her child to feed and care for it. Cf. motif K33. | 73 | 81 |
| K102a3 In K102 family | Dead tooth. | Someone (usually a woman) places a poisonous tooth (bone, nail, etc.) in the hero's bed. The young man dies, but is then revived. | 22 | 36 |
| M91 | Dead twice, ATU 1537 | Pretending that the deceased has just been alive for a relatively long time, the character accuses others of his death, receives a ransom and gifts. | 137 | 192 |
| H12a In H12 family | Dead wife haunts her husband. | The wife dies, the husband comes for her, or he kills her himself for adultery; she turns into a monster and haunts him. | 5 | 9 |
| H54b In H54 family | Deadly gaze. | The character's gaze brings death (and destruction). | 50 | 73 |
| K14 | Dear advice, ATU 677, 910A, 910B. | A person receives or buys simple advice, the meaning of which is initially unclear (travel with a companion, do not skip breakfast, etc.) and either follows it, achieving success, or violates it, getting into trouble. | 121 | 166 |
| M163 | Dear Cat, ATU 1281, 1651. | A man arrives in a country where there are many mice (rats, snakes) but no cats. He sells a cat there and receives a reward. | 67 | 64 |
| H7d In H7 family | Death and a bundle of firewood, ATU 845. | A man calls Death, and when it comes, asks it to help him lift a bundle of firewood or pull a cart with firewood. | 24 | 21 |
| H7a In H7 family | Death and the healer, ATU 332. | Having received knowledge from Death (rarely: Happiness or a certain spirit) about whether the sick person will be healed or not, whether she is going to take his soul, the person will know whether he will recover. U.nyak praises him for his impartiality; U.t himself; the poor man scolds the doctor, becomes rich. Usually he sees where exactly Death (spirit, etc.) is near the bed, whether it is going to take his soul, whether the person will recover. U. praises him for his impartiality; U. himself; the poor man scolds the sick man, and on this basis knows what will happen to him. | 49 | 52 |
| H7f1 In H7 family | Death as a devourer. | Death devours the dead and thus satisfies its hunger. | 13 | 10 |
| H7f In H7 family | Death asks who is there, ATU 332C*(1). | God gives instructions that certain categories of people must die and suffer. The character who receives the instructions, caring for the people, passes on other orders to the executors. | 6 | 9 |
| H7f2 In H7 family | Death becomes invisible. | The character embodying death had a body visible to humans. Then death became invisible. | 14 | 4 |
| H7h In H7 family | Death follows man. | Despite the warning, man goes to where Death is at that moment. Death enters his body or follows him, and since then, people have been mortal. | 2 | 9 |
| H24c In H24 family | Death in a vessel. | People open a vessel (a bundle, a basket, etc.) containing death (or old age, illness), and therefore they are mortal. | 14 | 17 |
| H7g1 In H7 family | Death is more just and richer than God. | A man (usually looking for a godfather for his newborn son) rejects God (the saints) and the devil, but praises Death: it treats everyone without prejudice (or is richer than everyone else). | 22 | 26 |
| L26 | Death of initiates. | During the (first) initiation, supernatural beings teach boys rituals and kill them for violating rules related to the consumption and distribution of food. | 5 | 7 |
| H1b In H1 family | Death of someone else's child. | The character performs actions that lead to death, because he is indifferent to or desires the death of the child or woman loved by another character. See motif H1A. | 35 | 9 |
| H52a In H52 family | Death provokes touching the ground. | Returning from the land of immortality, a person must not touch the ground. However, he dismounts from his horse to help an old man (old woman). Death, who has taken the form of an old man, immediately kills him. Rarely: at the last moment, the hero decides not to perform actions that are fatal for him. | 11 | 19 |
| H7b In H7 family | Death sticks to a tree or a bench, ATU 330. | A person asks Death (a spirit) to climb a tree or sit on a bench, to which they stick and can only be freed with his permission. | 52 | 56 |
| H31 | Death: man and the heavenly bodies. | God summons several characters, including man and the heavenly bodies, and makes man mortal and the heavenly bodies immortal. | 12 | 20 |
| H35 | Decaying teeth. | Human teeth are made of fragile material. Usually, the motif explains the aetiology of toothache. | 24 | 29 |
| L100d In L100 family | Deceived admirers, ATU 1358C, 1730. | A man or several men pursue the love of a beautiful woman. Having agreed in advance with her husband, she pretends to agree, arranging a date (with each) for a specific time. Before the first suitor's desires are satisfied, the second arrives. The woman hides the first, then the second, and so on. The husband enters and the couple mocks the admirers who find themselves in a humiliating position. | 98 | 114 |
| L22 | Deep sleep. | Having broken some taboo, seen an unusual object or a strange character, people fall into a deep sleep; at night, while asleep, they are killed or maimed. | 44 | 80 |
| K90b In K90 family | Deer antlers in the dragon's mouth. | The antlers of a deer or the tusks of an elephant, which a snake or dragon is trying to swallow, get stuck in its mouth. | 14 | 14 |
| L15b1 In L15 family | Deer antlers – a weapon against evil. | In the battle between positive and negative creators, the positive one chooses the deer horn as a weapon – usually because this is the only weapon that the enemy fears. | 3 | 5 |
| M39a In M39 family | Deer don't want to wet their shoes | fool lives with his brother (and mother), is sent on business, does ridiculous things (all or part of the above): releases animals from the trap, kills (trapped) mother ; cuts off the pet's legs or skins; takes the fontanel on the baby's skull for a boil and squeezes it out; tears a large piece of cloth and ties the pieces to swaying reeds; hearing the murmur of water, throws food into the water; puts the plague in the water; wants to salt the water and pours all the salt into the river. (There are other common episodes as well). | 33 | 71 |
| K8f In K8 family | Deer in the belly of a monster. | The swallowed one discovers a living deer in the belly of the monster. See motif K8A. | 0 | 0 |
| K107e In K107 family | Delayed childbirth. | A woman remains pregnant for many years and gives birth only after her wonderful husband, who has left her, or someone else allows her to do so. | 10 | 10 |
| L106 | Demand to return the harpoon. | A person takes an object belonging to another and loses it; the owner demands that the object be returned; the hero goes after it (to another world), usually finds it and brings back what was lost. See motifs K56a3 and L105. | 53 | 71 |
| G29 | Demon from artefacts. | The character consists of various artefacts of domestic and industrial use or transforms into them. | 40 | 51 |
| L39a In L39 family | Demon from the underworld. | A supernatural character emerges from the underworld and attacks a man who has climbed a tree. | 8 | 9 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| L48 | Demons devour their own kind. | The hero (usually somewhere on high ground - on a tree, rock, at the edge of a precipice or well) kills and/or throws one of his opponents down from there. The other opponents do not recognise their comrade and believe that the slain man is the hero they are pursuing. | 42 | 55 |
| K140 | Demonstratively ungrateful. | Travelling with his sister or brother, the young man regularly kills his saviours and helpers, exposing himself to ever new dangers. | 9 | 12 |
| B124a In B124 family | Dent on the back. | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's back, a dent has remained along the length of the spine. | 2 | 2 |
| K27h In K27 family | Depict a head that is not shown. | The hero must carve an image of the character's head, which he never shows. It usually adorns a wooden bench. | 8 | 17 |
| M2 | Descending a tree. | The hero descends from a tree or rock on the back of an animal or on the backs of animals. | 11 | 12 |
| J61 | Descends on a feather. | The character has the ability to move or hover in the air like a feather or a fluff. | 26 | 29 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.