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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| J68 | First old, then fresh droppings on the trail. | Characters who have been chasing an animal for a long time see increasingly fresh droppings on the trail and finally catch up with their prey (usually the droppings correspond to how long they have been lying there); or the pursuers see areas where less time has passed since sowing. | 7 | 12 |
| A23b In A23 family | First rays on mountains and trees, (ATU 120). | Two characters argue about who will be the first to see the rising sun. The winner is the one who first notices not the sun itself, but its reflection or the trees and mountains illuminated by its first rays. | 35 | 38 |
| A24 | First sunrise. | The first ancestors live in twilight. When they first find themselves in the rays of the sun, they (spontaneously or by someone's will) perish, turning into animals, spirits, or stones. | 38 | 56 |
| A32k In A32 family | First to the sun, then to the moon. | A character, discernible in the silhouette of the moon's spots, first headed for the sun and only then reached the moon, or the Sun and the Moon argued over who he should belong to. | 20 | 31 |
| K63 | Fish babies and deer people. | A man comes to people who hunt humans or catch fish-people. For them, these are wild animals or fish. | 19 | 21 |
| B4a In B4 family | Fish break off islands. | Fish beat against the ground, breaking off islands from the mainland. | 4 | 3 |
| M11a In M11 family | Fish extracted from the body. | The character gives others the fish extracted from his body. | 9 | 12 |
| L29 | Fish from a puddle. | A person catches fish where it should not be, usually in a small forest pond isolated from running water; those who eat this fish die, undergo metamorphosis and/or are attacked by monsters. See motif L28. | 18 | 24 |
| M7c In M7 family | Fish help: offered and rejected | zoomorphic character is waiting to be transported across the water. Animals or fish consistently offer help. The character only accepts the latter's help - he was waiting for him to eat. | 9 | 18 |
| M39a5b In M39 family | Fish in the furrow, ATU 1381A | The wife throws fish into the furrows or into the beds. My husband believes that the fish ended up there on its own, he is mistaken for a madman. | 27 | 21 |
| M187a In M187 family | Fish race, ATU 250. | Two fish (a fish and a whale, a dolphin, a squid and a dolphin, etc.) agree to race each other. | 18 | 14 |
| I52 | Fish – the support of the earth. | The world rests on a fish or fish-like creature, or the earth itself is such a creature or originated from a fish. See motif I8B. | 93 | 152 |
| M157a4 In M157 family | Fishing on a mountain. | The character proves the absurdity of another's statements by claiming that he (or someone else) fished on a mountain, extinguished a fire with straw, sowed wheat in the sea, watched flying fish, etc. (or he himself imitates such actions). The absurdity of the statements stems from the incorrectly chosen locus or means for performing certain actions. | 68 | 81 |
| J59a In J59 family | Flight after the arrow, D1092, D1526.1. | After shooting an arrow (rarely: throwing a ball), a person flies on it, behind it or in front of it, or sends another person on the flying arrow. Cf. motif J59. | 42 | 40 |
| L1c1 In L1 family | Flight to the heavens. | Fleeing from demonic characters, a group of men – relatives of a girl – ascend to the sky and remain there. See motif L1C. | 15 | 18 |
| 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 |
| B92 | Flint turns into flints. | A character whose body is hard and has broken into small pieces, or (rarely) a small object, turns into flint or other hard stones (the origin of flint). | 27 | 35 |
| C2 | Flood and fire. | The inhabitants of the middle world (in part) are destroyed (or will be destroyed) once by fire or drought, another time by a flood, or the world is flooded with a stream of fire and boiling water. | 163 | 319 |
| K52c In K52 family | Flooding in the home. | Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion and that those present also see animals (waterfowl, fish or marine mammals). | 23 | 31 |
| H34c In H34 family | Flying rice. | Rice flew (came) from the field to the house. | 11 | 15 |
| J59 | Following the arrow to the sky. | To reach the sky, one must shoot an arrow that will pierce the vault of heaven. See motif J58; see motif J59A: a man flies after or on an arrow (without the motif of an arrow piercing the vault of heaven). | 83 | 29 |
| B33f2 In B33 family | Following the fire, the hero ties up an old woman. | At night, the fire goes out. The young man goes to look for fire and on the way ties up an old woman or an old man (usually a character responsible for the length of night and day). | 11 | 10 |
| K56a6 In K56 family | Food asks her to taste it. | On the way to another world, people or objects ask a child (girl) to taste the food they offer or to do some work. The child (girl) does everything (rarely does not do) and therefore achieves the goal. | 41 | 58 |
| G24 | Food from the sky. | The first seeds (shoots, tubers) of cultivated or important wild food plants and/or agronomic knowledge were brought from the sky (received from the gods). | 99 | 154 |
| G32 | Food from the underworld. | People obtain cultivated plants from the underwater or underground world. | 41 | 47 |
| K88b In K88 family | Food in exchange for eyes. | The character suffers from thirst or hunger. His companion promises to share water or food with him (to make him rich) if he allows himself to be blinded. | 64 | 81 |
| L132 | Food theft: family conflict. | When one member of a small (family) group, left alone, secretly eats food, this leads to serious conflict, often resulting in the murder of the guilty party. | 5 | 5 |
| M44c In M44 family | Food thieves are a young hero | A young hero steals the older character's food. He is usually caught, but not punished, but invited into the house. | 27 | 38 |
| M44a In M44 family | Food thieves are the first humans | The character discovers that someone is stealing game or fish from his trap, mountain, etc. or ravages his garden, field; he or his messengers wait and catch the thief [magical tales clearly of European origin (e.g. Chamacoco, Wilbert, Simoneau 1987a, No. 121) are not included]. The kidnappers are the first people to get out of the ground, the first men. | 5 | 14 |
| M44b In M44 family | Food thieves are women | The character discovers that someone is stealing game or fish from his trap, mountain, etc. or ravages his garden, vegetable garden, field; he or his messengers wait and catch the thief. The kidnappers are women, or the aquatic animal is the kidnapper, but when caught, it gives the hero a woman. | 47 | 62 |
| K168a In K168 family | Food turns into severed body parts, ATU 664*. | A person thinks that they are holding something intended for food (a calf's head, a melon, bread, etc.), but these objects turn into human heads or limbs. Cf. motif K80c1. | 15 | 12 |
| D12 | Food was heated in the sun. | People in the past or inhabitants of distant lands cooked food in the sun; or the owner of the fire lies, saying that the food was cooked in this way. | 61 | 105 |
| D11 | Food was heated on the body. | Before fire was known, food was prepared by warming it with the body (usually under the armpit); fire is kept under the character's armpit. | 18 | 32 |
| M39a4f In M39 family | Fool sells property to statue | Fool sells property to the statue and believes that it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 10 | 16 |
| M127c In M127 family | Foolishly frightened. | Seeing an object that has been deliberately left behind or accidentally dropped, or hearing a sound it makes, the character sees it as a sign of danger and reacts inappropriately. | 16 | 17 |
| M106e In M106 family | For a long winter, ATU 1541. | A man says that provisions have been made for the winter, in case of need, etc. In the absence of the owner, a man enters the house and claims that his name is Winter (Ramadan, Necessity, etc.). The woman thinks that her husband meant this man and gives him all the provisions. | 45 | 35 |
| L106b In L106 family | For disappearance into another world. | A girl, a young girl or (rarely) a boy loses an everyday object, usually carried away by water or wind. In search of the lost object, she (he) encounters powerful characters, returns the object and/or receives valuables. Traditions recorded only in Roberts 1994: 103-110 are highlighted in italics. | 74 | 93 |
| F97 | Forbidden fruit: people become sexually mature, C621. | After eating certain foods, people become sexually mature and/or lose their body hair or skin. Cf. motif H56 (people become mortal). | 41 | 39 |
| M39a2e In M39 family | Forgotten name | Forgetting his name, a fool remembers it when he accidentally hears a word. | 4 | 3 |
| K166 | Forty girls. | A group of girls forms a community or troop and acts independently of men. Cf. motif F39. | 19 | 16 |
| K32g1 In K32 family | Forty horses or forty knives? | The guilty party is offered a choice of items of utilitarian value (often forty, seven, three, etc. horses or the same number of knives). The person usually does not understand that these are methods of execution. | 27 | 38 |
| M118a In M118 family | Forty Robbers and Jugs of Oil, ATU 954(2). | The chieftain (demon) brings robbers (other demons) to the courtyard of someone else's house, hiding them in empty jugs, barrels, etc. At night, they are supposed to attack the owners. A girl or young woman (less often, the owner of the house) learns of the danger and destroys the robbers (usually by pouring boiling water into each jug or barrel). | 64 | 36 |
| K25a1 In K25 family | Found clothing. | A magical wife leaves her earthly husband when she finds her clothes, which he has hidden (often feathers, if she is a bird woman), persuades him to give them back, makes new ones or receives them from her relatives. (The variant in which the wife leaves her husband because she is offended is not entirely alternative, but in most texts it does not fit with the motif of found clothing). | 106 | 212 |
| K134 | Found treasures. | A guest is planted with treasure in order to accuse him of theft. | 26 | 33 |
| B1g In B1 family | Four brothers-transformers. | Four brothers change the world, freeing it from monsters, transforming its inhabitants and obtaining valuable resources (water, fire, cultivated plants, etc.). Usually one of the brothers is the leader, and the others help him. All four often have a common name. | 8 | 15 |
| I8e In I8 family | Four hold up the world. | The sky or the earth is supported by four anthropomorphic male characters located at the four cardinal points. | 28 | 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 |
| I8e1 In I8 family | Four pillars of the world. | The sky or earth is supported by four objects or beings located at the four cardinal points (either four groups of beings, or four at the corners and a fifth in the centre). Th A841. See motifs 8A, 8D. | 116 | 131 |
| I27c In I27 family | Four-eyed dog. | Dogs with two spots above their eyes stand out and are usually called two- or four-eyed. | 37 | 35 |
| I51a In I51 family | Four-legged animals – the pillars of the earth. | The earth is supported by or has a large mammal at its centre. See motif I8B. | 80 | 125 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.