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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M92 | Glued lashes | Something red is glued to the character's eyelashes, he thinks it's a fire. | 8 | 9 |
| L67 | Gnawed wool. | Having dug an underground passage to a lying monstrous hoofed animal, a small animal gnaws the wool from the place on the skin where the heart beats; the hero thrusts a spear or arrow into this place. See motif L66. | 0 | 0 |
| J47a1 In J47 family | Goats – owners of food. | The character enters a house where goats live. He secretly eats the food he finds there, but is eventually discovered. | 7 | 8 |
| F98 | God and the cow. | A heavenly anthropomorphic deity descends to earth and mates with a cow. | 11 | 24 |
| M13 | God does as he is asked, ATU 750A, 775. | A person appeals to higher powers with a request, without considering that his words may have a different meaning than he intended. Either a person accidentally utters the wrong word or accidentally and hastily expresses an empty or absurd desire. As a result, something happens that he did not want at all. Cf. motifs I58B and M13A.Most of the references in ATU 775 (Midas' short-sighted wish) are either incorrect or impossible to verify. In connection with this plot, the reference to Uther 2000 is taken into account only for the Lithuanian variant, since there is a summary of the Latvian one, and for the Greek one, since the motif exists in Ancient Greece and among the neighbouring South Slavs. For ATU 750A, the reference to Bäcker 1988 in connection with the "Chinese" is incorrect; these are Manchus, not Chinese, and the stated motif is not present in the text. | 73 | 74 |
| K32e In K32 family | Gold, silver, wood. | A negative character, object or locus is contrasted with one or two positive ones, such as wood with gold and silver. | 13 | 14 |
| M57c1 In M57 family | Gold-producing bear | A man fights a bear or (Malayali) leopard and makes another person believe that this animal is defecating with gold. | 9 | 8 |
| M90a5 In M90 family | Golden apples | The story mentions the golden fruits (rarely leaves) of a tree, usually golden apples. | 55 | 80 |
| M157a5 In M157 family | Golden mortar. | A person finds a golden (rarely marble, etc.) mortar (bell) and brings it to an authoritative figure. Instead of gratitude, the latter demands that the pestle (the tongue of the bell, etc.) also be brought. | 16 | 16 |
| L9f In L9 family | Golden nose or teeth. | A person with a nose or teeth made of gold or silver is a sign of their demonic nature. | 11 | 10 |
| B26 | Gone to the animals. | A person who follows wild animals (temporarily) turns into one of them or their master, or lives with animals that look like humans to him. | 56 | 74 |
| K2b In K2 family | Gorynya and Dubyna. | The occupations or names of the hero's companions are unusual and different for each one, but their specific abilities, which can be inferred from these names, are insignificant for the development of the plot. Cf. motif K66, "Heroes with different abilities". | 46 | 59 |
| L94a In L94 family | Grabbed by the beard. | When a person leans over the water, a demon grabs him by the beard and releases him on the promise that he will fulfil his demand. | 39 | 56 |
| G25 | Grains scattered over the world. | Cereal seeds are scattered across the world, fell to the ground, now people grow bread. | 8 | 9 |
| J34 | Grandchildren scare their grandmother. | After killing a dangerous enemy, the heroes make a scarecrow out of him to frighten the household. | 11 | 14 |
| M157d In M157 family | Grandfather and the Turnip, ATU 2044. | Animals (mainly domestic) and/or people join forces to achieve a goal (usually to pull a root vegetable out of the ground). They succeed after the last participant (usually the weakest) joins in. | 16 | 11 |
| K153 | Grateful animals and an evil man, ATU 160. | A man does a favour for several (potentially dangerous) animals and another man. The grateful animals help him, but the man betrays and harms him. | 65 | 50 |
| K128 | Graze without loss. | A character orders the hero to graze animals (or birds) and promises to execute him (deprive him of his reward) if even one animal is lost. Cf. K128B (ATU 570). | 59 | 92 |
| K56a7 In K56 family | Greenery in winter. | In winter, a girl (rarely a boy) is sent to bring something that is normally only available in summer. She brings it. | 24 | 26 |
| J53c1 In J53 family | Grizzly bear and black bear. | Two women live together, both have children. One of them kills and (then) eats the other. The killer is associated with a grizzly bear, and the victim with a smaller species of bear. | 11 | 17 |
| K75a3 In K75 family | Groom. | Appearing incognito to an authoritative character, the hero works for him as a groom. | 27 | 33 |
| J24 | Ground into flour. | The hero, ground into powder, is reborn. | 9 | 11 |
| E36a In E36 family | Growing nails. | Nails grow constantly, or the human body is covered with a hard crust only on the nails, because only they were washed with living water. | 2 | 3 |
| L39c In L39 family | Grown from a seed. | A boy (less often a girl) climbs a fruit tree that has just grown (usually from a discarded seed). A cannibal tries to force the boy (girl) to come down to the ground. | 9 | 10 |
| C26 | Guardian at the edge of a foreign world. | Monsters are ready to invade our world from another, but a powerful character protects people from the invasion. | 31 | 28 |
| L100f In L100 family | Guest fleeing from his host, ATU 1741. | While the host is away, the guest is told that the host is going to kill or maim him, and imaginary evidence is presented. The returning host tries to stop the fleeing guest, who is convinced that he was warned for good reason. | 45 | 23 |
| M106f In M106 family | Guest from the Other World, ATU 1540. | A stranger tells a woman that he has come from the other world. The woman gives him money and belongings with a request to pass them on to her deceased son, husband, etc. Usually, the woman's (new) husband (or son), upon learning of the deception, rides after him, and as a result, the deceiver steals his horse. | 83 | 83 |
| M29z2 In M29 family | Gypsy - a cunning winner | Being smart and witty, the Gipsy overcomes strong adversaries | 14 | 12 |
| M29z3 In M29 family | Gypsy - opponent and loser | The Gipsy (more often a female than a male) is an enemy overcome by the hero (heroine) or (rare) a weak failure | 25 | 22 |
| A32m In A32 family | Gypsy sun. | The moon is called the "Gypsy sun". | 8 | 9 |
| I25b1 In I25 family | Hair instead of rope. | This refers to women who pull buckets of water out of a well using their own hair instead of a rope. | 3 | 6 |
| M38d1 In M38 family | Hair neck | bubble-head, the straw leg, the hair-neck are successively dying, trying to act like ordinary people. | 11 | 16 |
| 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 |
| M5c In M5 family | Hairy octopus | The octopus or star-fish was covered with hair but the rat had eaten it up | 5 | 5 |
| M206 | Half of the reward, ATU 1610. | A guard (nobleman) agrees to let a man pass to an authoritative figure on condition that he gives him half of the expected reward. The man asks for a beating as a reward or expected it from the outset. | 39 | 19 |
| L85 | Half-creatures, F525. | The character has only half a body (vertically). See also L85C, "Half-chicken". | 124 | 243 |
| K129a In K129 family | Half-living in the tomb. | A young woman (lying in a tomb) comes back to life, then appears dead again, but is ultimately freed from the spell. | 6 | 7 |
| L118 | Hand caught in a log, H1532, ATU 38. | One character provokes another to stick a part of their body into a split log (between two boards, etc.) and knocks out the wedge. | 78 | 101 |
| M72 | Hand in the back of the tapir | The character puts his hand into the anus of a tapir or other large herbivore and is unable to pull it out. The animal rushes to run and drags a person with it for a long time. | 20 | 26 |
| I105 | Hand in the sky. | One of the constellations is associated with the hand (with five marked fingers). | 21 | 23 |
| M74c In M74 family | Handsome as a woodpecker | Having noticed the woodpecker's beautiful plumage, the wolf or bear believes that the fox painted it and asks the fox to make him just as beautiful. The fox burns it alive. | 4 | 5 |
| 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 |
| F77B In F77 family | Hanging on the penis. | A man cannot free himself for a long time after copulating with his partner, as a result of which his penis ends up high above the ground. See motif F19, motif F21. | 4 | 2 |
| L42g In L42 family | Hansel and Gretel, ATU 327A. | The stepmother, and more often the father (usually at the insistence of his new wife), leaves the children in a deserted place or sends them into the forest. They end up in the house of a cannibal or cannibals, all (or at least one of them) survive and achieve success. | 79 | 84 |
| K99a3 In K99 family | Happy dream: sun, moon and stars. | A person sees the sun, moon and stars (all together or some of them) in a dream. At the end of the story, the meaning of the dream becomes clear: these are people who love or worship him (often two wives and a child). | 33 | 46 |
| E36 | Hard covering of the body. | The human body was or could have been covered with a protective layer (bone, rarely wool), but it has only been preserved on the nails (head). | 43 | 57 |
| B70 | Hare ears. | A man beats defenseless hares, foxes, and other small animals (one or many) that are usually locked in his house. The story explains the colouring of the tips of the ears and tails of these animals. Cf. motif M45A. | 29 | 38 |
| B87b In B87 family | Harnessed wolf. | The Great Bear – a cart harnessed by a wolf or bear. Usually, the shape of the handle of the dipper is explained by the fact that a wolf or bear attacked an ox harnessed to the cart and took its place. In this case, it is associated with Alcor or the last star of the handle of the dipper – η. | 10 | 14 |
| G27 | Harvest from urine. | Cultivated plants appear together with urine or in the place where the hero urinated. | 6 | 10 |
| M158a In M158 family | Harvest sharing, ATU 9. | Two animal characters work together on a plot of land. During field work, one of them is lazy (imposing his imaginary services on the other) and then demands (most of) the harvest for himself. | 27 | 29 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.