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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H5 | People and snakes. | Reptiles or invertebrates possess a life-giving agent; they are contrasted with humans as immortal mortals and/or responsible for the fact that humans die and are not reborn; the dead turn into snakes. See motif H4. (The first death comes from a snake bite (centipede), but snakes are not opposed to humans as immortals to mortals.) | 145 | 181 |
| K65b In K65 family | People and spirits. | Spirits (deities) or unpleasant animals (snakes, frogs, worms, etc.) are generated by the same first anthropomorphic pair or the same pair of first ancestors as humans (deities). | 32 | 58 |
| G13a In G13 family | People ate earth. | Before the advent of cultivated plants (fire, hunting skills), people ate earth, clay, and stones. | 21 | 27 |
| G13 | People ate rotten wood. | Before the advent of cultivated plants, people ate rotten or soft wood (ceiba – Ceiba L., balsa – Ochroma (Bombax) Sw.); some people eat rotten wood. | 22 | 29 |
| E38b In E38 family | People from a pumpkin. | After a global catastrophe or at the beginning of time, a pumpkin appears on earth, from which the ancestors of humans emerge. | 22 | 53 |
| E27 | People from drops of blood. | People arise from drops of blood from a wounded anthropomorphic creature. | 12 | 19 |
| E33 | People from grains. | People arise from grains, seeds, dough. | 16 | 32 |
| E5c In E5 family | People from the sky. | The first humans or deities-ancestors descend to earth from the sky. | 124 | 207 |
| E5a In E5 family | People from the underworld, A1234. | The first humans (or only the first men or first women) were not created by a demiurge, but emerged from under the ground (from a cave) or from a small object on its surface (a tree, stone, pumpkin, etc.). There are many emerging humans (or humans and animals). Cf. motif E5B: first ancestors from the underworld. | 144 | 323 |
| L22a In L22 family | People go blind. | Having broken some taboo, seen an unusual object or strange character, people fall into a deep sleep and wake up in the morning blind. See motif L22. Among the Watut, Khmou and Trumai, a spirit eats out a person's eyes and they die immediately without waking up). | 16 | 6 |
| E5aa In E5 family | People grew like grass. | The first people grew out of the ground like trees, grass, and mushrooms. | 20 | 24 |
| E8a In E8 family | People in fruits. | Women or people in general emerge from fruits (often coconuts), or fruits or, less commonly, leaves turn into people or only women. Cf. motif k33c. | 11 | 17 |
| I87d In I87 family | People in the time of giants, ATU 701. | In the past, giants inhabited the earth. One of them finds a tiny human being and brings him to his father or mother. They usually say that such people will replace the current giants. | 25 | 35 |
| H7e In H7 family | People knew when they would die, ATU 934H(4). | In the past, people knew when they would die, so before their death they stopped doing their work or performed their duties half-heartedly. | 21 | 21 |
| H1f In H1 family | People learn to bury the dead. | People learn how to treat the dead by observing the behaviour of crows. | 7 | 5 |
| F47 | People made of pieces of flesh. | Pieces of a creature cut into many parts or a lump of living flesh are scattered or dispersed. After that, people emerge from them. Cf. motifs E38A and K98. | 22 | 54 |
| E38a In E38 family | People made of pieces. | A woman gives birth to a pumpkin, a sack, a sack of eggs, a piece of meat. The newborn is cut open, chopped up, and the pieces turn into new people; numerous people (usually tribal ancestors) emerge from the pumpkin or sack. Cf. motif F47. | 23 | 50 |
| E37 | People made of sticks. | The creator collects many sticks, feathers, reeds, etc., and turns them into people (either people of both sexes and all ages, or no mention is made of gender or age). | 16 | 26 |
| E2 | People on trial. | When creating humans, the creator does not immediately achieve perfection. The first versions of the creation are rejected, then the appropriate form and material are found. See motif E1A. | 31 | 47 |
| C38 | People will appear soon. | Characters from the time of creation say that real people will appear soon, so we must do this and that. | 19 | 23 |
| C12b In C12 family | People – descendants of dogs. | All people or individual ethnic groups, lineages, families are considered descendants of dogs (with which a man mated). | 29 | 56 |
| F57 | Persephone picks a flower. | A girl or her father (rarely: mother) picks a plant (usually a flower) and as a result encounters a character with a non-human appearance and/or inhabiting the underworld. The girl becomes the character's wife. In some cases, the picked plant is the character's hair, but more often there is no direct association of this kind. | 8 | 13 |
| H7 | Personification of death. | Death (as well as illness and old age) is a special character, distinct from the lord of the underworld. It takes away a person's soul or otherwise causes their death. | 183 | 370 |
| J62 | Petrified people. | The character turns those who come to him into inanimate objects (usually stones). (In variants of the ATU 303 plot, the motif is often absent; original texts are needed). | 102 | 187 |
| A42 | Phaeton (imitator of the Sun), A724.I.I. | The character comes to the Sun, tries to fulfil its role, but deliberately or through incompetence breaks the rules, usually causing disasters on earth. | 24 | 38 |
| I17 | Physical abnormalities of inhabitants of the other world. | Creatures without mouths, anuses, or genitals, unable to give birth, live underground, in the sky, across the sea, or in certain areas. (Traditions describing women unable to give birth are marked with an asterisk*). | 85 | 95 |
| I16 | Physical abnormalities of the first humans. | Early humans have no mouth, anus, or genitals, and their women are unable to give birth. | 51 | 47 |
| B48b In B48 family | Piece of human flesh. | The bodies of animals that are now hunted contain a piece of human flesh that has remained since these animals had an anthropomorphic appearance. | 10 | 11 |
| B48a In B48 family | Pieces of foreign flesh. | The bodies of animals, birds or fish contain internal organs or muscles that were originally parts of the bodies of other animals, birds, fish or monsters. Cf. motif B36C. | 35 | 43 |
| E39 | Pig ancestor. | The child of a pig or boar is a woman or man – the ancestor of a certain group of people. | 19 | 21 |
| B25 | Pigs fall from trees. | Characters who climb trees or vines and then fall turn into wild pigs or other game animals. | 7 | 16 |
| B48d In B48 family | Pike swallows people. | People or objects swallowed by a pike become part of its body (bones in its head, liver). | 3 | 4 |
| K69 | Pilgrims to the deity. | Several men walk towards the horizon to ascend to the sky and visit the Sun or another supreme deity. Usually, one or more of them perish along the way, while others reach their destination. They return by a shorter route than they came. | 22 | 37 |
| I8A In I8 family | Pillars of the world: anthropomorphic characters. | The world, earth or sky are supported by anthropomorphic beings. | 80 | 121 |
| I8f In I8 family | Pillars of the world: one object. | The sky, the world rests on a single object (a pillar or tree). | 70 | 83 |
| I8D In I8 family | Pillars of the world: pillars, mountains. | The earth or sky is supported by mountains, pillars, nails, trees. | 146 | 185 |
| I8B In I8 family | Pillars of the world: zoomorphic creatures. | The earth or sky is supported by zoomorphic creatures. | 96 | 127 |
| F9b In F9 family | Piranha in the vagina. | A biting piranha in a woman's genitals. | 17 | 27 |
| K32h1 In K32 family | Placed in a barrel with nails. | The antagonist is executed by being placed in a barrel (with nails) and rolled down a hill or tied to a horse. | 15 | 21 |
| K181a In K181 family | Placing a hand on a horse's back. | When a person puts their hand on a horse's back, it bends over and falls. This is a sign of heroic strength. | 4 | 6 |
| B77b3 In B77 family | Placing a pancake on the sky. | In the past, either in a distant country, the sky was or is so low that various objects are placed on it as needed. | 14 | 17 |
| J19a In J19 family | Placing food on the stomach. | When a woman is left alone, a demonic character comes to her. He says that in order to perform certain actions, she must give him a certain part of her body, even though this contradicts logic and custom. After that, the character kills her (cuts open her stomach; tears out her tongue). | 10 | 17 |
| F55a In F55 family | Placing on the naked body (demon and woman). | A demonic character persuades a woman to expose a certain part of her body, because that is the only place where a certain object should be placed. The demon kills the woman, tearing off that part of her body. Usually, the woman uses or names various locations, and the character rejects each one in turn until he finds the right one. | 8 | 15 |
| M45c In M45 family | Plant boiled tubers | The character advises the other person to plant or sow boiled or roasted seeds or tubers, who follows the advice. | 16 | 13 |
| G23a In G23 family | Plants from body parts. | Parts of the body and organs of living beings are transformed into various plants (teeth into corn, testicles into yams, etc.). | 78 | 129 |
| G12a In G12 family | Plants from drops of blood. | Cultivated plants arise from drops of blood or flow like blood from cuts on the body of a human or animal. | 10 | 14 |
| K11C In K11 family | Plants grow from feathers. | The plucked feathers of a huge bird turn into plants. | 5 | 5 |
| K27o2 In K27 family | Playing with a dangerous ball. | To destroy the hero, his opponents play ball with him, throwing a heavy dangerous object (a ball made of ice, bone, stone, iron, a walrus head, a biting skull, etc.). | 7 | 12 |
| F28a3 In F28 family | Pleasant for girls, dangerous for others. | A girl (woman) possesses an object that is pleasant (useful). Once in the hands of others, it becomes harmful (dangerous). | 14 | 14 |
| I100b In I100 family | Pleiades - people. | The Pleiades - a group of people of any gender and age. See motifs i99 - i100A, aggregate data. | 1 | 1 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.