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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M20 | Severed beak, J2138. | The character does something unacceptable, is caught, and his beak or jaw is damaged. Usually (except for the Koryaks), people keep the torn-off beak (jaw) in their homes, and the character comes and takes it back. | 15 | 20 |
| A31a In A31 family | Severed breast. | Upon learning that her husband or lover has committed an act incompatible with accepted norms, a woman cuts off her breast and shows it to him. | 11 | 15 |
| L35 | Severed hand. | A shaman or spirit comes at night and, reaching his hand into the hut, steals food or disturbs a woman. A man in the hut cuts off or tears off the hand. | 11 | 13 |
| K13a In K13 family | Severed leg: a person ascends to the sky. | The character's leg (rarely: both legs) is cut off, bitten off, torn off, or damaged. The character ascends to the sky: to the moon; becomes the moon; turns into a star or constellation; becomes the sun; blood flowing from the leg colours the sky. | 30 | 64 |
| I50a In I50 family | Severed legs of an animal helper. | A demon sequentially tears off the legs of an animal that helps the hero (usually the horse on which the hero rides). | 34 | 49 |
| L76 | Severed testicles. | When a female cannibal attacks a man, she devours or tears off his testicles. | 3 | 7 |
| K38f1 In K38 family | Severed tongues. | After killing a monster or animal, the hero cuts off and hides a part of its body, usually the tongue. (In most cases, the deceiver takes credit for the feat, after which the hero presents the hidden item, thus exposing the deceiver). | 57 | 104 |
| L122a In L122 family | Sewing up cracks in the earth. | The character is busy sewing up cracks in the earth, just as one would sew up torn fabric. (Motif identified by Ruslan Doutalieyev). | 6 | 9 |
| B78 | Shaking off, produces a blizzard. | When a character dusts himself off (or shakes out his clothes, plucks birds, etc.), snow falls from his hair, feathers, wool, bedding, clothes, etc. onto the ground. | 13 | 12 |
| A32j In A32 family | Shaman on the moon. | A shaman with a tambourine ascends to the moon and remains there, visible in the silhouette of the lunar spots. | 5 | 18 |
| I50c In I50 family | Sharabha (animal with legs on its back). | Describes a hoofed animal with a second set of legs on its back that runs either normally or upside down. This makes it tireless. | 4 | 3 |
| M120c In M120 family | Shared children. | Two animals agree to raise children together. One of them eats the other's children, continuing to pretend that the children are shared and that it does not matter which ones are missing. | 9 | 10 |
| L9c In L9 family | Sharp breast. | The character kills others with a sharp protrusion on his chest. | 13 | 28 |
| L9d In L9 family | Sharp hands. | The character has sharp nails or knife-like hands, which he uses to kill people. | 17 | 18 |
| L10 | Sharp tail. | The character has a sharp (biting) tail or a protrusion on its back. See motif L9, cf. motif L9C. | 16 | 13 |
| M136d In M136 family | Shattered dreams, ATU 1430. | A person dreams of gradually becoming rich and forgets that this has not yet happened. As a result, he loses the initial source of future prosperity (breaks a jug, scares away a hare he was about to shoot, etc.) or senselessly causes harm to himself or others. | 74 | 55 |
| M37 | Shattered with an axe | Although the character's head or entire body is cut in two with an ax or split with a stick, the character remains unharmed. Cf. motive J22. | 9 | 8 |
| F56a In F56 family | Shavings in the fire. | To see a woman's genitals, a man throws something that flashes brightly into the hearth. The woman recoils, exposing her genitals. | 8 | 8 |
| L3a In L3 family | She asked for help – a demon came. | Left alone, a woman carelessly calls for someone to help her with the housework; a demon comes and kills the woman or her child. | 8 | 11 |
| N37 | Sheltered in the sky | The character is said to sleep under the sky (like a blanket). | 8 | 11 |
| M39d In M39 family | Shemyakin Court, ATU 1534 | A person consistently and unintentionally harms others. The victims take him to a judge. He saves a person from punishment by making a formally logical but clearly unacceptable decision in each case. | 63 | 47 |
| A32i In A32 family | Shepherd on the moon. | A shepherd (shepherd and girl, shepherd and his flock, dogs) can be seen on the lunar disc. | 14 | 19 |
| K107a2 In K107 family | Shepherdess instead of princess. | A nobleman (king) is forced to promise his daughter or son to a demon (monster, predatory beast). He tries to replace her or him with other girls or boys, but this does not work. | 12 | 21 |
| M114c In M114 family | Shielding from the rain with one's body. | The character is puzzled as to how the other person's clothes (firewood, etc.) remained dry after the rain – the other person covered them with their body (hid them in a vessel, waited out the rain in a shelter). | 17 | 27 |
| K27v In K27 family | Shooting a bird. | The character must hit the bird with an arrow or a stone. (Cf. motif K27M, where it is not the accuracy of the archer that is important, but the unusual appearance of the creature that needs to be caught). | 16 | 17 |
| K27v3 In K27 family | Shooting an arrow through a ring. | The character must hit a small ring with an arrow or shoot it through several rings. (The main materials were identified by Y.V. Vasilkov and presented in Vasilkov 2018). | 11 | 11 |
| M197d In M197 family | Shortened stick, ATU 926C.2. | To find the thief, a man gives sticks to the assembled crowd and says that the thief's stick will become longer overnight. The thief cuts off the end of his stick and is thus discovered. | 9 | 9 |
| L65a2 In L65 family | Shot finger. | A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. | 11 | 14 |
| M136e In M136 family | Should the bride be shortened? | Instead of asking a person to bend down in front of a low lintel, others suggest cutting off his head or legs. | 3 | 3 |
| L44 | Show your head! ATU 1152 | A demon or powerful beast demands that a person or weak animal show certain parts of their body. The person shows parts of a large animal's body or certain objects. The opponent decides that the hero is more frightening and powerful than them. | 43 | 43 |
| M119 | Shown repeatedly, ATU 37. | A character repeatedly shows another person the same object or creature; the other person believes that there are as many objects or creatures as the character has shown them. Usually, the character takes care of the other person's young, eats them or they die due to his negligence, or he is hired as a shepherd and eats the other person's livestock. When checked, he shows the parent (the owner of the herd) the same un-eaten young (or the same sheep), and the parent believes that all the young (animals) are safe. In ATU, this is plot 37, but two other plots are included as variants, and the sources are indicated for all three collectively. | 33 | 39 |
| K83 | Sick Father, ATU 550, 551. | To heal, rejuvenate or save one's father, father-in-law or sister, one must bring medicine (bring a doctor) from a distant country. The medicine is brought and the sick person recovers. | 111 | 146 |
| M106 | Significant name, ATU 1135, 1137, 1138, 1541. | The character calls himself by a fictitious name, which others understand not as a proper name, but as a common noun with a specific meaning. | 107 | 150 |
| K80c4 In K80 family | Silent witnesses to crime, ATU 960, 960A. | In a deserted place, one person kills another. After some time, he is exposed thanks to facts and circumstances that do not seem important and do not directly tell about the crime (the victim's last words; objects or living beings that were or appeared at the scene of the murder). (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c). | 56 | 57 |
| A32l In A32 family | Silhouette in the sun. | The silhouette of a certain character is visible on the solar disc. Or it is said that the character fell into the sun and remained there. | 10 | 10 |
| M38b In M38 family | Silly wives imitate a sorceress, ATU 898 | The first wife, rejected or taken later than others, performs certain actions with the help of magic. Other wives try to imitate her but are killed, maimed, or disgraced. | 35 | 32 |
| H55 | Sinners in the Other World, ATU 471, (ATU 470). | A person going to the other world sees people who are punished or rewarded for their actions in life. | 75 | 89 |
| F75 | Siren and tapir. | A hunter sees a tapir summoning a woman who lives in the water with a secret signal; she emerges from the lake or river, and the tapir mates with her. The hunter himself summons the woman and becomes her lover. | 5 | 8 |
| L1f In L1 family | Sister avenges her lover. | The sister, using magic or transforming herself into a monster, kills her brothers in revenge for the death of her lover or husband. | 14 | 14 |
| K137 | Sister brings women to revive her brother. | The brother is killed, the sister, dressed in her brother's clothes and disguised as a young man, finds women who are able to revive the dead, puts her brother's clothes back on his body, and the women who have come revive him. Or the sister is killed, the brother lures women capable of reviving the dead, puts his clothes on his dead sister, the women think it is their husband, and revive the girl. | 16 | 15 |
| L42i In L42 family | Sister sets out to rescue her brother (geese-swans), ATU 480A*. | Creatures from another world carry off a little boy. His sister takes him and safely escapes from their pursuers. Usually the boy has two or three sisters, and only the youngest succeeds. | 15 | 22 |
| L65c1 In L65 family | Sisters fly away from a cannibal. | Three or more sisters have the ability to fly and fly away from the cannibal – their older sister or mother. Only the youngest is saved. | 4 | 5 |
| K84 | Sisters married to animals, ATU 552.1. | A young man gives his sisters to the first ones who come to woo them (less often, unknown creatures kidnap the sisters one by one, demanding a ransom for them). These are animals or demons, which then usually help him. | 79 | 121 |
| M109a In M109 family | Sitting on the ice, waiting for food from the sky. | One zoomorphic character advises another to sit on the ice for a long time – usually until food falls from the sky. The one who sits on the ice freezes to it. | 11 | 13 |
| N32 | Sitting on three oaks | The ornithomorphic character is said to be sitting on several trees. | 10 | 14 |
| M39a6g In M39 family | Six loaves (four coins), ATU 921A, Th H585.1. | person explains that he lends part of his earnings, and pays the debt in the other part, i.e. raises children and supports parents. | 51 | 30 |
| H4 | Skin change as a condition for immortality, D1889.6. | Those who change their skin (bark, clothing) are immortal (forever young). (Cf. motif K56a5a: Skinning oneself to become young: To become a young beauty, an old or ugly woman asks to have her skin skinned off). | 123 | 256 |
| K67c In K67 family | Skin torn from the back. | The character agrees that under certain conditions another person may tear the skin from his back or cause him some other bodily harm. | 57 | 79 |
| K56a5a In K56 family | Skinning oneself to rejuvenate (ATU 877). | To become a young beauty, an old or unattractive woman asks to have her skin stripped off. Cf. motif H4. | 10 | 12 |
| I87 | Skull cave. | The characters use an object belonging to the world of giants (a skull, an animal shoulder blade, a mitten) as a shelter. Cf. I87C: animals use an object belonging to the world of humans (a skull, a mitten, a sieve, etc.) as a shelter. | 19 | 29 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.