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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H37b In H37 family | Skunk's volley wasted. | One character gives another his power (usually a skunk gives his volley). The other wastes the resource unnecessarily to test its effect. Usually, when the need arises, the resource no longer works. | 9 | 10 |
| J12E In J12 family | Skunk. | The false bridegroom - skunk. See motif J12. | 0 | 0 |
| N28c In N28 family | Sky support | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a pillar of the sky is mentioned | 11 | 11 |
| I11b In I11 family | Sky supports made from animal legs. | The pillars of the sky are made from the legs of a four-legged animal (usually a turtle). | 2 | 9 |
| I23 | Slamming door, K736. | The door of the house opens and slams shut by itself, crushing those entering or leaving. See motif I22. | 20 | 26 |
| K67f In K67 family | Slaughter the sheep that looks at you. | A fool or a rogue is instructed to slaughter the sheep (cow, bull) that looks at him, i.e. any one. He slaughters them all, because they all looked at him. | 14 | 15 |
| M78g In M78 family | Sleep-related | When the inhabitants of the house fall asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) ties them together in pairs so that when they wake up, they quarrel. | 15 | 11 |
| K16a In K16 family | Slipping, he drops the stuffed animal. | In an effort to show that he is a good hunter, a man regularly walks in front of a girl, pretending to carry prey. Once he slips, and the imaginary prey turns out to be a scarecrow stuffed with ashes or a bundle of termites. | 3 | 6 |
| B64c In B64 family | Small bones: fish fall from the sky. | Fish, together with other earthly creatures, wage war on the inhabitants of the sky. Falling to the ground, they break their bones, which is why fish have many small bones in their bodies. See motif B64. | 4 | 10 |
| B64a In B64 family | Small bones: the war between fish and birds. | Fish and birds fight (usually by shooting arrows at each other). Since then, fish have had many small bones in their bodies and/or birds' legs have taken on their current form. | 15 | 18 |
| B64b In B64 family | Small bones: war between different fish. | Two types of fish shoot arrows at each other. Since then, the fish have had many small bones in their bodies, or some of their bones have split in two. | 11 | 11 |
| I87a1 In I87 family | Small or large – dialogue. | Two people engage in a dialogue, contradicting each other in their descriptions of the sizes of creatures and objects. | 19 | 27 |
| K51b In K51 family | Smiles on the faces of the dead. | The bodies of the slain are left in such a position that it seems as if they are rejoicing – smiling, laughing, dancing. | 14 | 24 |
| K67g In K67 family | Smiling sheep. | Pretending to carry out his master's orders, the worker cuts off the animals' lips (to make them look like they are smiling). | 5 | 5 |
| K27b In K27 family | Smoking a pipe. | Test: smoke a huge or poisonous pipe or breathe in clouds of poisonous smoke. See motif K27. | 0 | 0 |
| M182 | Smolyan doll, ATU 175, Th K741. | A character threatens to hit another character and, as a result, gets stuck with all his limbs. Usually, it is a doll covered with something sticky, which the character mistakes for a living creature. | 93 | 148 |
| I24 | Snake bridge. | A snake (or fish) forms a bridge across a river. | 32 | 33 |
| F31 | Snake egg. | A girl or woman becomes pregnant, without knowing it, by a reptile when she unknowingly touches a dead reptile or when a liquid that has leaked from the reptile gets inside her (usually when the contents of a snake egg accidentally flow between her legs). | 15 | 19 |
| F9c In F9 family | Snake in the vagina. | Snake (in Oceania – moray eel) in the vagina; vagina – snake's mouth; snake crawls out of a woman's mouth and bites off a man's penis during intercourse; woman with a toothy womb is associated with a snake. | 30 | 34 |
| F9f1 In F9 family | Snake inside a woman. | Inside the woman there is a snake (snakes, scorpions, just poison) that comes out of her mouth. {Motifs F9f1 and K100C are almost identical, but the first can be included in the cosmological-etiological category and is associated with the idea of a dangerous woman, while the second belongs to the adventure category}. | 36 | 59 |
| F97a5 In F97 family | Snake is deprived of its limbs | Being responsible for breaking food tabou by humans, snake lost its limbs as a punishment | 0 | 0 |
| L28 | Snake meat. | A person who eats unusual or forbidden meat or fish, or touches something forbidden, turns into a reptile or a fish. | 65 | 92 |
| B12 | Snake rivers. | The riverbed follows the path of a snake, fish, dragon, or crab; the river arises from parts of the snake's body; the river is a snake. | 76 | 81 |
| H39 | Snakes become poisonous (spilled poison). | Creatures that are now dangerous (snakes, insects) swallow an uncontrolled substance and as a result become poisonous or immortal; creatures acquire their nature (usually becoming poisonous) by drinking or licking a special potion. | 16 | 19 |
| L120 | Snakes turn into apple trees, ATU 300A. | After overhearing a conversation between demonic characters who are planning to turn themselves into something edible, attractive, and safe, and to destroy anyone who touches them, the hero neutralises the demons. | 37 | 57 |
| J23a In J23 family | Snot turns into a boy. | A woman cries, and the discharge from her nose (her tears) turns into a boy, who grows up and defeats strong opponents. | 9 | 13 |
| E1a1 In E1 family | Soaked by rain (why there are cripples). | A deity or ancestor moulds people from clay. Some of the figures got wet, which is why there are cripples among people. | 3 | 9 |
| M77 | Soiled bed | The character stains another's clothes or bed with sewage or something that looks like sewage, threatens to ruin the air and accuse the other, etc.; taking advantage of the victim's confusion, achieves the goal. | 62 | 103 |
| K136c In K136 family | Sometimes alive, sometimes dead. | Upon leaving, the demon temporarily kills or puts the girl to sleep, and upon returning, revives her. | 19 | 25 |
| K76e In K76 family | Son (daughter) as a piglet. | The son (daughter) or foster child of a married couple is a pig. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man (she marries a handsome man). | 19 | 23 |
| C8c In C8 family | Son and mother give birth to people. | After a global catastrophe, at the beginning of time or when settling a new land, a woman and her son give birth to humans. | 15 | 21 |
| K14c In K14 family | Son mistaken for lover, ATU 910B. | Returning after a long absence and seeing signs that there is another man in the house, a man thinks that his wife has a lover, but does not rush to act and convinces himself that it is his own son or his wife's relative. | 61 | 64 |
| F14 | Son of a man and a stone. | The hero is born as a result of the union of a man with a stone or rock. | 13 | 33 |
| J25a In J25 family | Son of the grave. | The mother dies or is killed. The child in her womb or the newborn baby is buried with her. He comes out of the grave, meets people, returns to the grave, or is found in the entrails of his dead mother. In the end, the child stays with the people. See motif J25. | 26 | 33 |
| J57 | Son of the Sun. | Conceived by the Sun, a woman gives birth to sons or a son; when they come of age, they visit their father. See motif J56. | 32 | 48 |
| L94c In L94 family | Son or daughter sacrificed. | If a deity grants victory, a person promises to sacrifice to it the first person who comes out to meet them at home. A son or daughter comes out. | 4 | 5 |
| J41a In J41 family | Son turns mother into a bird. | The son returns and finds his mother, who has been humiliated and tortured in his absence. The son turns his mother (and usually himself as well) into a bird of a certain species. | 10 | 6 |
| K76b In K76 family | Son-snake and husband-snake. | The son or foster son of snake spouses. He turns into a human. The snake is the princess's magical spouse, lost and returned. | 69 | 89 |
| E1e In E1 family | Son-stalk. | The son of the first human couple initially takes the form of a small plant that has grown from the ground, a stalk. | 2 | 3 |
| K56e1 In K56 family | Song mentioning the days of the week. | A man sees dwarves (spirits, witches) having fun. Their song mentions the names of the days of the week. The man sings along, naming the days that the dwarves like. He is rewarded. (Usually, someone else tries to get the same reward, but names the wrong days of the week and is punished). | 17 | 26 |
| J50a In J50 family | Sons embrace their mother. | The mother dies when her sons push or embrace her. | 7 | 9 |
| J60 | Sons of two fathers. | A woman conceives twins from two different fathers. | 17 | 23 |
| K14e In K14 family | Sons think their father is rich, ATU 982. | The sons do not care for their elderly father (rarely: the daughter-in-law does not care for her mother-in-law). He pretends to be hiding something. The sons believe that these are valuables that their father will leave them, and they begin to care for him. | 22 | 15 |
| K27hh In K27 family | Sorting grain, Th H1091. | The character is tasked with quickly separating small particles of different types (usually seeds of different plant species) mixed together in a single vessel, or counting the number of grains, or gathering scattered or already sown grain. | 139 | 183 |
| H24b In H24 family | Souls fly out of the vessel. | The character must open the vessel containing the soul of the deceased when he reaches the place or after a certain time has passed; if he opens it before the time is up, the soul flies away. See motif H24. | 22 | 12 |
| I65 | Souls of the dead on the Milky Way. | The Milky Way is a path to another world, followed by the souls of the dead and/or shamans, or it is the path of a funeral procession. | 104 | 122 |
| B75a In B75 family | Sounds of the Age of Creation: The Human Voice. | The voice of a character who once lived can still be heard (most often it is an echo; A1195, The origin of Echo). | 43 | 35 |
| B75d In B75 family | Sounds of the creation era: the rustling of leaves. | The sound of leaves or grass rustling in the wind has been heard since the time of creation. | 7 | 7 |
| B75b In B75 family | Sounds of the era of creation: the creaking of trees. | The creaking or crackling of trees is the voice of a transformed character. | 6 | 9 |
| B75c In B75 family | Sounds of the era of creation: the sound of water. | The sound of the surf or water on the rapids has been heard since the time of creation. | 4 | 4 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.