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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M29o1 In M29 family | A monkey is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the monkey dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 39 | 25 |
| F28a In F28 family | A monstrous penis grows out of the ground. | A penis grows out of the ground or out of the water in a lake. Women summon it as needed. | 13 | 21 |
| C6i1 In C6 family | A mound of earth rises above the water. | There is water everywhere. Earth is raked up from the bottom into a mound, its top rises above the water and turns into dry land. | 3 | 3 |
| M66a In M66 family | A mountain of excrement | After eating a certain food, the trickster leaves a mountain of excrement that is larger than himself. | 7 | 11 |
| I76b In I76 family | A mouse becomes a bat. | After a certain amount of time or after performing certain actions, an ordinary mouse turns into a bat. | 13 | 13 |
| A38b In A38 family | A mouse gnaws through a snare. | The sun gets caught in a trap. Only a mouse or other small animal manages to gnaw through the trap and free the sun. | 22 | 33 |
| L5i In L5 family | A multitude of skulls. | A multitude of rolling heads or skulls try to take a woman away. | 5 | 4 |
| K80c3 In K80 family | A name helps solve a murder. | Before his death, a man asks his murderer to tell his pregnant wife to give their newborn a certain name. Upon hearing the unusual name of the child, a powerful figure begins to investigate the case, and the murderer confesses to his crime. (All texts containing motifs K80c3 and K80c4 also contain the more general motif K80c) | 9 | 9 |
| L72j In L72 family | A needle (awl) turns into many needles (awls). | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him an awl or needle, which turns into many awls or needles. | 11 | 11 |
| M120b In M120 family | A nurse with a pleasant voice. | The character is looking for a nanny (nurse, wet nurse, shepherd, husband) and consistently rejects those whose voice he does not like. He settles on the one with the most beautiful voice, but the choice turns out to be unsuccessful (usually the nurse eats the child, the sick person, the sheep, etc.). | 20 | 31 |
| F92 | A pair of pederasts. | A male character allows himself to be used as a sexual object. | 18 | 23 |
| M76 | A person climbing a tree has his leg cut off | A woman cuts off a man's leg when he climbs a tree; a man cuts off a woman's leg when she climbs a tree. See K13A motif. | 5 | 4 |
| B125b In B125 family | A person going to a festival borrows someone else's organ. | A zoomorphic character goes to a festival and asks another to lend him a part of his body, which will make him look more attractive. | 19 | 20 |
| G18 | A person wishes to be sacrificed. | A boy, woman, or, less commonly, a man asks others to leave him/her in the forest, burn him/her, scatter his/her remains, or drag his/her body to the site of a future vegetable garden. Cultivated plants grow in this place. | 35 | 56 |
| M46a In M46 family | A picked up baby | The character turns into a baby, is picked up by the owners of valuables, and then steals valuables or converges with a woman. The baby is not a demonic creature and does not intend to kill those who pick it up (cf. Motive L60). | 42 | 53 |
| H34d In H34 family | A piece bitten off the sky. | A zoomorphic character climbs or attempts to climb up to the sky or the moon to bite off a piece of them. | 6 | 8 |
| J51 | A piece is missing, E33. | The character is dismembered or eaten; he is revived from his remains, but since one of his bones was broken, swallowed or carried away (or a drop of blood or a piece of flesh was lost), the revival fails, or the character remains defective in some way. | 71 | 120 |
| J51b In J51 family | A piece is missing: the reborn moon. | The moon has been eaten or has died and its body has decomposed. It is revived, but a small part (the bone) is missing. This determines the characteristics of the moon or the characteristics of human anatomy. | 4 | 5 |
| M70a In M70 family | A pierced old woman | A character on whom an old woman defecates or whose face blows the winds pierces her from below with a sharp object. See M70 motif. | 10 | 4 |
| C30a In C30 family | A pound of flesh, ATU 890. | A man borrows money on the condition that if he fails to repay it by a certain date, he will have to give the lender a certain amount of his own flesh. The lender cannot cut off the flesh, because he is unable to fulfil the formally logical but essentially absurd demand made of him. | 46 | 30 |
| A12a In A12 family | A predatory beast eclipses the luminaries. | During an eclipse or under other circumstances, predators attack the luminaries: wolves, bears, jaguars, pumas, dogs, foxes, raccoons. See motif A12. | 103 | 136 |
| E9e In E9 family | A puppy received as a reward. | An animal or object received by a young man from supernatural beings as a reward for his kindness, upon the young man's return home (to earth), turns into a girl. | 24 | 34 |
| M84a In M84 family | A revived goat | After supernatural characters put the bones of a dead and eaten deer, cow, ram, or goat in its skin, the animal is whole (and usually comes to life). See M84 motif. | 45 | 41 |
| K56ac In K56 family | A row of stones and a row of logs. | A girl finds herself in a forest hut, where a bear arrives. He orders her to make him a bed out of stones and logs. | 4 | 5 |
| J51a2 In J51 family | A severed finger instead of a chicken bone. | A girl must penetrate an inaccessible place with the help of chicken bones. She loses one or there are not enough bones. By cutting off her finger and using it as she would use the bones, the girl achieves her goal. | 5 | 7 |
| L5h In L5 family | A severed head stuck in a hole. | Two sisters or two brothers find themselves in the demon's house or in front of an obstacle. One of them crawls through a narrow hole. The other gets stuck. The brother or sister pulls him or her by the head, and the head is torn off. | 12 | 13 |
| M3b In M3 family | A severed rabbit tail | Trying to grab a hare, another animal tears off (bites) its tail. It's been short ever since. | 2 | 5 |
| C32 | A ship made of nails. | Demonic characters will make a ship out of nail clippings. | 3 | 3 |
| M171b In M171 family | A shoulder blade without meat. | The character pretends to have brought meat on a shoulder blade and gives it to the hosts to cook. Taking a bare bone without meat out of the pot, he accuses the hosts of stealing the meat. | 16 | 20 |
| M84d In M84 family | A sick tree | A person hears trees talking, one of which is (fatally) ill and suffers. | 6 | 7 |
| K35a5 In K35 family | A sign by which the patron recognises the visitor. | An authoritative character leaves an object (a letter) for a little boy, by which he will be able to recognise him when he grows up and comes to him. | 10 | 10 |
| J62c In J62 family | A sister asks her brother to obtain the impossible. | In order to destroy the young man, the antagonist arouses in his sister (rarely: in him himself) a desire to possess wonderful objects, the attempt to obtain which is deadly dangerous. The young man sets off to obtain the objects. | 57 | 87 |
| M65a In M65 family | A squeaky tree | The trees are creaking in the wind. Hearing a creak, the character climbs a tree and gets stuck. See M65 motif. | 18 | 1 |
| K26a In K26 family | A stone covers the opening. | The hole in the sky is covered by a flat stone. Moving it aside, the character sees the earth. See motif K26. | 13 | 2 |
| N14 | A storyteller at a wedding | fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator attended a feast and/or wedding arranged by the characters of the fairy tale. | 57 | 170 |
| N8 | A storyteller instead of a core | fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters placed the narrator in a gun or gun and fired a shot, or he jumped onto the core himself and thus arrived at the place where the fairy tale was performed | 20 | 28 |
| L103b1 In L103 family | A stream of excrement in the face of the pursuer. 28.30.-.32. | The hero or heroine flees from a demon on the back of a domestic animal (often a bull). When the demon approaches, the animal releases a stream of manure or intestinal gas into its face, and it stops the chase. | 5 | 10 |
| M49a In M49 family | A substituted shaman | hero needs to penetrate unnoticed into the locus of dangerous creatures; he meets an old woman (usually a shaman, a doctor) going there, puts on her skin, and penetrates into dangerous ones in her guise creatures. | 47 | 84 |
| K24a In K24 family | A supernatural man hides a woman's clothes. | A man, usually of non-human nature, hides the clothes or sits on the clothes of an ordinary earthly girl. To get her clothes back, she is forced to enter into a romantic relationship with him. Traditions in which the character is a snake or dragon (ATU 425M) are marked with an asterisk*. | 36 | 39 |
| M58 | A trail or bush saves you from the heat | The earth is burning, the fire is chasing the character. A number of elements and objects refuse to cover him, saying they will burn or heat up; the last in the row shelters him. The earth cools down, the character leaves the shelter. | 16 | 25 |
| K3 | A tree or rock grows. | The hero climbs a tree or rock to get bird eggs, chicks, fruit, honey, etc. He cannot climb down because another character makes the tree (rock) very tall or makes the tree trunk thick. See motif K1A. | 67 | 37 |
| M29j In M29 family | A trickster is a waterfowl or marsh bird | See the motives in square brackets. | 14 | 9 |
| M84b1 In M84 family | A trip to the land of fish | A person enters a country from where fish come to people (and comes back). | 14 | 21 |
| H24 | A vessel opened too early. | A vessel or other small container with valuables or living beings (creatures) is opened (prematurely). Its contents get out of control or disappear. | 202 | 343 |
| M137 | A weak predator imitates a strong one, ATU 47D. | A weaker predator tries to imitate a stronger one, but cannot perform the actions that the strong one performs easily. | 36 | 32 |
| K164 | A wife is not a best friend, ATU 921B. | The person himself or someone else creates a situation in which he becomes convinced that his wife is not his best friend. Usually, the treacherous wife is contrasted with a loyal dog. | 20 | 17 |
| M97B In M97 family | A woman asks the trees | 2 | 2 | |
| L36 | A woman attacks when a man is in a tree. | At the moment when the husband climbs or descends from a tree, his wife (or her brother) kills or maims him or turns into a demon that pursues him. | 12 | 13 |
| K45b In K45 family | A woman becomes an aquatic animal. | A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict, as a result of which the woman turns into a marine mammal, the mistress of marine mammals, or a frog. | 12 | 19 |
| K92a In K92 family | A woman builds a house, ATU 923B. | A girl who has been driven from her home or has become the wife of an insignificant pauper becomes rich and respected. | 58 | 78 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.