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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M95 | Take the gift home, ATU 311 | weaker character asks a stronger character to take the gift to his family and climbs into a basket, bag, etc. A strong character brings and leaves a gift without knowing that brought whoever sent this gift. Usually a girl hides her sisters in a bag (chest), and next time she sits there herself, and the cannibal believes that there are gifts for the girls' parents in the bag and carries the bag. | 55 | 72 |
| M157b In M157 family | Take the most precious thing (ATU 875). | The husband drives his wife away, allowing her to take what is most precious to her. She takes her sleeping or intoxicated husband. He returns with her. {Traditions mentioned in El-Shamy 2004 are highlighted in bold; it is highly likely that this motif is indeed present in them; some traditions mentioned in ATU 875 are given in brackets; they are not included in the correlation table, the original publications are required}. | 69 | 72 |
| M75 | Taken from vultures | The character attracts and catches corpse eaters (usually birds) and as a result obtains valuables or returns something valuable (fire, woman, animals, etc.). | 74 | 134 |
| I120b In I120 family | Taking something out of an animal's ear. | The character takes food, clothing, and other valuables from the ear of an animal (most often a horse or cow). | 24 | 26 |
| M196a In M196 family | Talking dead people. | Arguing over a trivial matter, a husband and wife (or one of them) lie down and do not move, and people gather to bury them. At the last moment, the supposed dead person opens their mouth, and people think that the dead have come back to life; or the supposed dead person is actually buried in the ground. | 15 | 19 |
| F93 | Talking penis, D1610.6.2. | After a person performs a certain action, his penis begins to speak (often repeating what the person has said). | 8 | 4 |
| I22f In I22 family | Talking trees. | The character must pass small objects (trees, logs, blades) that constantly collide and diverge, fall and rise. | 41 | 60 |
| E13 | Tambourine – lake. | The shamanic tambourine is compared or associated with a lake. | 2 | 4 |
| K141 | Tamed mischievous sisters. | Supernatural women harm people. The hero tames them and usually takes them as wives. | 18 | 23 |
| B28b In B28 family | Taming of things. | The inhabitants of the area where the hero finds himself are afraid of creatures that are tools, utensils, and plants that are now harmless. The hero easily defeats these creatures and usually transforms them into what they are now. | 16 | 32 |
| L41b In L41 family | Tar basket. | A basket in which a cannibal puts people is smeared or filled with tar. See motifs L41, L42. | 10 | 9 |
| L114b1 In L114 family | Task: bring the cannibal himself, ATU 328. | The character sequentially steals various items from the cannibal's house and finally catches or kills him. | 45 | 59 |
| K27g1 In K27 family | Task: clean out the stable. | The character must quickly clean the stable or barn of the manure that has accumulated there over a long period of time. | 15 | 22 |
| L114b In L114 family | Task: to bring the property of the cannibal, ATU 328. | After receiving the task or on his own initiative, the trickster enters the character's house (usually that of the cannibal) several times, each time taking one of his belongings or one of his family members. | 70 | 77 |
| K27 | Tasks and competitions. | The character receives tasks that are deadly dangerous or can only be accomplished with supernatural abilities or helpers; the hero completes the tasks and/or miraculously survives. The confrontation between the characters unfolds as a game or competition in which the loser loses their life or status. | 477 | 1424 |
| K27n In K27 family | Tasks of relatives, H310, H331. | A young man must complete difficult tasks or win a competition in order to obtain permission to marry. The person giving the tasks is indicated in square brackets. See motif K27. | 373 | 325 |
| B14A In B14 family | Tears turn into water. | Rivers, springs, the sea, floodwaters, and rain arise from tears (for rivers of tears in the world of the dead, see motif H16). | 68 | 82 |
| F10 | Teeth knocked out. | A woman has a second mouth (usually in her vagina) with sharp teeth. A man inserts or throws a stone, bone, stick, etc. into this mouth, knocking out the teeth or extracting toothy animals from it in this way. | 16 | 10 |
| M91c7 In M91 family | Tell them I'm dead | When enemies come to kill a person, he pretends to be dead. | 30 | 30 |
| M203a In M203 family | Tell them that I have died. | A supernatural being conveys a message to an unknown recipient via a passer-by, who dies or suffers harm after delivering the message. | 6 | 4 |
| L85e In L85 family | Temporarily splits in two. | The character is temporarily split vertically into two halves and then rejoined. | 2 | 3 |
| F56 | Temptation and incest. | Upon seeing the vagina of his mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, niece, or mother-in-law, a man or boy thinks about incest or commits it. | 29 | 37 |
| B99 | Termite nest. | A person or their head left on a tree turns into an insect nest. | 14 | 20 |
| F100 | Test of chastity (queen and maid). | A magic potion reveals that the only chaste woman is the maid, an orphan, etc. The king chooses the maid. | 6 | 6 |
| M176 | Test: jumping over an obstacle. | The characters agree to jump over a ditch, stream, fire, etc., or walk across a log, rope, etc. One or all of them {specified in brackets} fall. | 37 | 46 |
| K97 | Tested fear, ATU 537. | A man prepares to kill a large bird, but does not kill it. When the bird later carries him, it pretends to leave him on a rock or throw him down. In doing so, it makes it clear how frightened it was. Either the bird first drops and catches the man, and later he makes her experience fear herself (the Volyn variant is slightly different). | 36 | 38 |
| B116d In B116 family | The "book" as part of the stomach. | Part of the stomach of ruminants is called a "book". | 17 | 22 |
| L72h In L72 family | The abandoned flint. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a tool for kindling fire (flint, tinder, match, kindling), which becomes an obstacle in the path of his pursuer. (A discarded flint is counted if it serves to strike fire, and is not counted if it is simply a hard stone that turns into a mountain). | 25 | 37 |
| L72c In L72 family | The abandoned mirror. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws a mirror behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (ice, lake, etc.) or attracts his attention and causes him to lose time. (In the Udmurt version, objects destroy obstacles in the character's path). | 46 | 56 |
| K1j In K1 family | The abandoned returns faster than the abandoner. | The abandoned one turns into a bird and returns home faster than the one who abandoned him. | 9 | 10 |
| K43 | The abandoned survives and triumphs, S300. | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are abandoned or expelled discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. [Materials on European fairy tales are mostly not yet included] | 124 | 216 |
| A1 | The ancient sun. | Another sun — less powerful or less favourable to humans — existed before the appearance of the current one. | 54 | 62 |
| M57c In M57 family | The animal defecates with gold | An animal (donkey, bull, horse, goat, bear, leopard) or inanimate object makes gold or food stand out, or a character makes others believe that this is the case. | 127 | 197 |
| M75b In M75 family | The animal in the carcass was carried away by a bird | A person hides in the skin or carcass of a large animal. A bird brings a skin or carcass to the nest without knowing what it brought the person. | 46 | 45 |
| B49 | The animals did not understand the instructions. | Animals of a certain species (in Toraja – humans) hear poorly or misunderstand instructions or questions about their future, or get confused when making requests to deities. This is how they acquire their current characteristics and habits. | 24 | 20 |
| H43ac In H43 family | The antagonist brings people to life instead of the creator. | The creator made human figures and left. By sneaking up on the figures, the antagonist brings them to life himself. That's why people are mortal and imperfect. | 8 | 11 |
| K32h3 In K32 family | The antagonist is burned. | The antagonist is executed by being burned alive. (Episodes in which the burning of the character is not a punishment but a means of getting rid of him are not taken into account). | 51 | 122 |
| K27p In K27 family | The antagonist mourns his assistants. | The antagonist sends the hero to places where he is attacked by dangerous creatures; the hero kills them and brings them to the antagonist. The creatures turn out to be relatives, pupils or helpers of the antagonist, whom he (or his close relatives) mourns or revives. See motif K27. | 0 | 0 |
| E42 | The appearance of female breasts. | Women have two breasts because the original breast was cut in half. | 2 | 3 |
| B11 | The appearance of rivers. | A river (rarely: a chain of lakes, a narrow strait) or its current course is created by humans or animals. See motifs B12, B13. This section covers other variants of the motif. | 38 | 37 |
| A37b In A37 family | The archer's severed finger. | A small animal (marmot, rabbit, mole, frog) or a person who turns into such an animal tries to hit a target in the sky (a celestial body or a bird) with arrows and as a result loses their thumbs. | 9 | 18 |
| J59b In J59 family | The arrow falls, the dead person comes back to life. | To revive the dead, the character shoots an arrow into the sky or throws an object. It is assumed that the dead, fearing the falling object, will come back to life and run away. | 11 | 15 |
| A37c In A37 family | The arrow hits the barrier. | The character shoots an arrow into the sky, aiming to hit a celestial body or deity, but the arrow hits an obstacle blocking the target. | 5 | 8 |
| B42h1 In B42 family | The arrow pierced the animal. | In the plot of cosmic hunting, one of the astral objects is identified with an arrow or bullet, and it is emphasised that it struck an animal or three animals, which are identified with Orion's Belt. {In the Khoisan variants, it is emphasised that the arrow did not reach its target}. | 27 | 35 |
| H28a In H28 family | The ashes of the burned turn into gnus. | When a character is burned, the smoke and sparks turn into mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects that scatter throughout the world. | 40 | 85 |
| L114a In L114 family | The awake child. | One (usually the youngest) of a group of young men or women (children) ends up with them in the house of a cannibal or cannibaless. The cannibal intends to kill the newcomers when they fall asleep. The youngest consistently answers the cannibal's questions about why he is not sleeping, forcing him to carry out new tasks instead of attacking the sleepers. The brothers (sisters) run away and escape. | 34 | 48 |
| M199j In M199 family | The awl in the giant's shoulder. | A giant puts a man on his shoulders to carry him across a river. Believing that the man is strong, he asks why he is so light. The man replies that if he puts all his weight on the giant, the giant will not be able to carry him. The giant pricks him with an awl (knife, nail) and asks him not to put all his weight on him again. | 13 | 18 |
| D4q1 In D4 family | The bat and fire. | The bat participates in obtaining fire. | 7 | 8 |
| B98b In B98 family | The Bat and funerals. | The Bat comes into conflict with other creatures in connection with someone's death or funeral. | 11 | 11 |
| B98a In B98 family | The bat becomes an outcast, ATU 222A. | The bat becomes an outcast among other creatures (usually after trying to join either the animals or the birds). | 70 | 73 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.