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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B98 | The bat between beasts and birds, ATU 222A. | The bat (rarely: ostrich) tries to join either the beasts or the birds, or finds itself excluded from both. | 73 | 74 |
| I117a In I117 family | The bat helps to descend. | The bat helps the hero descend to the ground from a high cliff. | 11 | 13 |
| B98c In B98 family | The bat is deceived by a deity. | The heavenly deity could have healed the bat's mother or child, but did not do so, and they died. | 4 | 4 |
| F53a In F53 family | The Bat or Owl hides its face. | The husband hides his face from his wife because she does not know that he is a bat or an owl. | 22 | 23 |
| L1b In L1 family | The Bear and Her Sister. | A young woman turns into a monstrous bear and kills most people except her younger sister (Ojibwa: the younger sister of her former husband). Their brothers (or one brother) return from hunting and kill the bear, or she dies while chasing them. Cf. motif L65D. | 24 | 27 |
| F73b In F73 family | The bear believes that the vulva is a wound (ATU 153). | The bear (wolf, lion, dragon) believes that the vulva is a wound inflicted on a human being. | 23 | 15 |
| K8c5 In K8 family | The bear dies after swallowing a mouse. | A zoomorphic character no larger than a fox allows itself to be swallowed by a bear and kills it by tearing it apart from the inside. | 33 | 40 |
| M29b2 In M29 family | The bear is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the bear dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 183 | 131 |
| B44f1 In B44 family | The bear wants night. | In the dispute over whether the world should be light (warm), the bear is on the side of darkness (and cold); or the world is plunged into darkness because the bear hides the sun in his house. | 22 | 30 |
| M109b In M109 family | The beaten one carries the unbeaten one, ATU 4. | A weaker character convinces a stronger one that he feels even worse than he does. Usually, the stronger one agrees to carry him on his back. | 52 | 54 |
| K57a In K57 family | The Beauty from the Land of Soap, (ATU 510B). | A noble young man, who treated a lowly servant girl rudely and contemptuously, does not recognise her in the guise of a magnificent beauty and does not understand her hints about the relevant episodes. Or the younger brother responds to the hints of his older brothers after they first beat him and then fail to recognise him in the guise of a handsome hero. | 20 | 40 |
| D4i In D4 family | The beaver obtains fire. | The beaver obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 13 | 4 |
| H36g2 In H36 family | The beetle distorts the message. | When a character, who later became a dung beetle, was ordered to convey certain instructions to people, he distorted them. | 3 | 3 |
| K128a In K128 family | The best apples for the princess, ATU 610. | Each of the three brothers brings the princess (prince) a gift of fruit (less often fish, etc.) and encounters a character who punishes rudeness and rewards politeness. As a result (after additional trials), the youngest brother enters into the desired marriage. | 23 | 21 |
| K168b In K168 family | The bewildered man became a bear. | A person makes another person believe that he has turned into a bear (wolf), found himself in the forest, etc. When he wakes up, the bewitched person finds himself where he was before. | 10 | 9 |
| M197a In M197 family | The big cauldron gave birth to a small one, ATU 1592B. | A man took a cauldron (pot) and returned it with a small cauldron. The owner of the cauldron agreed that the big cauldron gave birth to a small one. The next time, the man did not return the cauldron: he died. The owner had to agree. | 46 | 35 |
| C25c In C25 family | The Big Dipper and the end of the world. | A change in the configuration of a certain constellation (usually the Big Dipper) or its disappearance from the sky will signal a global catastrophe. | 19 | 24 |
| B46a1 In B46 family | The Big Dipper – robbers. | The stars of the Big Dipper – thieves or robbers. | 15 | 26 |
| K16 | The bird becomes a young man. | Taking the form of a bird, bat, insect, small animal, or fish, the man enters the young woman's home (her father's house). | 59 | 75 |
| K43b In K43 family | The bird brings meat. | 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 left behind or driven away discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. Those who are abandoned eat their fill, while those who abandon them go hungry. A character (often a bird - a crow, magpie, seagull, etc.) visits the abandoned and brings a piece of fat or meat to the camp of the starving. | 20 | 24 |
| K143 | The bird catcher hero. | The protagonist of the narrative is a bird catcher or bird hunter, or the son of a bird catcher (hunter). | 11 | 11 |
| N27c In N27 family | The bird does not have milk | It is claimed that the bird has no milk and/or breasts | 17 | 29 |
| B79a1 In B79 family | The bird dropped the firmament onto the waters. | At the beginning of time, a bird flies and drops pieces of solid ground onto the water, from which land or an island emerges. Sometimes the substrate onto which the piece of solid ground falls is not precisely defined. | 20 | 22 |
| L42g2 In L42 family | The bird erases the trace. | A person leaves traces behind by dropping seeds, pebbles, etc., or leaving drops of blood. These traces are unintentionally destroyed by birds, animals, wind, etc. | 21 | 24 |
| K10h In K10 family | The bird feeds, but does not let go. | A bird carries a woman or boy to its nest, feeds them, but does not let them go. The captive runs away. | 10 | 8 |
| B68a In B68 family | The bird is punished: let it carry another. | Birds quarrel, and the one who claimed high status cripples the weak one. For this, the others order her to carry the crippled one on her back. | 6 | 9 |
| K94 | The bird of happiness (eaten head), ATU 567, 567A. | Those who eat a miraculous bird, fish, animal or fruit gain wealth and power. | 113 | 128 |
| K32f In K32 family | The bird son saves his mother. | A woman or girl raises a bird of prey chick, which brings her food and fire. This usually happens after an evil spirit leaves the girl or young woman in a tree or on an island. | 6 | 7 |
| K80a1 In K80 family | The bird tells of the crime. | A bird (usually arising from the remains of the murdered person or embodying their soul) tells of the crime committed or takes revenge on the murderer itself. | 45 | 55 |
| M127a In M127 family | The bird tricks the fox, ATU 223. | In response to a character's request to make him laugh or feed him, a bird sits on a person's or animal's head or on a fragile object. Another person tries to knock the bird down, kills or maims the person on whom the bird has landed, or breaks the object. Alternatively, the bird distracts the person's attention, and during this time the character eats the food that the person was carrying. | 74 | 82 |
| K27z2f In K27 family | The Biting Doll, ATU 571C. | A poor girl buys a doll (goose) that defecates gold. When the neighbours take the doll, it only dirties their house. They throw it away, and the prince uses it to wipe himself, and it sticks to his backside. No one can help, but the poor girl easily solves the problem. The prince marries her. | 8 | 8 |
| K64c In K64 family | The blacksmith blinds the cyclops. | The person who gouges out or burns out the cyclops's only (sighted) eye is a blacksmith. | 6 | 10 |
| E41 | The blacksmith kneads iron with his hands. | A skilled blacksmith, as a special gift, can take iron heated in a furnace with his bare hands, knead it like dough, and shape it as desired. Usually, he breaks a certain taboo and loses his gift. (The motif was identified and the material collected by Ruslan Doutalieyev). | 7 | 9 |
| L108b1 In L108 family | The blacksmith makes his voice thin. | To make his voice thin, the character turns to the blacksmith. | 25 | 46 |
| M97a2 In M97 family | The blind man asks the trees to get to the water. | 16 | 21 | |
| M97a1 In M97 family | The blind man questions the trees to get new eyes. | 12 | 18 | |
| L44b In L44 family | The blind man saw, the lame man ran. | The blind and deaf (lame) began to live together, helping each other. After being mortally frightened or fighting, both (less often, one of them) got rid of their disabilities. | 20 | 21 |
| K64a In K64 family | The Blinded Cyclops, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. | A man blinds a sleeping or immobile giant-cannibal and escapes from him. | 75 | 126 |
| K88c In K88 family | The blood of a dog will cure the princess. | The character learns that the blood (brain, etc.) of the dog guarding the neighbouring herd will cure the princess (prince). He uses this medicine and is rewarded. | 12 | 15 |
| E28 | The blood of the Moon pours onto the earth. | People shoot at the Moon, its blood spills onto the earth. | 4 | 9 |
| B72c In B72 family | The blood of those who run stains objects. | Children run after their mother, injure themselves, and their blood stains plants, the ground, and the evening sky. | 9 | 13 |
| H44 | The bloody division of offspring (ATU 485). | A human enters into a relationship with a non-human being. When they part, the being tears apart (or intends to tear apart) their child. (Most of the data was collected by S.Y. Neklyudov). | 27 | 47 |
| I96 | The bloody rainbow. | A rainbow consisting of blood either heralds war and death. | 15 | 20 |
| K80a5 In K80 family | The boar and the fratricides. | Brothers, competing as suitors or heirs, must hunt a boar. The younger brother succeeds. The older brothers kill him and take the boar for themselves. The truth comes out. | 8 | 20 |
| B42m2 In B42 family | The boastful and hasty. | The stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three hunters chasing a beast. Each has a distinct character (one is boastful, another is hasty, etc.). In Siberia, the hunters are identified with people of different nationalities, and in the North American Northeast, with birds of different species. | 15 | 14 |
| E15a In E15 family | The boat as a bird's breastbone. | The bow of the boat is modelled on a bird's breastbone. | 6 | 10 |
| L37b3 In L37 family | The body of a bird has miraculous powers. | From the birds' conversation, humans learn that their bodies or secretions have miraculous properties. | 12 | 13 |
| L54 | The boiling lake. | To overcome the disaster, hot stones or ashes are thrown into the water. | 16 | 23 |
| L33c In L33 family | The boulder crushes the trickster. | The trickster and the boulder agree to race down the slope. The boulder rolls faster and faster and crushes the trickster. See motif L33. | 14 | 7 |
| M86 | The boulder punishes the offender | A rock stalks or otherwise punishes a character when he unfairly insults her (usually takes away her property, see motive L33). | 21 | 20 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.