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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D13i1 In D13 family | The one who showed his teeth was exposed. | The characteristics of a character can be determined by his teeth. By laughing and showing his teeth, the character reveals himself. | 3 | 5 |
| L100g In L100 family | The One-Legged Goose, ATU 785A. | A servant serves his master a roasted bird, one of whose legs has already been eaten. He tells him to look at the chickens, geese, etc., which are standing on one leg. When they run away, it becomes clear that they all have two legs. Usually, the servant says that if the master had scared the roasted goose, it would have shown its second leg too. | 40 | 24 |
| D4d In D4 family | The opossum obtains fire. | The opossum obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. | 11 | 14 |
| K47c In K47 family | The origin of dogs. | The marriage of a woman and a dog gave rise to dogs – friends and helpers of humans. | 3 | 6 |
| E19 | The origin of drugs. | Narcotic plants arise from the body of a human being torn to pieces by others. | 6 | 10 |
| E20 | The origin of fish poison. | When a certain person enters the water, the fish die. A plant grows from parts of his body or on his grave, from which fish poison (timbó) is made. | 17 | 27 |
| E17 | The origin of ornamentation. | People get the idea of ornamentation of vessels, baskets, bodies, etc., or of a sign system after someone manages to see a pattern on the body of a zoomorphic or supernatural creature or make an imprint of it. | 21 | 32 |
| H38 | The owner of the valuables comes to retrieve them. | A supernatural character changes appearance and comes to the hero's children (less often to the hero himself). Unaware of the trick, they hand over the magical object they have obtained to its former owner, and the character disappears with it. | 5 | 5 |
| D4m In D4 family | The owners of fire dance. | The thief comes to the owners of fire or light. They feast or dance. He joins them and steals their valuables when the moment is right. See motif D4A. | 0 | 0 |
| M154a In M154 family | The ox, the donkey and work, ATU 207A. | One of the domestic animals (usually a donkey) persuades another to pretend to be sick. After that, the advisor has to work for both of them. Then he tells the pretend sick animal that the owner is going to slaughter him, and the animal rushes to work. | 42 | 36 |
| B5a In B5 family | The pair of creators: dialogue. | At the beginning of time, female and male characters meet and engage in dialogue. | 14 | 18 |
| J48 | The parrot cuts the rope. | A character climbs up to the sky or descends from the sky to the ground on a rope. A parrot cuts the rope, and the character falls. | 10 | 25 |
| L20a In L20 family | The parrot devourer. | A man climbs a tree, takes chicks (usually parrots) from a nest and throws them to a woman. She eats them raw, then kills or tries to kill the man. | 12 | 31 |
| D4p In D4 family | The parrot obtains fire. | The parrot obtains fire for humans. See motif D4A. Australian data is not taken into account, as the common origin of the motif in America and Australia is excluded. | 4 | 4 |
| M80 | The partridge scares the offender, K932 | The character insults a partridge bird, kills or offends its chickens; the partridge suddenly takes off in front of the offender, he falls (usually into a lake or river). | 22 | 27 |
| M5a In M5 family | The passengers of the sinking boat | Small animal characters sail in the boat, it sinks, everyone escapes as best they can. | 31 | 37 |
| N25 | The path is a needle long | said that characters spend a long time (days, weeks, months, years) on the road, but end up walking a journey as long as a grain, needle, or other small object. | 3 | 11 |
| E6a In E6 family | The path through water. | People walk across a (frozen) body of water to reach their current place of residence, while some remain on the other side or drown. | 6 | 12 |
| F40c In F40 family | The patriarch kills the boys. | An authoritative man systematically kills the boys born to his wives or his sister. | 16 | 23 |
| F28A5 In F28 family | The penis and vulva as separate beings. | The penis and vulva (in the singular or plural) are separate beings and characters. | 8 | 6 |
| G30 | The penis turns into plants. | A long penis is cut into pieces, which turn into many edible plants or different types of trees. Cf. motif B53. | 7 | 7 |
| L115 | The Perfect Gentleman. | A girl who rejected suitors finally finds someone she likes. The groom turns out to be a werewolf: on the way to his home, he gives away borrowed items of clothing and parts of his body. | 16 | 25 |
| F86a In F86 family | The pet is eaten. | The character cares for a fish, crab or other creature. Others watch the character, kill and eat his pet, or try to do so. | 17 | 18 |
| L39b In L39 family | The pie tree. | The tree grows from a flatbread (pie, etc.) and usually bears flatbreads instead of fruit. | 7 | 8 |
| I113 | The piglet – the golden bristle, (ATU 530A). | A pig or boar made of gold or with golden bristles is a precious object. (In ATU, "a pig with golden bristles" is one of the possible miraculous objects; the presence of a corresponding number in regional indexes does not necessarily mean the presence of an image; only cases where the image is directly named are taken into account). | 15 | 28 |
| F9a1 In F9 family | The pike's mouth, ATU 1686A*. | A girl or young woman says (pretends) that she has a predatory mouth in her vagina. {Unlike variants characteristic of the circum-Pacific region, the corresponding texts do not suggest that the female womb is actually dangerous}. | 17 | 19 |
| K80a2 In K80 family | The pipe tells of a crime, ATU 780. | A part of the victim's body or a plant that grew at the site of the murder tells people about the crime that was committed, usually after it has been made into a musical instrument. | 54 | 127 |
| K27zz3 In K27 family | The pit by the apple tree. | The father or stepmother (werewolf) pushes/locks the sisters (the girl and her servants) into a pit. The heroine manages to escape and triumphs over her antagonists. | 14 | 17 |
| B47 | The Pleiades and cold. | The Pleiades or another group of stars once appeared or regularly cause severe cold. (The heliacal setting of the Pleiades occurs in May-June; in the Northern Hemisphere, they are best seen in winter). | 24 | 33 |
| I100c In I100 family | The Pleiades and the Cuckoo. | God turned the husband into a cuckoo, and the wife and children into the Pleiades. | 3 | 4 |
| I122 | The Pleiades – a beehive. | The Pleiades – a beehive, a nest, a cluster of bees or wasps. | 11 | 10 |
| I98b In I98 family | The Pleiades – a duck's nest. | The Pleiades – ducks, nest or wild duck egg. | 10 | 16 |
| I98a In I98 family | The Pleiades – a hen with chicks. | The Pleiades (in Tajikistan – Giady) – hen, brooding hen with chicks, chicks, rarely – rooster. | 58 | 107 |
| I95 | The Pleiades – a sieve for grain. | The Pleiades are a sieve or riddle for sifting agricultural products. See motif I95. | 29 | 45 |
| I108 | The Pleiades – a single character. | The Pleiades are a single character, not a group of people. | 76 | 91 |
| I99 | The Pleiades – boys or men. | The Pleiades – a group of boys, young men, men or people of different genders, but predominantly male. | 90 | 129 |
| I85 | The Polar Star – a stake or a nail. | Polar Star – stake, nail, hitching post, etc. | 77 | 108 |
| M91c3 In M91 family | The postman hare | A person releases an animal or a bird - supposedly with his wife instructing his wife to cook food, etc. Another does not understand deception and buys an animal. | 48 | 55 |
| M91c4 In M91 family | The pot cooks by itself | A person removes the pot from the fire, its contents continue to boil, or the person prepares food in advance, puts it in a pot or pit. Another believes that the pot cooks without fire or incredibly fast (or that a stick, if it hits the ground or the pot, creates food), buys a pot (stick). | 31 | 45 |
| M45 | The predator pretends to be dead | When a zoomorphic character falls asleep or pretends to be dead (seriously ill), the animals he usually hunts gather to meet him. He catches or kills them, or they run away at the last minute. | 42 | 57 |
| E5d In E5 family | The predator watches over those who leave. | The first people to arrive on earth and settle within a limited space are threatened by a predator or monster. | 21 | 24 |
| L42f In L42 family | The prey escaped, the wife was killed. | The character intended for consumption slips away unnoticed. The master of the house thinks that his wife has eaten him alone and cuts open her stomach. | 4 | 11 |
| K155 | The prince grew up in seclusion. | A person (usually a king) raises a son (daughter) in isolation. One day (usually by chance), the young man (woman) sees the outside world and leaves his (her) confinement. | 20 | 26 |
| J32d In J32 family | The Princess in the Tower, ATU 530. | The girl will be won by the one who, on horseback or by some other means, quickly reaches a hard-to-reach place (the top of a tower, a mountain, the upper floor of a palace, the top steps of a staircase, a bridge, the bottom of a chasm, jumps over a moat, etc.). Usually, the girl herself is located where the suitor must climb or (rarely) descend. In Italian versions, the hero wins tournaments. | 66 | 101 |
| L103c In L103 family | The protective dog and the cannibal. | A dog, cat or other animal tries to drive away a demon (usually an old cannibal). The demon (or its victims, who do not understand the danger) kills the animal – usually by cutting off (breaking) its body parts one by one, after which the demon gains power over its victims. | 12 | 21 |
| A44 | The protector moon. | A character fleeing from pursuit, wronged or suffering on earth, asks the Moon to take him to her, or climbs up to the moon himself using a ladder or rope that has descended from there. | 60 | 81 |
| L69 | The puma defeats the monster. | A monster attacks a person; a puma, jaguar or dog fights the monster, kills or drives it away; the person returns home. | 11 | 12 |
| C6c2 In C6 family | The punished loon. | Birds must dive to retrieve soil from the bottom, from which land will emerge. The loon cannot reach the bottom, refuses to dive, or tries to hide the soil it has retrieved (usually punished for this). | 9 | 10 |
| K9a In K9 family | The punished person is suspended between heaven and earth. | The punished character is suspended on a chain or metal thread between heaven and earth. | 3 | 6 |
| M142 | The Punished Tail, ATU 154. | A zoomorphic character accuses his tail of hindering his escape from pursuit (usually punishes it and dies as a result). (ATU data not entered; plot 154 includes several independent motifs; which of them are present in the traditions referred to by ATU cannot be determined without referring to the original sources). | 36 | 46 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.