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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L108b In L108 family | The Thin Voice, (ATU 327F). | To prevent his victim from recognising him, the predator, the cannibal, makes his voice thinner by mechanical means - he smears his throat (tongue) with fat, cauterises it with a hot stone or iron, exposes it to ant bites, consults a blacksmith, etc. | 59 | 83 |
| L134 | The Third Wave. | The hero's adversary (usually a demonic woman) is inside a sea wave (the third or ninth) or embodies the wave. | 10 | 9 |
| K100f2 In K100 family | The thirst-quenched breaks his chains. | A captured supernatural character breaks his chains and escapes to freedom after being given water (or wine, etc.) to drink. | 30 | 36 |
| M199g2 In M199 family | The thorny pole. | The trickster arranges things so that the tiger, with whom they are carrying meat on a pole, holds the end of the pole with the thorns and suffers from pain. | 3 | 4 |
| I131 | The thread of life. | Every person's life corresponds to a thread; when the thread breaks, the person dies. | 23 | 30 |
| M99 | The threat to exterminate birds, AA 981.1. | The character is going to abuse all birds or (less commonly) animals, but after hearing wise advice, he abandons his intention. | 43 | 61 |
| K174 | The thrown ring. | To signal their arrival, a person places, or more often discreetly throws, a ring or other small item of personal jewellery or toiletries into the jug of a maid or servant. Upon discovering it, the other person understands that the first is nearby. | 48 | 61 |
| I80 | The thunderbolt's apprentice. | A character who finds himself in the locus of a deity responsible for atmospheric phenomena violates certain prohibitions or instructions, thereby causing excessively strong thunderstorms, rain, snowfall or wind. | 36 | 51 |
| M167a In M167 family | The tiger frightened by Twilight. | A strong predator mistakes an unfamiliar word for the name of a creature that is stronger than him and flees. | 23 | 34 |
| M29w2 In M29 family | The tiger is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the tiger dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 74 | 84 |
| M167 | The tiger mistaken for a bull, ATU 177. | In the dark, a person mistakes a tiger (lion, demon) for another person or a domestic animal (bull, ox). | 33 | 46 |
| K180 | The time of the wolf and the time of the fox. | The ruler demands an explanation of his dream. The snake tells the man that this dream signifies the coming of a time when people tend to behave in a certain way. This happens several times. Each time, the man's behaviour towards the snake confirms her words. | 4 | 5 |
| C22 | The Toad in Search of Thunder. | During a severe drought or global fire, birds and animals are sent to the thunder gods living at the edge of the world to bring rain. The last of those sent achieves the goal. The toad plays an important role in the action. | 4 | 3 |
| B86 | The Tower of Babel. | To reach the sky (the moon, stars, sun), people build a ladder or tower consisting of separate modules (logs, poles, bricks, etc.), but the structure collapses. | 87 | 121 |
| M130b In M130 family | The traitor is killed instead of the victim. | A herbivorous animal falls into a hunter's trap. The predator does not want to release it, as it hopes to eat its entrails, but the bird helps it to escape. The hunter tries to kill the bird, but instead kills the predator. | 7 | 7 |
| B105 | The transformation of a shy daughter-in-law. | The father-in-law or mother-in-law catches the daughter-in-law in a situation she is ashamed of (with her hair down, bathing, etc.). Out of shame, she turns into a bird (usually a hoopoe) or a turtle. | 9 | 13 |
| B63 | The transformation of lazy children. | Children lie to their mother, pretending to work in the fields. When the deception is revealed, they are left without a harvest and are transformed into atmospheric phenomena or celestial objects. | 4 | 8 |
| B28 | The travelling transformer. | Travelling from one locality to another, the character successively transforms people into birds and animals, into stones, sanctuaries (or transforms monstrous animals into ordinary ones), establishes cultural norms, determines the biological characteristics of creatures, the appearance of the locality, etc. | 69 | 127 |
| L42j In L42 family | The tree bends (children in the ogre's bag). | The ogre catches children (usually mice), puts them in a bag, orders a tree (pole, crossbar in the house) to bend over, hangs the bag, orders the tree to straighten up again, and leaves. Another character (usually a fox) orders the tree (pole, etc.) to bend over and frees the children. | 7 | 9 |
| C23 | The tree blocks the sun. | The growth or fall of a giant tree determines the state of the sky and the celestial bodies in it (the tree blocks the light of the sun or threatens to destroy the sky, pulls the sun from the sky when it falls, etc.). | 21 | 29 |
| K103a1 In K103 family | The tree follows its mistress. | A tree that suddenly grows allows only the heroine to enjoy its fruits and follows her when she moves to a new place. | 6 | 11 |
| M90a3 In M90 family | The tree grew out of a snake | plant grows from a killed snake or part of a snake's body. | 8 | 10 |
| G10 | The tree is suspended from the sky. | A tree whose trunk has been cut down remains hanging because it is held up from above. | 32 | 48 |
| M57d2 In M57 family | The tree makes wishes come true | The man was about to cut down a tree. It himself, or the creature living on it or in it, asks not to do so and fulfills the person's wishes. | 25 | 32 |
| I32a In I32 family | The tree of destiny. | When a leaf or fruit from a certain tree falls, one of the people on earth dies. | 18 | 17 |
| I32 | The tree of infants. | There was or is a tree on which babies grow; the souls of unborn babies; whose leaves have turned into people; whose trunk is covered with many female nipples or flowers from which babies suck milk or juice. | 27 | 44 |
| I33 | The Tree of the Dead. | The soul on its journey to the afterlife stops at a certain tree. | 29 | 31 |
| K103a In K103 family | The tree raises its branches. | A suddenly grown plant (tree, vine, lotus) bends (raises its branches, etc.), allowing only the hero or heroine to climb it or pick its fruits (flowers). | 43 | 53 |
| K10i In K10 family | The tree that opened up. | The tree opens its trunk and hides the hero fleeing from a man-eating bird. The monster that flies in after him is held tightly by the tree, which squeezes its trunk again. | 8 | 26 |
| B35a In B35 family | The tree turns into a bear. | The tree asks not to be cut down and fulfils the man's wishes. When they go beyond what is reasonable, the tree turns the man into a bear. | 12 | 14 |
| B67 | The tree turns into stones. | A fallen tree and/or its stump turns into a mountain (mountain range) or rocks. (Usually, the branches of this tree bear the fruits and shoots of various cultivated plants, see motif G5). | 9 | 4 |
| J56 | The trial of the sons. | A son or sons come to their father. He subjects them to trials in order to find out whether they are really his children. | 24 | 49 |
| F58 | The trickster and women. | The character spends the night with a group of women, concealing his nature and/or intentions. In the end, he is either identified and punished, or he slips away to continue his mischief. | 59 | 63 |
| H7c1 In H7 family | The trickster enters paradise. | The trickster first deceives Death (the devil), and then, also by deception, enters paradise. | 16 | 19 |
| M30 | The trickster falls, (ATU 225, 225A) | character who has no natural wings or can't fly long distances rises into the air, but falls or, having lost its wings, stays where he can't return from. (The motive includes several options, but even when taken together, they don't cover the whole world. Texts with M25 and M28 motifs are counted as including the M30 motif). | 226 | 343 |
| F60 | The trickster heals the girl. | A girl or woman falls ill. A character comes to heal her. The treatment consists of him copulating with her or attempting to do so. | 23 | 26 |
| M29m In M29 family | The Trickster is the Rat | See the motives in square brackets. | 22 | 8 |
| D13c In D13 family | The trickster makes his brother's wife laugh. | Two companions or brothers live together. The older one has a wife, whom he hides. To discover her, the younger one, left alone in the house, makes her laugh. | 7 | 8 |
| L33b In L33 family | The trickster provokes a stone. | The character challenges someone who, at first glance, is unable to move (a stump, a boulder, fire) to race or roll over it. The challenged party sets off, crushes or burns the character, or runs away with their property. | 18 | 22 |
| B95A In B95 family | The trickster punishes his own backside. | To punish his own backside for misbehaviour, the trickster burns it. | 5 | 4 |
| M108 | The trickster takes away property. | The character is called upon to help perform a task (usually to transport property or provisions across a river) and takes away what has been entrusted to him. | 16 | 18 |
| M48 | The trickster turns into a bison | Trickster asks another zoomorphic character to turn him into a creature of his kind, but if he breaks the condition for transformation, he becomes himself again. Usually, a trickster asks a bison or elk to turn it into a bison or elk. The bison (elk) rushes to the trickster, which bounces off in fear. The next time the trickster stays in place, metamorphoses, but regains its former appearance after trying to turn another trickster into a bison, etc. | 13 | 20 |
| M67 | The trickster was blown away by the wind | By stupidity or carelessness, the character causes a wind that blows him away. See the M66 motif (The Trickster emits a stream of intestinal gases). | 13 | 6 |
| M65 | The trickster was pinched and the meat was eaten | trickster bakes meat obtained by trick, deception; immobilized by sticking to a tree, ground, or stone; at this time, another character (fox, wolf, coyote, birds) eats all the meat. See M53 motif. | 29 | 50 |
| M75b4 In M75 family | The Trojan horse: getting a woman | To master a woman, the hero hides inside the hollow figure of a horse (bull, deer) or in an animal carcass. The character guarding the woman takes her to her. The hero gets outside and becomes a woman's lover. Or a woman hides inside the figure of a horse, which is taken to the man's chambers. | 35 | 22 |
| J28a In J28 family | The truth about the father. | When asking how one of his parents died, the hero receives a series of false answers. He often exposes himself to the same dangers, but remains alive, proving the falsity of the proposed versions. | 21 | 31 |
| M39a6c In M39 family | The Tsar Craftsman | The poor girl agrees to marry the prince only if he learns a craft. The prince fulfills the condition, then falls into the hands of enemies. He promises to make them an expensive item, let them sell it. His wife or (father, vizier) learns the job, the prisoner is released, the attackers are executed. | 26 | 29 |
| M91E In M91 family | The Tsar orders himself to be burned | The ruler, the leader, believes that a man who escaped death by cunning returned from the world where he received benefits. It tells you to burn, drown, etc. yourself or your close associates. | 16 | 11 |
| K167a In K167 family | The Tsarevich and the Blacksmith's Son, ATU 920. | The queen hates the son she is pregnant with and replaces him with the son (rarely – daughter) of a commoner, who raises the prince. The prince shows wisdom and becomes king. | 21 | 21 |
| M29k In M29 family | The turtle (toad, frog) is a cunning winner | A turtle (toad, frog) defeats strong opponents by cunning or perseverance. See the motives in square brackets. The character is named if it is a toad or frog; otherwise, a turtle. | 172 | 83 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.