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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A4e In A4 family | Rider of the clouds | An anthropomorphic person associated with the thunder and rain rides on the clouds (uses them as a vehicle) | 0 | 0 |
| 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 |
| F97a5 In F97 family | Snake is deprived of its limbs | Being responsible for breaking food tabou by humans, snake lost its limbs as a punishment | 0 | 0 |
| H18a In H18 family | The puppy releases the animals. | The owner of the hunting animals hides them underground; one of the first ancestors turns into a puppy, which is picked up by the owner's children, and releases the animals. See motif H18. | 0 | 0 |
| I42g3 In I42 family | Edible house | In the forest person comes across a house that is made, completely or partly, of edible matter | 0 | 0 |
| J12E In J12 family | Skunk. | The false bridegroom - skunk. See motif J12. | 0 | 0 |
| J12F In J12 family | Owl. | False groom - eagle owl/owl. See motif J12. | 0 | 0 |
| J40b In J40 family | Avenged prisoners | After the hero comes back after a long absence and finds his parents enslaved, he tells them to demonstrate openly a lack of respect to their masters and punishes those who were cruel with them | 0 | 0 |
| jia | The myth of the avengers with a full plot. | The myth of the avengers with a full plot. | 0 | 0 |
| K13c In K13 family | The cannibal's daughter avenges her mother on her husband. | The cannibal's daughter takes revenge on her husband for her mother's death and manages to cut off his leg. See motif K13A. | 0 | 0 |
| K184 | When the forest comes to life. | The character links the onset of an event that is impossible, in his view, with the time when the trees of the forest will start moving, as if they were people. | 0 | 0 |
| K19 | Marriage to a star. | A man or woman marries a star. See motifs K19A, K19B. | 0 | 0 |
| K27b In K27 family | Smoking a pipe. | Test: smoke a huge or poisonous pipe or breathe in clouds of poisonous smoke. See motif K27. | 0 | 0 |
| K27f4 In K27 family | Build a house. | Task: to erect a building. See motif K27. | 0 | 0 |
| K27i In K27 family | Drain a body of water. | Task: to drain a large body of water. | 0 | 0 |
| 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 |
| K52a In K52 family | The slave pours water into the hearth. | The hero goes to the bottom of the sea for a woman. The slave pours water into the hearth in the house of the water dwellers. Hiding behind clouds of steam, the hero takes the woman away. See motif K52. | 0 | 0 |
| K561 | The wise carving of the fowl | A poor man brings his master a chicken (goose, etc.) as a present. The master asks him to divide the bird appropriately among the members of his household. The poor man does it considering the symbolic meaning of particular parts (gives the master the head, his daughters the wings, etc.) and receives rich compensation. A neighbor brings the master five chickens but is unable to divide them approppriately. The first man does it again. | 0 | 0 |
| K56a1 In K56 family | Mother-in-law performs the work of her daughter-in-law. | The groom, the bringer of prosperity, orders the girl who has come to perform work that she herself is unable to do. The groom's mother performs the work, and the girl is accepted by the groom. See motif K56A. Except for the Ket people: the work is performed by tiny women sitting in or behind the mother-in-law's ear. | 0 | 0 |
| K77c In K77 family | Those hiding in the house frighten the enemy. | Various objects and/or animals hide in the house where a strong enemy is expected to appear. They take turns attacking or frightening him, and he either dies or flees. See motifs K77a and K77b. | 0 | 0 |
| K8f In K8 family | Deer in the belly of a monster. | The swallowed one discovers a living deer in the belly of the monster. See motif K8A. | 0 | 0 |
| L100b1 In L100 family | Dialogue between the male and the female pigeons | The young man forgets his magic bride and meets another woman. At the last moment a bird tells the story about his real bride and he recalls everything. Usually two birds, a male and a female, have a dialogue in which the female can tell the male that he will be as cruel with her as this youth who has forgotten his bride. | 0 | 0 |
| L31a In L31 family | Children carried away to the sky. | An object descends from the sky. Children playing climb into it or stick to it, and it carries them away to the sky. See motif L31. | 0 | 0 |
| L67 | Gnawed wool. | Having dug an underground passage to a lying monstrous hoofed animal, a small animal gnaws the wool from the place on the skin where the heart beats; the hero thrusts a spear or arrow into this place. See motif L66. | 0 | 0 |
| M18a In M18 family | Obtaining arrows. | The character becomes the object of fishing or hunting, presenting himself as a target for enemies. Numerous arrows, darts, and harpoons stick into his body without causing harm, and he carries them away. See motif M18. | 0 | 0 |
| M29 | Trickster: identification with birds and animals | trickster is defined as a protagonist in the following characteristic episodes. | 0 | 0 |
| M38b3b In M38 family | Hero warms and covers the nestlings | Mighty bird (more rare other creature/mythological person) helps a man (rare: a woman) because he (she) warms/covers from bad weather its/hers nestlings (children) | 0 | 0 |
| M53b In M53 family | A bag with songs | Trickster claims he's carrying songs in his bag. See M53 motif. | 0 | 0 |
| C39a In C39 family | The sky was patched up with ice. | A hole in the sky or a crack in the ground was plugged with a piece of ice, which is why it is cold in the north (north-west, north-east). | 1 | 8 |
| G3A In G3 family | Burnt grains. | The first cereal grains were exposed to fire, burning to varying degrees. This resulted in different varieties of corn or rice with different colours. | 1 | 1 |
| H32C In H32 family | Lost abundance: the wronged spouse. | The woman's husband has a non-human nature and possesses magical knowledge and values. He is wronged, he leaves, and his knowledge and abilities can no longer be used by humans. | 1 | 1 |
| I100b In I100 family | Pleiades - people. | The Pleiades - a group of people of any gender and age. See motifs i99 - i100A, aggregate data. | 1 | 1 |
| I37g In I37 family | Mushrooms - a step, a platform, an obstacle. | A tree mushroom is a step, a platform; an object that helps or hinders movement; provides shelter or refuge. See motif I37. | 1 | 6 |
| I79 | Kirtimukha. | The monster is beheaded or deprived of its body. Its head is depicted on temples and vessels (narrative texts and/or iconography). | 1 | 1 |
| J1 | Avenging heroes (all variants). | The characters avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are older than them by a generation (less often by two generations). | 1 | 3 |
| J12k In J12 family | The groom and the deceiver live in the same house. | Desirable and undesirable marriage partners live in the same house. The undesirable partner is a servant or junior partner, usually pretending to be the master. | 1 | 1 |
| K18b In K18 family | The boy stops crying. | Men or women approach the little boy one after another or take him in their arms. The person who makes the boy stop crying is recognised as his parent. See motif K18. | 1 | 1 |
| M24a In M24 family | Kills a woman, captured | turtle man goes to war, kills people (usually a woman). He gets caught or killed. In his animal form, he continues to live on. See M24 motif. | 1 | 1 |
| A19E In A19 family | Summer and winter suns. | The summer and winter suns are two different characters. | 2 | 2 |
| A1a In A1 family | Before the sun, a parrot shone. | Before the sun appeared, the world was lit by a large bird with bright colours (a parrot or toucan). | 2 | 2 |
| A2G In A2 family | Several suns in one day. | At different times throughout the day, different suns shine in the sky. | 2 | 2 |
| A39B In A39 family | Full moon and crescent moon. | The full moon and the crescent moon are different characters. | 2 | 2 |
| B107 | Black oyster. | During the (world) fire, the oyster burns, which is why oyster shells are black. | 2 | 3 |
| B121 | A little bird wants to fill the sea with stones. | A small bird carries pebbles and sticks, trying to fill the sea. | 2 | 5 |
| B124a In B124 family | Dent on the back. | Ever since a piece of flesh was torn from a person's back, a dent has remained along the length of the spine. | 2 | 2 |
| B32a In B32 family | Pursuers turn into aquatic mammals. | The enemies of a hero sailing the sea turn into seals or dolphins. | 2 | 3 |
| B69b In B69 family | Striped frog. | Wanting to reward or punish the frog, the character runs his hand or paw along its back, and since then, stripes have been visible on the frog's back. | 2 | 2 |
| C41 | Why the sky is blue. | At first, the sky has no specific colour. After a character hangs a cloth on it or performs other actions, the sky acquires its characteristic colour. | 2 | 6 |
| C8a2 In C8 family | Stone lion. | The lion (often stone) helps to survive the flood. | 2 | 4 |
| E13 | Tambourine – lake. | The shamanic tambourine is compared or associated with a lake. | 2 | 4 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.