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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I123 | Altair – herald of the sun. | Altair with a small neighbouring star from the constellation Aquila or Vega with a similarly faint star are considered to appear during or immediately after the winter solstice, although they are actually visible before that. | 7 | 9 |
| I41c In I41 family | Celestial object – reflection of a snake. | Rainbow or Milky Way – reflection of a snake (fish) on land or in the sea. | 7 | 9 |
| I46d In I46 family | Rainbow loop. | Rainbow – a hunting loop, a trap. | 7 | 7 |
| I4e In I4 family | Thunder riding on a cloud. | An anthropomorphic deity (associated with thunder and rain) rides on a cloud or a cloud. | 7 | 9 |
| I50b In I50 family | Many-legged beast (predator). | Describes or depicts a predatory animal with six or more legs. | 7 | 8 |
| I87e In I87 family | Dwarves after humans. | After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. | 7 | 7 |
| J12a In J12 family | Penis in a vessel. | A girl or two sisters come to an old woman who invites them to marry her son. In reality, he is a worm, a snake or a penis, which his mother hides in a vessel during the day. The girl (sisters) do not allow him to approach them and run away. See motif J12. | 7 | 2 |
| J12b In J12 family | Honey groom. | A honey groom or a skilled honey gatherer is attractive to a girl. | 7 | 18 |
| J12m In J12 family | A woman turns into a duck. | A woman or two sisters come to two men and become wives of one of them. The other kills or tries to kill his rival or the women. As a result, the women turn into waterfowl. | 7 | 5 |
| J23b In J23 family | Spears are placed along the path. | To defeat the monster, the young man (twins) prepares spears in advance and leaves them along the supposed retreat route. Fleeing from the monster, the young man throws spears at it one after another and eventually kills it. | 7 | 8 |
| J36 | Antagonist - turtle. | The turtle drags the hero's parents under water. | 7 | 8 |
| J47a1 In J47 family | Goats – owners of food. | The character enters a house where goats live. He secretly eats the food he finds there, but is eventually discovered. | 7 | 8 |
| J50a In J50 family | Sons embrace their mother. | The mother dies when her sons push or embrace her. | 7 | 9 |
| J59c In J59 family | Reviving the dead with a whip. | A character strikes the remains of the deceased with a whip or a lash, and the deceased comes back to life. | 7 | 8 |
| J68 | First old, then fresh droppings on the trail. | Characters who have been chasing an animal for a long time see increasingly fresh droppings on the trail and finally catch up with their prey (usually the droppings correspond to how long they have been lying there); or the pursuers see areas where less time has passed since sowing. | 7 | 12 |
| K105 | The wonderful son and the rat children. | A despised wife gives birth to miraculous children, while other wives give birth to animals. | 7 | 7 |
| K176a In K176 family | The wind dries the laundry. | The hero searches for his magical wife who has left him. It turns out that one of the winds is flying to her to perform a certain task. The hero follows him. | 7 | 8 |
| K1g In K1 family | The deer gores its enemy. | The hero turns into a deer or creates a deer to gore the relative who sent him into a trap. | 7 | 6 |
| K25b In K25 family | A woman follows a porcupine. | A woman climbs a tree trying to catch a porcupine and ends up in the sky. | 7 | 14 |
| K27g2 In K27 family | Roof made of feathers. | The character must build a house out of bird feathers or cover the roof, bridge, etc. with feathers. | 7 | 11 |
| K27l In K27 family | The water body is covered with ice. | After the hero dives in, the antagonist freezes the water body or covers the surface with a net. | 7 | 9 |
| K27n3c2 In K27 family | The enemy – the father-in-law bear. | The hero's father-in-law, the bear, sets him difficult tasks and trials. | 7 | 11 |
| K27o2 In K27 family | Playing with a dangerous ball. | To destroy the hero, his opponents play ball with him, throwing a heavy dangerous object (a ball made of ice, bone, stone, iron, a walrus head, a biting skull, etc.). | 7 | 12 |
| K27u2 In K27 family | News from the tumbleweed. | An authoritative character orders to find out where the tumbleweed is rolling or what news it brings. | 7 | 8 |
| K27yy2 In K27 family | Catching the chick of a dangerous bird. | The hero is sent to bring the chick of a dangerous bird. | 7 | 8 |
| K27z2e In K27 family | Lost objects and meeting at the end, ATU 434. | During a meeting (sometimes not in their true form), a young man or woman takes certain objects (jewelry) from the other. One of those who met falls ill. A new meeting leads to the healing of the sick person, the identification of the objects, and a wedding. | 7 | 7 |
| K27z7a In K27 family | He who learns the family secret will die. | A man is going to kill the person who found out why he severely punished his ex-wife. | 7 | 7 |
| K32k In K32 family | False wife – beetle or larva. | The false wife, replacing the real one – a foul-smelling beetle or larva. | 7 | 6 |
| k33c9 In k33 family | The girl in the apple. | A young man obtains a girl who is inside an apple. | 7 | 9 |
| K37c In K37 family | Identifying an animal or object. | The character must identify an animal or object among several identical ones. See motif K37. | 7 | 7 |
| K46 | A woman throws herself into the sea. | In a fit of fear or shame, a woman or girl runs to the sea, throws herself into the water or hides on the shore. The suitor tries in vain to catch up with her. | 7 | 8 |
| K52c1 In K52 family | Penis instead of fish. | Demonstrating his power, a shaman, sorcerer or other character with magical abilities causes the dwelling in which he and other people are located to begin to fill with water. Sometimes it is said that this water is an illusion. One episode: the magical specialist orders those present to catch the birds or fish that have appeared with the water, or they begin to catch them on their own initiative; when the water disappears, people see that they are holding not caught animals, but their penises or something else. | 7 | 9 |
| K56a8a In K56 family | The good girl returns with her fiancé. | A girl goes to another world, behaves correctly, returns with an animal or an object, inside which her groom is found. Usually, another girl behaves incorrectly and suffers damage. | 7 | 8 |
| K56aa In K56 family | The dog-groom tests the bride. | Two or three sisters successively become the dog's brides. The first or the first two act incorrectly, perish or fail to achieve their goal. The last one acts correctly and succeeds. | 7 | 7 |
| K65d In K65 family | Incorrect marriage rites and the birth of spirits. | The first human couple initially only have miscarriages, or their children are spirits or unpleasant and dangerous animals. After performing a formal marriage ceremony or repeating it according to new rules, the woman gives birth to real people or gods. | 7 | 16 |
| K73a3 In K73 family | The child is replaced with a doll. | The midwife's ill-wishers replace the baby with a statue or doll (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a doll). | 7 | 9 |
| L103a In L103 family | They did not unlock the door for their daughter. | A girl, a young woman, runs away from a demonic character; she manages to run home, but her relatives do not open the door. The pursuer finds and eats her. (A musical instrument is made from her hair or intestines). (Overview of variants in Rakhno 2016: 475-484). | 7 | 13 |
| L110b In L110 family | The stomach eats the oak tree. | The stomach (spleen) removed from the body of a domestic animal or bird turns out to be a voracious monster. | 7 | 7 |
| L121a In L121 family | The hunter's secret. | The hunter has the ability to avoid danger by transforming himself into various objects. His shapeshifting wife tries to recognise them in order to destroy the hunter. | 7 | 15 |
| L15a2 In L15 family | Not fully hardened. | The human body is tempered (in a furnace, etc.) to make it invulnerable, but one place remains unprotected. | 7 | 16 |
| L16A In L16 family | Eyes on the feet. | The creature's eyes are located on its feet. | 7 | 9 |
| L1d In L1 family | Woman kills a jaguar. | The jaguar-werewolf kills most people and is killed by the woman who survives. | 7 | 8 |
| L39b In L39 family | The pie tree. | The tree grows from a flatbread (pie, etc.) and usually bears flatbreads instead of fruit. | 7 | 8 |
| 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 |
| L59a In L59 family | Stuck to the whale. | People who mocked the hero or his son were dragged into the sea and turned into sea animals or parts of its body or parasites on its skin. | 7 | 11 |
| L5B In L5 family | The head turns into lightning/thunder. | A rolling head turns into lightning/thunder. See motif L83. | 7 | 5 |
| L72k In L72 family | A discarded bottle of oil. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws a jar of oil behind him. Spilling out, it turns into a lake or river. (Only North American materials are taken into account. In the Old World, the motif is rare and unsystematic. In North America, it most likely refers to hair oil in all cases). | 7 | 12 |
| L73b In L73 family | A line drawn. | The fugitive draws a line on the ground (ice), creating an obstacle in the path of the pursuer. | 7 | 11 |
| L83 | An incomplete body turns into lightning/thunder. | A character who has only a head left (motif L5) or who has burned his leg (motif L82) turns into lightning/thunder (or emits lightning/thunderclaps). | 7 | 8 |
| L91 | The Long Serpent. | Two or four young men go on a journey or return from one. Their path is blocked by a long creature that cannot be bypassed. They burn a passage through it. One eats roasted meat, turns into a snake himself, or dies. See motif L28. | 7 | 1 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.