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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M188a In M188 family | Jackal on the throne. | The character demands to be addressed as a ruler (usually sits on a pile of rubbish and demands to be recognised as king). One of the animals exposes him. | 9 | 10 |
| M190 | Beaver and porcupine. | The beaver carries the porcupine across a water barrier. Usually, he throws it into the water or leaves it on an island. | 9 | 12 |
| M192a In M192 family | Dried belts. | The character agrees to have a freshly removed skin put on him or to be wrapped in wet belts. The skin or belts cause suffering or death (usually because they dry out and shrink). | 9 | 9 |
| M197d In M197 family | Shortened stick, ATU 926C.2. | To find the thief, a man gives sticks to the assembled crowd and says that the thief's stick will become longer overnight. The thief cuts off the end of his stick and is thus discovered. | 9 | 9 |
| M198b3 In M198 family | The collapsed mosque. | A supposed fortune teller accidentally finds the missing items, is rewarded and brought close to the ruler. One day, for some reason, he rudely pushes him (or people in general) out of the room. Immediately afterwards, the roof of the building collapses. Since then, no one has doubted the fortune teller's abilities. | 9 | 9 |
| M199d1 In M199 family | The devil and the squirrel climb a tree, ATU 1073. | The devil (cannibal) challenges a man to a competition: who can climb a tree faster. The man puts his child, a squirrel, in his place. | 9 | 2 |
| M29x1 In M29 family | Trickster - Badger | See the motives in square brackets. | 9 | 7 |
| M30a In M30 family | They relieve the need for a fallen person | The character flying over the village falls, is tied up, and defecated on him. | 9 | 7 |
| M32a In M32 family | Eats what falls out | character's insides or pieces of flesh fall out of his back. He eats them, mistaking them for regular meat and fat. | 9 | 11 |
| M35 | Who won't freeze? | Two zoomorphic characters compete to see which of them will spend the whole night in the cold and stay alive. By morning, one of them dies. Cf. K27A motif (the cold test does not involve a two-animal competition). | 9 | 12 |
| M37 | Shattered with an axe | Although the character's head or entire body is cut in two with an ax or split with a stick, the character remains unharmed. Cf. motive J22. | 9 | 8 |
| M38d5 In M38 family | Cereals talking to each other, ATU 293E* | Two or three types of cereals talk to each other, act together, etc. | 9 | 8 |
| M39a2a In M39 family | A fool buys spoons and a table | fool buys spoons and/or a table, tells the table to go on its own feet, throws away spoons because they rattle. The two episodes are usually combined. | 9 | 14 |
| M39a2b In M39 family | A fool salts the river | After buying salt or sugar, a fool pours them into a pond to salt or sweeten the water. | 9 | 11 |
| M39a2d In M39 family | Meat is planted | Fools plant meat, horns, or bones in the hope of raising animals. | 9 | 5 |
| M39e2 In M39 family | Oracle tree, ATU 1543E* | Two people hid their valuables together, and one of them secretly took them. He suggests asking the tree that grew in this place for clarification and hides his father in a hollow to broadcast from there. The tree is set on fire and the deception comes out. | 9 | 8 |
| M57c1 In M57 family | Gold-producing bear | A man fights a bear or (Malayali) leopard and makes another person believe that this animal is defecating with gold. | 9 | 8 |
| M79 | Reed Dancer, J1883 | A person joins the dancers; it turns out that the dancers are reeds or trees in the wind. | 9 | 13 |
| M7a In M7 family | Thrown in the water | Birds or animals take the character into their boat, but take on a zoomorphic appearance and leave their passenger in the water (after he breaks a ban). (It is significant that the boat or raft only appears to be artifacts, but is actually the bodies of the corresponding birds or animals, or it is an ice floe; cf. Motive M31). | 9 | 11 |
| M7c In M7 family | Fish help: offered and rejected | zoomorphic character is waiting to be transported across the water. Animals or fish consistently offer help. The character only accepts the latter's help - he was waiting for him to eat. | 9 | 18 |
| M8d In M8 family | Extend the hole in the body | Birds break through the hard cover on the character's body to reach his entrails. | 9 | 13 |
| N13 | Girl with scissors | A girl, a girl is associated with scissors (and a boy, a boy with a knife or an ax). | 9 | 13 |
| N28g In N28 family | A horse has no bile | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a gall of horse or ass is mentioned | 9 | 9 |
| A19a In A19 family | In the morning on an ox, in the evening on a horse. | Moving daily across the sky, the sun changes its riding animals (usually in the morning it rides on an animal that moves slowly, and in the evening on another that runs faster). | 10 | 10 |
| A29a In A29 family | Torn apart by two women. | Heavenly and earthly women (demons) pull a man in different directions. As a result, he (or his half) turns into a heavenly object. | 10 | 7 |
| A32de In A32 family | Headless man on the moon. | A headless man is visible on the lunar disc. | 10 | 6 |
| A32l In A32 family | Silhouette in the sun. | The silhouette of a certain character is visible on the solar disc. Or it is said that the character fell into the sun and remained there. | 10 | 10 |
| a35b1 In a35 family | The moon hinders the thief. | The criminal tries to make the moon dim because its light annoys him or prevents him from committing crimes. | 10 | 18 |
| A4a In A4 family | The sun hurts the eyes. | So that people do not look at it, the Sun blinds their immodest eyes (usually with needles, which are its rays). | 10 | 16 |
| B104 | The chicken turns into a turtle. | A guest arrived, the host hid the chicken, and when he wanted to eat it, it turned out that it had turned into a turtle. | 10 | 10 |
| B114 | Old men-anteaters. | A woman or a man (usually old people) turn into anteaters (the origin of anteaters). | 10 | 18 |
| B27a In B27 family | Transformation into thunder and lightning. | The characters ponder what they should transform into and decide to become thunder and/or lightning. | 10 | 8 |
| B40b In B40 family | The horse changes with the cow. | The horse changes with the cow, gives up its horns and/or gets teeth. | 10 | 10 |
| B42m In B42 family | The second hunter's pot. | The three stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three men (hunters, thieves). The stars of the dipper are the object they seek to obtain (the hunted animal; the bed). Alcor (a faint star near Mizar) is a container, a vessel carried by the second of the three characters. | 10 | 16 |
| B48b In B48 family | Piece of human flesh. | The bodies of animals that are now hunted contain a piece of human flesh that has remained since these animals had an anthropomorphic appearance. | 10 | 11 |
| B72d In B72 family | Wings from a cutting board. | A woman makes herself wings (beak, tail) from clothing accessories and turns into a bird or a flying creature. | 10 | 22 |
| B73a In B73 family | In search of a horse. | A girl (a young man, a girl with her brother; two little brothers) searches for a lost horse, cow, sheep and, as a result (alone or with her brother; both brothers), turns into a bird (usually a cuckoo) with a characteristic call. | 10 | 17 |
| B87b In B87 family | Harnessed wolf. | The Great Bear – a cart harnessed by a wolf or bear. Usually, the shape of the handle of the dipper is explained by the fact that a wolf or bear attacked an ox harnessed to the cart and took its place. In this case, it is associated with Alcor or the last star of the handle of the dipper – η. | 10 | 14 |
| C36 | The Last Battle. | The gods and their powerful adversaries clash in a decisive battle that changes the fate of the world. See Bray 2000, especially pp. 360-361. | 10 | 10 |
| D13h In D13 family | He who goes to the dead must not laugh. | Those who have entered the world of the dead should not laugh. | 10 | 12 |
| D1a2 In D1 family | A borrowed object does not burn. | The house of the person who insulted the fire burns down, but the property inside it or the child of another person (or that person himself) who treated the fire with respect is not harmed. | 10 | 9 |
| D4q In D4 family | The fly obtains fire. | The fly rubs its legs together and produces fire. | 10 | 23 |
| D5a In D5 family | Fire in a woman's genitals. | The first fire is hidden in a woman's genitals or anus. | 10 | 15 |
| D7a In D7 family | Spider and fire. | The spider possesses the first fire or steals it from its original owner (texts in which the spider acts together with other animals and does not play the main role are not included). | 10 | 11 |
| E5e In E5 family | The two-headed creature does not come out onto the ground. | People or animals come out from under the ground or descend from the sky. The two-headed creature following them gets stuck in the opening or is not allowed to come out. | 10 | 7 |
| E9i4 In E9 family | The magical wife – the crane. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) takes the form of a crane. | 10 | 11 |
| E9k In E9 family | Husband-honey (bee). | The husband or wife is the embodiment of honey or a human bee. | 10 | 15 |
| F24 | Cause of menstruation: bite. | Women lose blood when they are bitten by fish, snakes, etc. | 10 | 11 |
| F28a1 In F28 family | Jumping penis. | The living penis is a dangerous creature that attacks people. | 10 | 11 |
| F46a In F46 family | Woman in a tree. | Men (human-animals) discover a woman at the top of a tree and copulate with her there. | 10 | 14 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.