Folklore Database · Browse
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L41b In L41 family | Tar basket. | A basket in which a cannibal puts people is smeared or filled with tar. See motifs L41, L42. | 10 | 9 |
| L60 | The foundling demon. | Several sisters pick up a baby. In their absence, it turns into an adult man, and when they approach, it turns back into a child. Taking on its true form, the demon pursues the sisters. See motif M46a. | 10 | 11 |
| L65c In L65 family | The elder sister-cannibal. | The eldest of three or more sisters turns out to be a cannibal, devouring her younger sisters and other people. | 10 | 13 |
| L81d In L81 family | After fighting, the cripples recovered. | Two cripples with different physical disabilities quarrel and fight, and as a result become whole and healthy. | 10 | 9 |
| L94e In L94 family | White wolf. | A supernatural character who helps the hero or heroine under certain conditions – the white wolf. | 10 | 11 |
| M152e In M152 family | Whose voice is louder. | A tiger (lion) and another animal compete to see whose roar is louder. The tiger roars louder, but ultimately loses. | 10 | 12 |
| M177a In M177 family | The one who looks away eats. | One zoomorphic character teaches another to remain silent, to look at him or away when a third character asks who ate the best piece. It is a trap: the third character decides that the second is guilty. | 10 | 9 |
| M197f In M197 family | Black beard, grey head, ATU 921C. | The dialogue plays on the fact that in youth the beard is black, and in old age it is white. Usually a person explains why his head has turned grey but his beard has not: the beard is 20 years younger. | 10 | 6 |
| M29c In M29 family | Trickster - Jay | See the motives in square brackets. | 10 | 9 |
| M29qq In M29 family | Trickster - Anteater | See the motives in square brackets. | 10 | 5 |
| M29y In M29 family | Trickster - Wren | See the motives in square brackets. | 10 | 9 |
| M31 | Discharged into water | A character who can't swim asks another to take him by water. He agrees, but throws the rider into the water. | 10 | 12 |
| M38d7 In M38 family | Sausage makes soup, (ATU 85) | Person who represents something fat (a sausage, a piece of fat, etc.) prepares a rich soup adding to it its own fat. Another person tries to repeat the trick and dies | 10 | 12 |
| M39a4f In M39 family | Fool sells property to statue | Fool sells property to the statue and believes that it will pay him. Trying to get his money, he finds treasure | 10 | 16 |
| M39a9 In M39 family | Misunderstood instructions: a play on words | The character asks a member of his family to bring vegetable products, cook food, and feed someone. He understands words as if he must kill a child (dog, etc.) and serve his meat. [section incomplete] | 10 | 14 |
| M56c In M56 family | Try on a snake | The character promises to bring a snake. The snake agrees to have the character measure its length. He ties the snake to a stick or, while measuring, finds out where to hit it to kill it. | 10 | 11 |
| M60b2 In M60 family | To make the bear beautiful, ATU 8 | A large predator asks (agrees with the proposal) to make his skin beautiful (variegated). The deceiver burns it (scalds it, burns his eyes, etc.). | 10 | 14 |
| M61a In M61 family | Owners quarrel to get valuables | To get valuables, the character provokes a quarrel between their owners. When they start fighting each other, valuables fall out of their bodies and end up at the character's disposal. | 10 | 14 |
| M70a In M70 family | A pierced old woman | A character on whom an old woman defecates or whose face blows the winds pierces her from below with a sharp object. See M70 motif. | 10 | 4 |
| M75d In M75 family | Vulture knife | A man bereaves vultures of their hunting weapons or amulets | 10 | 11 |
| M81b In M81 family | Don't go after a stuck arrow | The character is warned not to try to reach an arrow if it gets stuck in a tree. He breaks the ban and gets into trouble. | 10 | 14 |
| M82 | Tail bells: tied voluntarily, J2155 | The character sees that something is tied to the other's tail. He also wants such a tail for himself, and as a result he suffers damage. | 10 | 16 |
| M8c In M8 family | Cleaned eyes | Birds pierce through a layer of clay, wax, resin, etc., that covers the character's eyes or anus. | 10 | 14 |
| M9a In M9 family | Turning into a tree frog | A character who eagerly sucks honey from a hollow and/or gets stuck in a hollow turns into a tree frog. See M9 motif. | 10 | 2 |
| N28b In N28 family | Stairway to Heaven | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a ladder or stairway to the sky (variant: a ladder in the sky) is mentioned | 10 | 14 |
| N32 | Sitting on three oaks | The ornithomorphic character is said to be sitting on several trees. | 10 | 14 |
| A2c1 In A2 family | The Sun refuses to marry. | The Sun is going to have children. One of the animals warns that if the Sun has children, the world will burn. The Sun has to (refuse marriage and) remain childless. | 11 | 19 |
| A2e In A2 family | The sun and moon – severed heads. | The sun and/or moon – severed heads of anthropomorphic beings. | 11 | 11 |
| A30 | The corpse-eating moon. | The moon descends to earth to eat children, corpses or the bones of the dead. | 11 | 19 |
| A31a In A31 family | Severed breast. | Upon learning that her husband or lover has committed an act incompatible with accepted norms, a woman cuts off her breast and shows it to him. | 11 | 15 |
| A35b In A35 family | Covering the moon with resin. | The character tries to cover the moon with resin (so that it shines less brightly). | 11 | 14 |
| A38a In A38 family | Loop made of pubic hair. | The sun is caught in a loop made of a woman's pubic hair. | 11 | 16 |
| A8a In A8 family | Liberation of the sun, moon and stars, ATU 328A*. | The sun, moon and star (stars) appear as three consecutive and comparable objects/characters in narratives about the abduction and subsequent liberation of celestial bodies. | 11 | 8 |
| B101 | Stripes on a birch tree. | Angry at the birch tree, the character beats or cuts it, leaving stripes on the bark that remain to this day. | 11 | 15 |
| B112 | The one who returned the stolen goods decorated. | 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. A woodpecker or titmouse returns the stolen goods. The owner of the property paints or dresses the bird, hence the colour of its plumage | 11 | 5 |
| B15 | River from a woman's body. | The river flows from the organs of a woman's body. | 11 | 13 |
| B2f1 In B2 family | Buried in the head. | (While the earth does not yet exist or has not yet hardened), birds bury the dead in their bodies – usually in their beaks or heads, which explains the unpleasant smell or the origin of the crest, swelling on the beak, etc. | 11 | 19 |
| B30b In B30 family | The slain turn into animals. | Animals arise from the remains of a killed person. | 11 | 13 |
| B33e1 In B33 family | Freezing in the womb. | It is said that the cold, which is stronger than anything else, can freeze boiling water, a foetus in the womb, etc. | 11 | 10 |
| B33f2 In B33 family | Following the fire, the hero ties up an old woman. | At night, the fire goes out. The young man goes to look for fire and on the way ties up an old woman or an old man (usually a character responsible for the length of night and day). | 11 | 10 |
| B44e In B44 family | Dialogue of the first ancestors. | First ancestors (usually birds or animals) argue with each other about the length of time periods in the calendar or daily cycle, or about the desirability of the dominance of cold and dark or warm and light times. See motif B44. | 11 | 12 |
| B44f In B44 family | The fox wants daylight. | In the dispute over whether the world should be bright, the fox is on the side of light (almost always against the bear). | 11 | 10 |
| B64b In B64 family | Small bones: war between different fish. | Two types of fish shoot arrows at each other. Since then, the fish have had many small bones in their bodies, or some of their bones have split in two. | 11 | 11 |
| B72a In B72 family | Mother, child and swans. | Mother (stepmother, adoptive father) does not give food to a girl or (less often) a boy. The child asks migratory birds to take him with them, they give him bird clothing, he flies away with them, becoming a bird. | 11 | 8 |
| B73 | The cuckoo has different legs. | The character turns into a cuckoo. This happens so quickly that one foot remains unshod or one braid remains unbraided. Therefore, it is believed that the cuckoo's legs or wings are different. See motif A43A. | 11 | 21 |
| B93 | Meeting in the sky once a year. | Once a year or once every few years, celestial beings or messengers of the gods meet among the stars. | 11 | 16 |
| B98b In B98 family | The Bat and funerals. | The Bat comes into conflict with other creatures in connection with someone's death or funeral. | 11 | 11 |
| C17 | Fire pit for people. | The men of the community of the first ancestors destroy most of the people and/or themselves on a pyre or in a fire pit. | 11 | 18 |
| C32B In C32 family | Nails – material for the devil. | Demonic characters will make something useful for themselves (and harmful to humans) out of nail clippings. | 11 | 12 |
| D10 | The fire drill is a pair of people. | A couple of people serve as the embodiment of a tool for obtaining fire. | 11 | 12 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.