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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K48a In K48 family | Birds on a cap. | The hero's costume and/or headdress are decorated with live birds or animals. Usually, the antagonist steals the clothes and pretends to be the hero, but the birds and animals on his headdress remain silent or cry out differently. See motif K48. | 11 | 1 |
| k57e In k57 family | Daughter is persuaded to kill her mother. | Due to her naivety or by accident, a young girl causes her mother's death. | 11 | 12 |
| K65c3 In K65 family | Eve is ashamed of her large family. | A woman (alone or with her husband) hides some of her children from God because she is ashamed of having given birth to so many offspring. | 11 | 13 |
| k73a9 In k73 family | The talking bed. | Lying on the marital bed, the deceiver, who has taken the place of the real wife, hears the conversation of her rival or her children, and in the morning orders the bed to be destroyed. | 11 | 10 |
| K90a In K90 family | Aimed at the black one, hit the white one. | Seeing two snakes of contrasting colours fighting, a man tries to strike one, but accidentally hits the other. The relatives of this snake gather to punish him, but upon learning what happened, they reward him. | 11 | 11 |
| L131b In L131 family | Your children are burning: appeal to a bird or ladybird. | To make a bird or ladybird fly away, they are told that the place where their home and/or children are located is engulfed in fire. | 11 | 21 |
| L15f In L15 family | Life in a necklace, ATU 412. | A young woman or man dies as soon as her or his jewellery (rarely: organ) is stolen, and comes back to life when the jewellery is returned or when the antagonist removes it. | 11 | 12 |
| l15h3 In l15 family | The soul of a character in an insect (worm). | The object in which the character's life is concentrated is enclosed in another, which is enclosed in a third (and so on). The final vessel of the soul is an insect or worm. | 11 | 14 |
| L1c2 In L1 family | Hiding under the hearth. | Fleeing from a demonic creature, the characters hide their children (younger brother or sister) in a camouflaged pit, usually under the hearth. See motif L1C. | 11 | 11 |
| L27a In L27 family | One is eaten, the other runs away. | Sisters or a brother and sister find themselves in the same house with an antagonist, whose cannibalism they only suspect or do not know about at all. Trying to hide his actions, the cannibal eats one of the children. The other child or children run away, and the antagonist pursues them. Usually the antagonist is female, and if male, he has no sexual interest in his victims. (In the Central Andes, the plot may have been borrowed in the 19th century from Chinese migrants; see motifs J47, M21). | 11 | 22 |
| L35 | Severed hand. | A shaman or spirit comes at night and, reaching his hand into the hut, steals food or disturbs a woman. A man in the hut cuts off or tears off the hand. | 11 | 13 |
| L42d In L42 family | The cannibal's frozen tongue. | A man runs away from a cannibal across the ice, the cannibal pursues him, licks the blood spilled on the ice, his tongue freezes, he dies, or falls to his death after slipping on the ice. | 11 | 13 |
| L65a2 In L65 family | Shot finger. | A man shoots off (damages) the finger of a demonic creature, and then sees that his sister, lying in her cradle, has lost her finger. | 11 | 14 |
| L69 | The puma defeats the monster. | A monster attacks a person; a puma, jaguar or dog fights the monster, kills or drives it away; the person returns home. | 11 | 12 |
| L72j In L72 family | A needle (awl) turns into many needles (awls). | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him an awl or needle, which turns into many awls or needles. | 11 | 11 |
| L73a In L73 family | Darkness behind, light ahead. | The fugitives make sure that darkness spreads behind them, hindering their pursuers (while light pours in front of them). | 11 | 10 |
| L74 | The Returned Hand. | A bear or other powerful character tears off and carries away another character's hand. A third character steals the hand and returns it to the one from whom it was torn off. | 11 | 17 |
| L85b In L85 family | A woman who has offended a god gives birth to a freak. | A pregnant woman curses the Sun, Rain or another powerful character. Because of this, the child is born physically disabled. He possesses magical powers and usually acquires a normal body. | 11 | 12 |
| L9f In L9 family | Golden nose or teeth. | A person with a nose or teeth made of gold or silver is a sign of their demonic nature. | 11 | 10 |
| M101 | Who is afraid of what (the fox and the bear). | The bear tells the fox (rarely the sable or the wolf) that he is not afraid of people (usually saying that he is afraid of flying partridges). After trying to attack people, he is killed or wounded. Cf. motif M101A. | 11 | 23 |
| M108b In M108 family | The woodpecker helper. | The deceiver takes away someone else's property in a boat or carries it away. A bird (usually a woodpecker) deceives him and returns the property to its owners. | 11 | 7 |
| M109a In M109 family | Sitting on the ice, waiting for food from the sky. | One zoomorphic character advises another to sit on the ice for a long time – usually until food falls from the sky. The one who sits on the ice freezes to it. | 11 | 13 |
| M114k In M114 family | Water that is neither earthly nor heavenly. | A liquid that is not normally used for drinking, washing or cooking is used once. It is necessary to guess what is meant, knowing that this water is neither from the earth nor from the sky (most often it is horse sweat). | 11 | 13 |
| M14a In M14 family | Roasted alive. | To take revenge on his wife or her relatives for (allegedly) causing him offence, the husband roasts his wife alive. See motif M14. | 11 | 28 |
| M152d In M152 family | Elephant saved from tiger's claws. | The elephant and the tiger (lion) engage in combat (usually competing to see who can roar louder). The tiger wins and is about to eat the elephant, but a small animal saves it. | 11 | 13 |
| M154a1 In M154 family | Pregnant wife on a pregnant mare. | A man who understands the language of animals hears the mare say that she is carrying four (three): she has a foal in her belly, and the woman in the saddle is also pregnant. | 11 | 11 |
| M179b In M179 family | The guest ruined the house, ATU 80. | One zoomorphic character asks another (or a human) to let him in to dry off, warm up, etc. Once inside, he wreaks such havoc on the dwelling that it becomes difficult for the owner to stay there. Usually, in response to reproaches, he says that if the owner doesn't like it, there's the door. | 11 | 5 |
| M180a In M180 family | The unwashed monkey. | A zoomorphic character invites another to visit, but demands that they wash their hands or feet before eating. This proves impossible, and the guest leaves hungry. | 11 | 17 |
| M186 | Competition in speed: fish and animal. | An animal (fox, wolf, leopard) runs along the shore, while a fish (burbot, goby, catfish) swims in the water. The animal calls out to the fish, which is always ahead (usually keeping other fish at a distance, but in the Negidal variant, the motif of competition is omitted). | 11 | 14 |
| M191c In M191 family | The wolf's song, ATU 163. | Through singing (threats, pleasantries), the wolf (less often, the bear) gradually forces the old man to give him his domestic animals (and family members). | 11 | 6 |
| M198a2 In M198 family | Stone with a wormhole. | A person determines, based on characteristics invisible to others, that a valuable item (a gemstone, an expensive sword) has a flaw and is of little value. | 11 | 10 |
| M1b In M1 family | A caiman/crocodile carries a monkey. | A caiman/crocodile carries a monkey across a river. She manages to jump ashore and runs away from the caiman. | 11 | 13 |
| M2 | Descending a tree. | The hero descends from a tree or rock on the back of an animal or on the backs of animals. | 11 | 12 |
| M27 | Returning from Heaven | The tree or staircase that people took to heaven collapses; on the way back, people fall down. Usually some stay in the sky forever or longer than others. | 11 | 26 |
| M29q In M29 family | Trickster - Raccoon | See the motives in square brackets. | 11 | 7 |
| M34 | An attached tail | An object is thrown at the character, which turns into a tail, and the character himself into a corresponding animal. | 11 | 15 |
| M38c3 In M38 family | An old woman was turned into a monkey | A conceited smith attempts to rejuvenate an old woman (man). His magic helper tries to save the victim but all that he do is to transform the woman into an animal, usually a monkey | 11 | 13 |
| M38d1 In M38 family | Hair neck | bubble-head, the straw leg, the hair-neck are successively dying, trying to act like ordinary people. | 11 | 16 |
| M5 | Provoked insult | Once in a situation where his life depends on the will of a demon or animal, the hero feels like insulting or hitting him. See M1 motif. | 11 | 95 |
| M6 | Night with a partridge | A young man or girl spends night in the forest. The forest partridge (Tinamus sp.) provides him or her a fire, a shelter and/or a hammock but takes them away and flies away itself when the person does something wrong | 11 | 20 |
| M90b In M90 family | The sun is rising from the west | The character was wrong when he claimed that the sun would never rise in the west or go down after midnight. | 11 | 10 |
| M94a In M94 family | Mountain riding: antagonist victims | The demonic character kills his victims, provoking them to slide down the mountain. | 11 | 20 |
| N10c In N10 family | The insides are visible | A girl is described, through whose body you can see her internal organs or the food she has swallowed. This is a sign of beauty. | 11 | 14 |
| N28c In N28 family | Sky support | In a list of things that do not exist in the world, a pillar of the sky is mentioned | 11 | 11 |
| A13a In A13 family | The raven hides the sun. | The raven steals or hides the sun, or attempts to do so. | 12 | 15 |
| A29b In A29 family | The Broken Moon. | A character associated with the upper world and a character associated with the earth or the lower world each seek to possess the hero or heroine who is associated with the Moon. | 12 | 22 |
| B106 | The heavenly rooster. | First, the heavenly rooster crows (or the underground roosters crow), and only then do the earthly roosters crow. | 12 | 11 |
| B19 | Night and married life. | Before nightfall, people could not make love in peace. | 12 | 19 |
| B21 | Destruction of the world tree. | People climb trees to hunt, fish or gather honey. The tree is felled, people fall down and undergo a metamorphosis, or remain in the upper world. | 12 | 17 |
| B22 | The offended person knocks down the tree. | The character left under the tree is offended by those who climbed up the tree (usually they do not share their food with him or her). In retaliation, he or she knocks down the tree. The events described are of cosmic proportions. | 12 | 26 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.