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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K38b4 In K38 family | The serpent emerges from the water. | The nest of a mighty bird is located on a tree in the middle (at the edge) of a pond, from where a snake (monster) emerges, threatening the chicks. | 13 | 22 |
| K44b In K44 family | Upon returning, throws food. | The hero or heroine returns after a long absence. Seeing (usually from the roof of the house) his or her parents (mother, husband) languishing in poverty, he or she throws food at them, extinguishes the fire, pushes them, etc. At first, they usually do not understand what is going on. | 13 | 20 |
| K45 | Sedna (severed fingers). | A man and a woman belonging to different generations (father – daughter, son – mother) come into conflict. The man sails away from the woman in a boat or on a raft, or leaves her on a sledge. When she tries to grab the edge of the boat (raft, sled), he cuts off her fingers. (The common motif among the Warrau and Eskimos was first noted by O. Zerries [Zerries 1954: 346, 376]). | 13 | 23 |
| K5 | False chicks. | To lure the hero into a trap and send him far away, the enemy makes fake birds from worthless materials (bodily secretions, etc.). See motif K4. | 13 | 6 |
| K61a1 In K61 family | Two heads in a sack. | A dangerous character mistakes two people sleeping (hiding) in a sack or two people lying with their feet towards each other for a single creature. | 13 | 13 |
| K68 | A clot of blood protects the father. T541.41.1. | A strong man takes food from a weak man and forces him to work for him (usually a son-in-law mistreats his father-in-law). A boy appears in the house of the wronged man from a clot of animal blood that has been collected. He kills the offender. | 13 | 23 |
| K71 | Coyote betrays and saves his brother. | The coyote's brother successfully defends himself against enemies until the coyote breaks a certain taboo. The enemies kill the brother; the coyote comes to the enemy camp, retrieves his brother's remains and either flees from the enemies or kills them. The brother comes back to life. | 13 | 23 |
| K76d In K76 family | The Hedgehog Son, ATU 441. | The son or foster child of a married couple is a hedgehog. He marries a princess and turns into a handsome man. | 13 | 12 |
| K87a1 In K87 family | The child is handed over. | A demonic woman asks the baby's mother to let her hold him or secretly replaces another person who was supposed to take the child. Once she has the baby, the demon takes him away. | 13 | 10 |
| L100a In L100 family | The pursuer abandons the transformed fugitive. | The fugitive transforms into a small object (stick, stone) or hides in a similar object. The pursuer, in anger, throws the object far ahead, unwittingly helping the fugitive to escape. | 13 | 18 |
| L124 | The demon's treacherous gift. | A person extracts a vein, spinal cord, or intestine from the demon's body, cuts out a strip of skin, or receives a belt as a gift, but does not gird himself or another, instead placing the belt on a tree. The belt cuts or burns the tree. | 13 | 18 |
| L124a In L124 family | Cutting belt. | The belt (wire, intestine, strip of leather, etc.) cuts or burns whatever it is applied to (a tree or a person). | 13 | 18 |
| l44a1 In l44 family | Louse- turtle. | A human and a demonic character agree to compare their lice. When the human shows a turtle or a frog, the demon believes that it is scarier and stronger than him. | 13 | 16 |
| L5g In L5 family | The head of the older sister rolls after the younger one. | Only the head remains of one of the sisters. It rolls after the other sister or sisters, or they take it with them; in the end, the head finds a place where it wants to settle. | 13 | 8 |
| L72d In L72 family | Abandoned scissors. | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a pair of scissors, which turn into some kind of obstacle in the path of his pursuer. | 13 | 13 |
| L74a In L74 family | Hanged over the hearth. | The enemy carries the hero away or tears off and carries away part of his body, after which he hangs his victim or part of his body (usually over a fire) in order to cause the victim torment. Another character rescues the hero himself or returns the stolen part of his body to him. | 13 | 15 |
| L93c In L93 family | The monkey helper. | The monkey, resorting to cunning, helps the hero or heroine, saves them. | 13 | 11 |
| L9c In L9 family | Sharp breast. | The character kills others with a sharp protrusion on his chest. | 13 | 28 |
| M106b In M106 family | "Last Year" in the demon's house. | The character who caused harm to the antagonist calls himself by a fictitious name such as "Last Year," and the other antagonists understand this to mean that everything happened a long time ago and there is no point in looking for the culprit. | 13 | 20 |
| M112b In M112 family | Animals build a road, ATU 55. | Animals that do not see the sun (moles, shrews, earthworms) refuse to build the road with everyone else and are punished for it. | 13 | 10 |
| M117 | Head under the wing, ATU 56D. | A fox or other predator asks a bird what it does when the wind blows. The bird shows how it puts its head under its wing, and the fox catches it. | 13 | 10 |
| M130 | The fox and the bird in one burrow. | The fox and the bird hide from the hunter in the same burrow or hollow. The bird pretends to be dead and as a result is saved – either alone or together with the fox. Cf. motif M130A. | 13 | 11 |
| M133 | The wind as saviour. | Cumulative tale: a bird is injured by a thorny plant and asks for it to be punished, but everyone refuses because someone else has failed to do something; the last to be asked is the wind, which blows and causes all the characters to perform the necessary actions one after another. | 13 | 9 |
| M162a In M162 family | Cuts off his genitals. | The character pretends to eat his own genitals. Another believes him and castrates himself. | 13 | 8 |
| M171d In M171 family | Mena: receives a drum. | The character exchanges one thing for another and ultimately receives a musical instrument (usually a drum). | 13 | 14 |
| M17a In M17 family | Mother or grandmother deceives a blind man. | The mother or grandmother of a blind man or boy secretly eats (the meat or fish he has caught), pretending that there is no food in the house. | 13 | 19 |
| M189 | Threading a string through a shell, H506.4. | To thread a string through a spiral-shaped shell (a stone with a hole, a horn), the character ties the string to an ant and sends it into the hole. | 13 | 13 |
| M197e1 In M197 family | The demon claims the harvest. | The demon claims that the harvest in a field belonging to a human belongs to him. But if the human brings him an animal unknown to him, he will renounce his claims. The man brings his wife, smeared with something sticky and covered in feathers, standing on all fours, with her hair loose, etc. The demon admits defeat. | 13 | 16 |
| M199j In M199 family | The awl in the giant's shoulder. | A giant puts a man on his shoulders to carry him across a river. Believing that the man is strong, he asks why he is so light. The man replies that if he puts all his weight on the giant, the giant will not be able to carry him. The giant pricks him with an awl (knife, nail) and asks him not to put all his weight on him again. | 13 | 18 |
| M29i In M29 family | Trickster - Hawk | See the motives in square brackets. | 13 | 5 |
| M29n In M29 family | Trickster - Mouse | See the motives in square brackets. | 13 | 8 |
| M39a4b In M39 family | Frog strands | foolish woman thinks that frogs will make yarn or cloth for her, or buy yarn and throw the material into the water. | 13 | 14 |
| M39a5a1 In M39 family | Chicken Army | Realizing that a son or wife, by telling the truth, will cause trouble for the family, the mother or husband makes them believe in the invasion of chickens (geese, crows), in the rain of stones, in the rain, from which they go blind, etc. In all cases, gullible people are planted in a hole covered with skin, in a barrel, etc., and let in the skin of poultry pecking grain (in Kyurins, chickens bite grain in the yard). See M39a5a motif. | 13 | 15 |
| M39b In M39 family | He attacks his own plague | A person does not notice that he turned and swam back on the way, so he takes his home for enemies, kills his own relatives. | 13 | 10 |
| M48 | The trickster turns into a bison | Trickster asks another zoomorphic character to turn him into a creature of his kind, but if he breaks the condition for transformation, he becomes himself again. Usually, a trickster asks a bison or elk to turn it into a bison or elk. The bison (elk) rushes to the trickster, which bounces off in fear. The next time the trickster stays in place, metamorphoses, but regains its former appearance after trying to turn another trickster into a bison, etc. | 13 | 20 |
| M67 | The trickster was blown away by the wind | By stupidity or carelessness, the character causes a wind that blows him away. See the M66 motif (The Trickster emits a stream of intestinal gases). | 13 | 6 |
| M78a In M78 family | The tail boy | A tiny little man emerges from the severed tail of a goat or sheep. | 13 | 17 |
| M78b In M78 family | Too many kids | Wishing a baby, a childless woman gives birth to many tiny boys. She or her husband kill them or throw them away, but she stays alone and helps their parents. | 13 | 15 |
| M81a In M81 family | Vivid female ducks | The hero meets two blind women and makes them sighted. These women are birds (geese, ducks, hazel grouses, partridges). | 13 | 20 |
| N16 | Ice horse | fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator had a horse and/or harness made of wax, ice, linen, vegetables, etc. In most cases, the narrator loses them (they melt, they are taken away, eaten, etc.). | 13 | 17 |
| N29 | Until the boiler boils | time required to perform an action or elapsed since the event described is estimated by comparing it with the time it takes for water to boil and/ or food has been prepared. | 13 | 15 |
| N36 | Above the forest, below the clouds | is said about the horse that it jumps above trees (grass, the surface of the earth) and below the sky (clouds, clouds). | 13 | 33 |
| A22a In A22 family | The Hot Sun and its Companion. | Two characters burn; one turns into the present sun, and the other into a less significant celestial object. See motif A22. | 14 | 2 |
| A32d2 In A32 family | Man with a pitchfork on the moon. | A man with a pitchfork in his hands can be seen in the silhouette of the moon's spots. | 14 | 32 |
| A32i In A32 family | Shepherd on the moon. | A shepherd (shepherd and girl, shepherd and his flock, dogs) can be seen on the lunar disc. | 14 | 19 |
| A37a In A37 family | The hidden archer. | A small animal (marmot, rabbit, mole, toad, frog, earthworm) or a person who turns into such an animal tries to hit the heavenly body with arrows or helps the archer. Since then, this animal has been hiding in burrows and in water. | 14 | 19 |
| A38c In A38 family | The Sun's Cloak. | The Sun exchanges a cape made of animal or bird skins with a boy or girl, or spoils it. As a result, the boy or girl raises their status or takes revenge on the Sun. | 14 | 17 |
| B120 | Winter hibernation of snotty creatures. | There are creatures that sleep in winter, and frozen snot hangs from their noses. (Motif identified by Evgenia Korovina). | 14 | 11 |
| B16a In B16 family | Sea of urine. | The sea is formed from urine or blood. | 14 | 12 |
| B28e In B28 family | The Moon as the Creator of the World. | The Moon (alone or together with the Sun) transforms the original "incorrect" world into the one in which people now live. | 14 | 21 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.