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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

Showing 1,401–1,450 of 3,494 · Page 29 of 70

Ref	Title	Summary	Traditions ▲	Narratives
K56a2a In K56 family	Washing in red water.	A girl becomes beautiful or ugly after washing herself with water of a certain colour.	15	14
K56a5b In K56 family	Any weather is good.	A person who responds kindly to the questions of characters representing the weather during certain periods of the calendar cycle is rewarded. Another person who scolds these characters is punished.	15	23
K83a In K83 family	Where the father did not go.	To fulfil the task, the character's sons must travel to a place where he has never been (or once was).	15	19
K87a In K87 family	The stolen boy.	A forest woman receives or kidnaps a little boy and raises him to be her lover.	15	10
k93b6 In k93 family	A sword grown in the garden.	The fish eaten by the woman gives birth to sons, and what is buried in the garden are objects or items that are further associated with these young men. These are either weapons (swords, sabres, rapiers) or objects whose appearance allows one to judge what is happening to the young men.	15	20
L108e In L108 family	Children of the fox, ATU 123A.	A fox has a child, usually adopted (she cares for a lamb, a foal, etc.), a wolf or a bear kills it, and the fox takes revenge.	15	8
L1c1 In L1 family	Flight to the heavens.	Fleeing from demonic characters, a group of men – relatives of a girl – ascend to the sky and remain there. See motif L1C.	15	18
L22B In L22 family	Metamorphosis of the blind.	People who wake up blind in the morning turn into fish, birds or animals. See motif L22.	15	14
L23c In L23 family	Breaking an object in half.	Trying to free himself, the captured character sequentially changes his appearance. The last transformation is a small wooden object (usually a spindle). When this object is broken in half, the character permanently regains his human form.	15	26
L30	He who eats a snake wants to drink.	The one who broke the food taboo experiences terrible thirst and drinks a huge amount of water.	15	21
L32	The voracious stone.	The stone swallows, bites, beats or transforms people.	15	19
L33e In L33 family	The gifted cloak.	The trickster demands back or takes the cloak belonging to the skale or another character (usually he himself had previously given this cloak as a gift).	15	24
L41a1 In L41 family	The cauldron split.	When the demon tries to shake the meat out of the bag over the cauldron, stones fall from the bag into the cauldron and it splits, or the boiling water spills out and scalds the demon.	15	19
L42i In L42 family	Sister sets out to rescue her brother (geese-swans), ATU 480A*.	Creatures from another world carry off a little boy. His sister takes him and safely escapes from their pursuers. Usually the boy has two or three sisters, and only the youngest succeeds.	15	22
L5A In L5 family	The head turns into a celestial object.	A rolling head turns into a celestial object that emits or eclipses light (sun, moon, stars, fireball; it is the cause of eclipses). See motif L5.	15	11
L5e1 In L5 family	A female demon pursues her children.	A woman who has become a monster pursues her own children.	15	12
L65b1 In L65 family	Exchanging sheep for dogs.	A man exchanges sheep (goats) for dogs. The exchange seems unequal, but the dogs help him achieve success.	15	25
L72i In L72 family	Discarded soap.	Fleeing for his life, the character throws soap behind him, which turns into an obstacle for his pursuer (a slippery mountain, river, etc.).	15	18
M107	The turtle bites off the penis.	A small character kills or maims a large four-legged animal by clinging to its genitals.	15	15
M120a In M120 family	Weeping corpse eater, ATU 37, Th. K931.	The character pretends to be a mourner and eats (treats the body disrespectfully) the deceased.	15	31
M123d In M123 family	The raven – devourer of carrion.	A bird from the corvid family is rejected after its mate or relatives discover that it eats carrion or filth.	15	14
M153b In M153 family	Wolf riding.	The wolf is killed or maimed after agreeing to a domestic animal's offer to ride it.	15	16
M193	Rolling home.	To avoid predators (suitors) on the way back, the character climbs inside a pumpkin, a round cauldron, etc. and rolls down the road or walks, disguised beyond recognition.	15	20
M196a In M196 family	Talking dead people.	Arguing over a trivial matter, a husband and wife (or one of them) lie down and do not move, and people gather to bury them. At the last moment, the supposed dead person opens their mouth, and people think that the dead have come back to life; or the supposed dead person is actually buried in the ground.	15	19
M197b In M197 family	Rusted stallions and foaled mares.	The owner claims that other mares foaled or aborted because his stallions, which were far away from the mares, whinnied, that any foal born was from his mare, etc. The young man begins to kill the owner's dogs: they did not chase away the wolves (they scared away the game, etc.), although they were far from the scene. The owner acknowledges the absurdity of his claim.	15	14
M20	Severed beak, J2138.	The character does something unacceptable, is caught, and his beak or jaw is damaged. Usually (except for the Koryaks), people keep the torn-off beak (jaw) in their homes, and the character comes and takes it back.	15	20
M46c In M46 family	Swallowed needle	The character turns into a needle, a garbage, a small insect. A woman swallows it and becomes pregnant. See M46B motif.	15	18
M47	The head is attached to the rear	When punishing a person or animal or restoring a dismembered body, a character intentionally or accidentally puts his head to his ass.	15	27
M54	The runaway wakes up in the same place	The character lives or stays at someone else's house; then goes far away, falls asleep, but wakes up again in the same house.	15	19
M78g In M78 family	Sleep-related	When the inhabitants of the house fall asleep, a joker (usually a tiny boy) ties them together in pairs so that when they wake up, they quarrel.	15	11
M7b In M7 family	The fox asks for help from people passing by	zoomorphic character (usually a fox) finds himself in a place he can't get out of, and consistently asks for help from animals (fish) passing by or approaching him. The latter helps.	15	16
M81f In M81 family	A blind liar is robbed, ATU 1577	blind beggar robs an honest man. He watches him and, when he enters the house, takes everything the blind man has accumulated. He often takes money accumulated by other blind people as well.	15	8
N18	Selected gifts	fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator received food, drinks, money or other real world items from the characters described, but lost them against their own free will because of meeting dogs or people (robbers, boys, children or a neighbor).	15	21
N23	They stayed there and I came back here	fairy-tale text ends with a formula that says that the characters stayed or left where the action took place, and the narrator returned home and/or came to the place fairy tale performances.	15	52
N6	Whip a horse	horse tells the rider to whip it so hard that his blood splashes, his skin peels off, the meat is cut to the bone, etc. The rider follows these instructions.	15	22
A15	Crossing paths.	An eclipse or the appearance of spots on the lunar disc is explained by the fact that the moon or sun turns onto the wrong path or the paths of the luminaries intersect. See motif A14.	16	20
B100	Obtaining sleep.	In the past or in a distant land, sleep was unknown; a certain character embodies sleep, possesses it or teaches how to sleep; sleep is a special substance.	16	16
B14	The character creates river rapids.	In order to regulate the flow of the river in a certain way, the character creates rapids and waterfalls.	16	18
B28b In B28 family	Taming of things.	The inhabitants of the area where the hero finds himself are afraid of creatures that are tools, utensils, and plants that are now harmless. The hero easily defeats these creatures and usually transforms them into what they are now.	16	32
B2b In B2 family	The earth devours the dead.	The earth feeds on the people buried in it. See motif B2A.	16	22
B42r In B42 family	Orion's Belt: running after each other.	The three stars of Orion's Belt are three characters chasing each other.	16	17
B7a In B7 family	Spit-out water.	Someone possesses water or a drink. Another character swallows what is hidden, runs away and spits out what is hidden, making the water or drink available to everyone.	16	23
B91a In B91 family	Eyes: took and did not return.	A blind character asks another to lend him his eyes or to swap eyes, keeping his own eyes.	16	27
C33	Prometheus (the chained strongman).	A strongman-god-fighter is chained to a rock or a pillar for centuries.	16	42
C8a In C8 family	Millstones fall on each other.	Finding themselves alone and without other marriage partners, a brother and sister make it possible to marry each other by the occurrence of an incredible event. This event takes place, giving them a sign to become spouses. Among such events (alternatively or sequentially): 1) millstones rolling down from two different mountains fall on top of each other; 2) swords thrown from two mountains end up in the same scabbard; 3) objects thrown up join together; 4) smoke from two fires joins together (rising in a column); 5) two planted bamboo stalks join at the tops. See motif C8.	16	44
D4aa In D4 family	The butterfly tries to steal fire.	Moths try to steal the fire that humans possess.	16	12
E14	Knowledge from the dead.	Rituals received from the spirits of the dead.	16	19
E33	People from grains.	People arise from grains, seeds, dough.	16	32
E37	People made of sticks.	The creator collects many sticks, feathers, reeds, etc., and turns them into people (either people of both sexes and all ages, or no mention is made of gender or age).	16	26
E9m In E9 family	The magical wife – the bear.	A man marries a bear (white or grizzly) that takes the form of a woman, or a woman who takes the form of a bear.	16	29

Showing 1,401–1,450 of 3,494 · Page 29 of 70

Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.