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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 2,201–2,250 of 3,494 · Page 45 of 70

Ref	Title	Summary	Traditions ▲	Narratives
M32	Indigestion	The character swallows food or water, or his own entrails, pieces of flesh flow out and fall out of his ass.	28	35
A32	Figure on the surface of the Moon, A751.	A figure or imprint of some creature or object is visible on the lunar (Moon) surface. Statistical calculations also include motifs A32A – A32J (a rabbit, frog, predatory animal, human, tree, etc. are visible on the moon).	29	35
B33c In B33 family	Borrowed days.	The month on the border between winter and spring (usually March) takes (rarely: buys, steals) a few days from its neighbour.	29	61
B42U In B42 family	The stars of the ladle handle – three people.	The stars of the handle of the Big Dipper – three people, and the four stars of the dipper – animals or objects (one or more).	29	45
B44b In B44 family	Fingers, claws, hair, feathers.	The number and/or nature of the alternation of fingers, claws, feathers, hairs, and stripes on animal skins determines the number of time intervals in the calendar or daily cycle. See motif B44.	29	8
B52	Before the flood, there were no mountains.	The floodwaters formed a rugged landscape.	29	34
B70	Hare ears.	A man beats defenseless hares, foxes, and other small animals (one or many) that are usually locked in his house. The story explains the colouring of the tips of the ears and tails of these animals. Cf. motif M45A.	29	38
B73b In B73 family	In search of a family member.	Two teenagers or young people are looking for each other, calling out to each other (or one of them is calling the other): a girl is looking for her missing (deceased) brother or brother's wife; a brother is looking for his sister or brother; young parents are looking for their child; one or both of those calling out turn into birds with a characteristic call.	29	45
B77b1 In B77 family	The sky was struck with a pestle.	The sky receded and/or the connection between humans and the deity ceased after the sky or the heavenly deity was touched or struck during work with a pestle used to pound in a mortar or with a spoon used to stir porridge (Ewe, Nubians, Nyiman).	29	54
C12b In C12 family	People – descendants of dogs.	All people or individual ethnic groups, lineages, families are considered descendants of dogs (with which a man mated).	29	56
C29	Overheard secret.	People (God) learn a secret by overhearing (spying on) a character talking to himself or his relatives (or performing actions that should be remembered). The knowledge gained is related to cosmogony or the acquisition of cultural values.	29	43
F56	Temptation and incest.	Upon seeing the vagina of his mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, niece, or mother-in-law, a man or boy thinks about incest or commits it.	29	37
H10	The sunken stone.	People are mortal, as they are likened to a stone thrown into water; they usually miss the opportunity to resemble organic matter that floats in water.	29	47
H16	Rivers of tears.	In another world, there are rivers of tears. Tears shed on earth fill large containers there. Cf. motifs K33F, N34, N35.	29	31
H19	The raven interferes with hunting.	The raven hides game animals in a pen or cave or scares them away from hunters. See motif H18.	29	40
H52	The Land of Immortality, ATU 470B.	A man finds a land where there is no death. Having decided to visit his native places, he never returns to it.	29	31
I103	Dog Star.	Sirius is associated with a dog or a wolf.	29	47
I110b In I110 family	Orion – reapers.	Orion – people or agricultural tools associated with harvesting or haymaking.	29	62
I33	The Tree of the Dead.	The soul on its journey to the afterlife stops at a certain tree.	29	31
I56a In I56 family	Man is an evil spirit in the world of spirits.	When a person who has entered another world touches the local inhabitants, they become ill or die.	29	42
I59b1 In I59 family	The Milky Way – the road to a distant city.	The Milky Way – the road to a distant city, usually with religious significance (Rome, Jerusalem, etc.).	29	52
I95	The Pleiades – a sieve for grain.	The Pleiades are a sieve or riddle for sifting agricultural products. See motif I95.	29	45
K107b In K107 family	Prohibition on lighting candles.	One spouse forbids the other from seeing them. When the other willingly or unwillingly breaks the prohibition, the first disappears (gets into trouble). (In the Tuscan version, the prohibition is broken by the woman's mother).	29	42
K22a In K22 family	Dwarves are attacked.	Birds or other creatures that are harmless to ordinary people attack dwarves living in another world. See motif K22.	29	5
K27zy In K27 family	The hero between two cannibals.	A young man (woman) lives in the house of a cannibal (witch). In order to destroy him or her, the cannibal orders that a certain object be brought from other cannibals (often from his or her mother or sister). The hero or heroine escapes (and destroys all the cannibals).	29	47
K61a In K61 family	Learn the secret, ATU 500*.	In order to find out the exact number, a specific object in a certain set, the name of a specific character, or the reason for a certain phenomenon, the character tries to surprise (or unintentionally surprises) the owner of such knowledge. The latter begins to talk to himself, involuntarily revealing the necessary information to the hero standing nearby.	29	37
K85	Horse brothers.	The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider.	29	51
L109	The man-eating pumpkin.	The pumpkin turns out to be a monster-devourer and/or grows from the remains of a monster.	29	38
L40b In L40 family	Absurd actions aimed at luring a character out.	To make the character come closer, absurd actions are performed in front of him. The character does not understand the deception and comes closer to explain how to act correctly.	29	43
L4b In L4 family	Blood cannot be washed away.	The character learns about the violation of the prohibition to enter a certain room, as evidence of this has been preserved on the body of the heroine (hero) or on an object in her (his) hands (often blood on a key or an apple).	29	42
L66	Underground passage beneath the monster.	To help the hero, a small animal digs an underground passage beneath the lying monster, and the hero strikes it from below.	29	43
M141	Animals in a pit, ATU 20A.	Several animals of different species find themselves in a pit from which they cannot escape. They devour each other, and the last one manages to escape.	29	32
M17b In M17 family	Wife deceives blind man.	The wife directs the blind man's arrow at game, lies that he has missed, and eats the meat herself.	29	36
M199e In M199 family	Horse between the legs, ATU 1082.	A man and his opponent compete to see who can carry a horse. The opponent struggles to lift the horse, while the man rides it, saying that he easily carried it between his legs.	29	17
M199f In M199 family	Threat to wrinkle the lake with a rope, ATU 1045(1).	The character pretends to want to deprive the devils (water dwellers) of their habitat (pull the shores of the lake together, two mountains, muddy the lake, dry up the sea, build a church on the land of the devils, etc.). To avoid this, the devils (fish) comply with the character's demands.	29	41
M57a1 In M57 family	Where it comes, there's gold	When a beautiful woman walks on the ground, jewels appear under her feet, flowers bloom, etc.	29	52
M59	An insidious passenger kills a carrier, K952.1.	A small animal asks a large one to transport it across the river; consistently rejects all the seats on the carrier's body that he offers; climbs to where the carrier is You can kill when the crossing is over.	29	26
M65	The trickster was pinched and the meat was eaten	trickster bakes meat obtained by trick, deception; immobilized by sticking to a tree, ground, or stone; at this time, another character (fox, wolf, coyote, birds) eats all the meat. See M53 motif.	29	50
N28a In N28 family	The roots of mountain	The roots (belt) of mountains or stones are mentioned in myths, riddles, spells, and songs as something that does not really exist.	29	40
A12d In A12 family	Birds eclipse the sun.	Birds attack the sun or moon during an eclipse (covering them with their wings) or (*) cover the sun during sunrise or sunset. See motif A12.	30	32
B117	Dog rights, ATU 200.	A document issued to animals (usually dogs) is lost through the fault of a cat (swallowed by a cat, burned, gnawed by mice). Since then, dogs and cats (usually also cats and mice) have been at enmity.	30	29
B4	The elongated land.	Islands or mainland pulled out of the ocean, pulled by a rope.	30	59
B42c In B42 family	Bear hunting.	In the cosmic hunting plot, the object of pursuit is a bear. See motifs B42 and B42P.	30	2
B52c In B52 family	The earth is larger than the sky.	When the earth and sky were created, they turned out to be different sizes. The earth was compressed, and mountains appeared. See motif B52.	30	47
B85b In B85 family	Wind in a bag.	The wind was or is in a small container, released from it or flying out of it from time to time.	30	38
F9c In F9 family	Snake in the vagina.	Snake (in Oceania – moray eel) in the vagina; vagina – snake's mouth; snake crawls out of a woman's mouth and bites off a man's penis during intercourse; woman with a toothy womb is associated with a snake.	30	34
G13c In G13 family	What to eat before the advent of agriculture.	Before the advent of cultivated or edible wild plants, people ate what is now considered unfit for consumption: (rotten) wood, bark, earth, stones, mushrooms.	30	54
G17	The gift of the reptile.	Cultural or important food crops, partially cultivated plant species owe their origin to snakes, moray eels or crocodiles/caimans.	30	48
H55b In H55 family	The Repentant Robber, ATU 756B.	From a man who visited hell (and met a deity), the robber learns of his future fate, humbly accepts the inevitability of retribution in the afterlife, and is ultimately saved. The robber is usually contrasted with a self-confident righteous man who is punished for his pride.	30	13
H56	The forbidden fruit: people become mortal, C621.	After eating certain food, the first humans become mortal or lose their human nature. Cf. motif F97 (humans become sexually mature).	30	32

Showing 2,201–2,250 of 3,494 · Page 45 of 70

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