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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| J22a In J22 family | Two of one. | Two men or a brother and sister emerge from a single body or embryo cut in half, or the second emerges from a part of the body or from the secretions of the first. Cf. motif M37. | 37 | 43 |
| J64 | Into the sky on a pillar of smoke. | Without touching the fire or burning, the character rises into the sky or crosses the river on clouds of smoke. | 37 | 46 |
| K14d In K14 family | Imaginary crime, (ATU 910A). | Testing his wife (household member, acquaintance), a man pretends to have committed a crime or performs incomprehensible actions that could be interpreted as a crime. Usually, his wife (friend) betrays him, and he presents evidence of his innocence. | 37 | 34 |
| K15b In K15 family | The replaced barrel of water. | By secretly switching the vessels containing living and dead (giving and taking away strength) water (rarely: oil, etc.), from which the combatants drink during a duel, the hero defeats his opponent. | 37 | 57 |
| K27r2 In K27 family | Dancing apples. | Task: bring objects (fruit, wood, water, etc.) that perform actions characteristic of humans (sing, dance, yawn, laugh, etc.). | 37 | 61 |
| K54 | Two giants. | When encountering a giant or a snake, a person is afraid of it, but it becomes his friend and asks for help when he is fighting another giant or snake. The person fulfils the request. | 37 | 49 |
| K73a5 In K73 family | The child is replaced by a kitten. | Malicious women replace the newborn with a kitten (telling the father that his wife has given birth to a kitten). See motifs K73, K73A. | 37 | 59 |
| K73b1 In K73 family | Mother and child in a barrel. | A woman with her newborn son (pregnant with a boy) or a girl with a young man are placed in a barrel (box; rarely: in a boat) and lowered into the sea (river). | 37 | 64 |
| K78 | Swallowed, extracted from the little finger. | The cannibal swallows people. When he is killed, it turns out that they are not in his belly or that they are dead there. They are found alive not in the belly, but in the cannibal's finger, or there is a means of reviving them in the little finger, or the cannibal's finger must be cut or severed to find the people. | 37 | 53 |
| K91 | The invisible battle. | Dogs, the hero's horse, or the hero himself fight the enemy in the underworld. Those watching from a distance judge the course of the battle by the colour of the water or foam rising to the surface, the colour of the first animal to emerge, etc. | 37 | 34 |
| L120 | Snakes turn into apple trees, ATU 300A. | After overhearing a conversation between demonic characters who are planning to turn themselves into something edible, attractive, and safe, and to destroy anyone who touches them, the hero neutralises the demons. | 37 | 57 |
| L50 | Cannibal by the trail, G321. | The character kills travellers passing by. Usually, he does not attack them unexpectedly, but distracts their attention first. Often, he pushes his victims down somewhere. | 37 | 56 |
| L52 | The hero flies away from the top of the tree. | A person escapes from a pursuer by climbing a tree and then flying away from it himself or on the back of a bird, or a bird helps the hero escape in some other way. | 37 | 57 |
| M101b In M101 family | Man past, future, present, ATU 157. | A large predator wants to see a human being. First, it meets a child and learns that this is a future human being, then an old man – a former human being. The encounter with a present human being (a hunter, a soldier) ends badly for the beast. | 37 | 33 |
| M128 | Colourful animals, ATU 1036. | Having agreed with his opponent that he would get animals with certain external characteristics or behaving in a certain way, the hero takes all or almost all of them when the livestock is divided. | 37 | 31 |
| M150 | The deceitful shepherd. | Having taken on the task of herding a flock, the character eats the animals entrusted to him. | 37 | 44 |
| M160 | Offence by word and deed, ATU 159B. | A strong wild beast and a man become friends. The man breaks a promise he made to the beast or speaks contemptuously of it. The beast asks to be physically hurt and says that the insult inflicted by words is more painful (the wound on the body has healed, but the wound on the soul has not; or the beast dies of grief). | 37 | 27 |
| M176 | Test: jumping over an obstacle. | The characters agree to jump over a ditch, stream, fire, etc., or walk across a log, rope, etc. One or all of them {specified in brackets} fall. | 37 | 46 |
| M198a3 In M198 family | Who stole the ruby? | One of the brothers secretly takes valuables belonging to all of them or is illegitimate. The brothers come to an authoritative figure to determine who is the thief or illegitimate child. Usually, the figure tells a story and determines the culprit based on the reaction of those who have come. | 37 | 34 |
| M29a1 In M29 family | Raven(s) - main trickster | In three or more different episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is raven (crow) | 37 | 39 |
| M38c1 In M38 family | Converting old to young: an unsuccessful imitation, ATU 753 | The character (supposedly) forges a person, rejuvenating or reviving him, the other unsuccessfully tries to imitate him. | 37 | 42 |
| M39a6h In M39 family | Pluck a goose, ATU 921F* | The king tells the commoner to pluck a goose (geese, shear a ram, etc.). He understands correctly: to rob the vizier. | 37 | 41 |
| M39a8a In M39 family | Drops a heavy object from a tree | A fool or buffoon climbs a tree taking a heavy objects with him and then drops it frightening those who are under the tree | 37 | 46 |
| M39i In M39 family | The Hangman's Treasure, ATU 910D | After going broke, a person decides to hang himself, but finds gold (specially put by the father where his son hangs). | 37 | 24 |
| M57d1 In M57 family | Donor Bird | bird consistently gives a person magical objects (or gives one, with which he receives the rest) or consistently fulfills his wishes. | 37 | 56 |
| N30 | He looks one way, cries, looks the other way, laughs | formula that describes the confusion of feelings: when a character looks in one direction, he cries, and when he laughs or smiles in the other direction. | 37 | 80 |
| A23 | Who will become the sun? | The first ancestors come together to choose who will become the sun, to raise the sun to the sky, to see the sun rise for the first time, and to name the sun correctly. See motif A22. | 38 | 64 |
| A24 | First sunrise. | The first ancestors live in twilight. When they first find themselves in the rays of the sun, they (spontaneously or by someone's will) perish, turning into animals, spirits, or stones. | 38 | 56 |
| B11 | The appearance of rivers. | A river (rarely: a chain of lakes, a narrow strait) or its current course is created by humans or animals. See motifs B12, B13. This section covers other variants of the motif. | 38 | 37 |
| B38a In B38 family | Two birds adorn each other. | Two birds agree to paint each other. One of them does not become more beautiful as a result and often becomes uglier. See motif B36A. | 38 | 28 |
| B42p In B42 family | Ursa Major – bear. | The Big Dipper is identified with a bear. | 38 | 45 |
| C6a In C6 family | Diver – turtle/frog. | A turtle or toad (frog) brings a desired object from the bottom or from the underworld. | 38 | 45 |
| E13a In E13 family | Knowledge from the underwater world. | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals were first obtained by humans from the inhabitants of the underwater world. | 38 | 76 |
| E9o In E9 family | The magical wife – a frog or a toad. | A man marries a woman who has the appearance of a frog or toad. | 38 | 48 |
| F70e1 In F70 family | Daughter in the role of son, AT 884B. | An old man needs a son to do men's work. (Only the youngest) daughter takes on this task (successfully passing the test set by her father), pretending to be a man. | 38 | 42 |
| F9f In F9 family | Asmodeus. | Without the woman's knowledge, the demon regularly kills her suitors on their wedding night. | 38 | 44 |
| I46a In I46 family | The Old Woman's Rainbow. | The rainbow is associated with a woman, usually an elderly one. | 38 | 52 |
| I85c1 In I85 family | Heavenly vessel for rain, A1131.4, A1131.4.1. | In the sky there is a vessel, a box or an indescribable container for storing rain (rain clouds). | 38 | 47 |
| K120a3 In K120 family | Dress in a nut. | The character receives a nut containing valuables (beautiful clothes, jewellery, animal helpers, etc.), or (Germans, Latvians) hides the valuables in the nut himself to use them later. | 38 | 64 |
| K15a In K15 family | Substituted weapon. | The hero secretly replaces the weapon or magical tool of a powerful character with a worthless fake. Traditions in which the replaced weapon belongs to Grom are highlighted in bold. | 38 | 50 |
| K29b In K29 family | Safe in the pit, K959,6. | The hero is asked to climb (or is thrown) into a pit, which is immediately filled with earth or into which a pole or stones are lowered, K959,6 (Posthole murder). The hero proves his magical abilities by climbing out of the pit alive. | 38 | 49 |
| K35a1 In K35 family | Do not pick up the feather of the firebird. | Setting off on a journey, a person (often against the advice of their horse) picks up a precious feather. Upon learning of this, an authoritative character gives them difficult tasks. | 38 | 55 |
| K62a In K62 family | The Quarrel of the Mouse and the Bird, ATU 222B. | A mouse (rat, mole, etc.) and a bird quarrel after failing to divide their winter supplies. (This episode usually serves as the beginning of a story about a war between birds and animals). | 38 | 43 |
| L27 | The eaten maiden. | Sisters or friends encounter a demon. One or both do not understand the danger. One is eaten or maimed, the other escapes. | 38 | 59 |
| M146 | The wolf was lured into a trap, ATU 35B*. | Knowing that the meat is in a trap or poisoned, or that there is a trap ahead, a zoomorphic character provokes another to try the meat first or to go ahead. | 38 | 44 |
| M165 | A coat for a wolf, ATU 102. | One zoomorphic character promises another to sew a coat (boots), asks him to bring sheep, eats them, and does not sew anything. | 38 | 46 |
| M173a In M173 family | Returning for the second boot (ATU 1525D). | A character throws one of a pair of objects onto the path of another. The traveller passes by, but when the deceiver throws the second object, he leaves his belongings and returns for the first. At this time, the deceiver steals the belongings. | 38 | 39 |
| M52 | Mascara fresheners | The character (by deception) kills an ungulates. He asks another to refresh the carcass, looks for a knife to do it, or a fire to fry the meat. The other freshens the carcass, gives fire or a knife, but takes or tries to take all the meat for himself. | 38 | 44 |
| M60 | Imaginary physician: finished off enemy, K824, K1955 | After injuring a demon (robber), the hero goes to his locus. There he, or (rarely) his assistant, pretends to be a doctor and finishes off an opponent. | 38 | 64 |
| A23c In A23 family | Who will fly higher? ATU 221A | Birds argue about which of them will fly higher or arrive first. The winner is the one whose victory seemed unlikely (he hides in the feathers of a strong bird and flies away with it). | 39 | 54 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.