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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B27 | Variants of metamorphosis. | The characters ponder what object or creature they should transform into, and once they have made their choice, they undergo metamorphosis. | 39 | 57 |
| B57 | Bloody sunset. | Blood spurting from a killed or wounded person or animal colours the sky (dawn, northern lights) or other natural objects (moon, vegetation) red. | 39 | 53 |
| B5b In B5 family | Universal mother. | A woman (alone or with her companion) creates or gives birth not only to humans, but also to various creatures, objects, and parts of the universe. | 39 | 52 |
| B7b In B7 family | Water from a vessel. | The sea (flood, river) flows out of a small container. | 39 | 39 |
| F17 | Genitals out of place, A1313.3. | Human genitals were initially located, should have been located, or could have been located under certain circumstances not where they are now; either there were no genitals initially, or people did not know their purpose and copulated using other parts of the body. | 39 | 51 |
| H36b In H36 family | The chameleon betrays man. | The chameleon is to blame for the fact that man is mortal or that he must labour; he loses the trust placed in him by the deity. See motif H36. | 39 | 47 |
| H36ff In H36 family | The raven betrays man. | The raven (crow) or other large bird of prey tries to kill people and/or is responsible for the fact that humans (tigres: domestic animals) are mortal or susceptible to disease. | 39 | 57 |
| I28 | Animals underground, F127. | Wild or domestic animals live inside a mountain, in a cave or in the underground world, or once came out of there into our world; often animals take on human form underground and have an owner. See motif H18. | 39 | 168 |
| I36 | Thunder and lightning – relatives or in-laws. | Thunder and lightning (two thunders, two lightnings) – characters related by kinship, marriage or property. | 39 | 52 |
| I68b In I68 family | The night of fulfilled wishes. | On a certain night of the year, any wish that is expressed or conceived will come true. Cf. motif M13. | 39 | 67 |
| K102b In K102 family | Ride for the last time, B184.1.6. | In order to destroy the hero (heroine), the antagonist must first get rid of his beloved animal (usually a horse). When the animal is about to be slaughtered, the hero (heroine) mounts it, rides away and escapes. | 39 | 43 |
| K165 | Seeking to experience fear, ATU 326. | The young man has never experienced fear and wants to know what it is like. Robbers and evil spirits do not frighten him. | 39 | 33 |
| K27o3 In K27 family | Competition between two teams. | Two groups of characters compete in overcoming trials or play a game, divided into two teams (at least two episodes with different characters on both sides). The participants are either anthropomorphic but possess different unusual abilities, or they are different animals (natural phenomena, elements, etc.). Cf. motif K27xy (Characters with different properties in opposing camps). | 39 | 51 |
| K38a In K38 family | White and black rams, F67. | Upon arriving in the underworld, the hero sees white and black horses, rams, etc. The white ones will take him to the upper world, while the black ones will take him even lower. Usually, the hero accidentally touches the black one. Sometimes a third ram or horse is mentioned, red or grey. Or the hero grabs the left horn of the animal instead of the right, and as a result ends up not where he wants to be. | 39 | 44 |
| K56c In K56 family | The Golden Axe, ATU 729. | A man loses his axe. A spirit or chief offers him a golden one, but the man says that the axe is not his and for this he receives axes of gold and silver as a reward. Another man deliberately loses his ordinary axe, seeking to obtain a golden one, but suffers a fiasco. | 39 | 25 |
| K75a2 In K75 family | Gardener. | Appearing incognito to an authoritative figure, the hero works for him as a gardener. | 39 | 52 |
| K92 | King Lear, ATU 923, 923B. | The father asks his children a question, the answer to which seems obvious (does his daughter love him, who is the eldest in the family, etc.). The youngest daughter (less often – son) gives an unexpected answer, the father drives her away (deprives her of her inheritance), and later becomes convinced of her intelligence and nobility. | 39 | 44 |
| K99b In K99 family | Midnight escape: change of partner, (ATU 856). | A girl and a young man agree that he will take her away at night. The young man is late or falls asleep, and the girl is taken away by someone else who happens to be at the appointed place. | 39 | 50 |
| L37c In L37 family | Two Shares, ATU 735. | A person encounters the incarnations of Fortune (and Misfortune) – his own or someone else's. He manages to influence their behaviour and change (for himself) the course of events for the better. | 39 | 33 |
| L85F In L85 family | One-legged. | The character has only one leg (and one arm), which does not prevent him from moving. Unlike motif L85 (half-creatures), the character has a complete body, not divided in half vertically. | 39 | 43 |
| L94a In L94 family | Grabbed by the beard. | When a person leans over the water, a demon grabs him by the beard and releases him on the promise that he will fulfil his demand. | 39 | 56 |
| M14 | Brutal murder of wife or son. | A man brutally murders his wife (rarely: children, fiancée, sister) and/or eats her flesh himself, or brings her flesh to her relatives (if he kills children, he brings the flesh to his wife). | 39 | 62 |
| M178 | The Lying Goat, ATU 212. | The owner successively sends others to graze the goat (herd of goats). The goat eats grass to its heart's content, but each time replies to the owner that it has been kept on a starvation diet. The owner is outraged and kills or drives away the shepherds. Convinced of the goat's deceitfulness, he decides to kill it. Either the owner begins to skin the live goat, or the goat runs away. In most versions, both motifs are combined. | 39 | 36 |
| M191 | Cat and wild animals, ATU 103A, 103A*. | The fox (dog, squirrel) lives with the cat and pretends to be a strong beast; forest predators are frightened and bring meat to appease the cat. | 39 | 38 |
| m195c In m195 family | The clever or lucky person solves riddles. | People of high status cannot determine the hidden difference between two or more outwardly similar objects or beings, or between two sides of the same object or being. Thanks to their own intelligence or chance, a person of low status does so. | 39 | 53 |
| M206 | Half of the reward, ATU 1610. | A guard (nobleman) agrees to let a man pass to an authoritative figure on condition that he gives him half of the expected reward. The man asks for a beating as a reward or expected it from the outset. | 39 | 19 |
| M29o1 In M29 family | A monkey is a loser and a loser | As a result of its stupidity or antisocial behavior, the monkey dies or suffers damage. See the motives in square brackets. | 39 | 25 |
| M3 | Human chain | The character crosses a water or air barrier on the backs of chained animals, birds, or fish. | 39 | 69 |
| B33a In B33 family | Frozen in spring. | Deciding that it has become (or will soon become) warm, the character believes that winter is over (most often an old woman goes to graze cattle), but dies from the cold or the cattle driven out to pasture perish. Cf. motif I84A ("The frozen son of God"). | 40 | 80 |
| C32c In C32 family | Nails must be preserved. | Nails (and hair) have special significance for a person's fate, their soul or the world as a whole. (Compound motif). | 40 | 61 |
| C4 | The Flood: Falling Fruit. | During the flood or at the beginning of time, fruits, seeds, or other objects fall into the water one after another. As this happens, the water begins to recede, exposing the earth. | 40 | 65 |
| E9d In E9 family | The magical wife – the dog. | Before meeting the hero, his beloved (wife, helper) has the image of a dog or puppy (wolf cub). | 40 | 70 |
| F20 | Lovers stuck together. | After copulation, the man and woman are unable to break their embrace. | 40 | 40 |
| F40a In F40 family | The common husband of the first women. | A male character, androgynous, with a monstrous penis, single-handedly possesses all women, rules over them or leads away the first women. | 40 | 54 |
| G29 | Demon from artefacts. | The character consists of various artefacts of domestic and industrial use or transforms into them. | 40 | 51 |
| H28a In H28 family | The ashes of the burned turn into gnus. | When a character is burned, the smoke and sparks turn into mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects that scatter throughout the world. | 40 | 85 |
| H47 | Offended sky/earth. | The sky (celestial deity) or Earth is offended by people's behaviour towards them and reacts accordingly. | 40 | 70 |
| I42 | Rainbow – a pair of creatures. | The rainbow is a pair of creatures, usually a man and a woman, male and female. | 40 | 60 |
| I94 | Pleiades – holes. | The Pleiades are something holey. | 40 | 52 |
| J37 | A bird carries away the antagonist. | Transforming into a powerful bird or creating one, the hero lifts his opponent into the air and carries him away. | 40 | 65 |
| K103d In K103 family | Enter the horse's ear and take it out of the cow's ear. | An animal (rarely a demonic creature) orders the hero or heroine to retrieve necessary items from its ear or to enter its ear in order to transform, fall asleep, etc. | 40 | 68 |
| K117d In K117 family | Two in bed with the princess, ATU 850. | The princess, lying between two suitors, must choose blindly the one she likes best. The suitor of low birth arranges things so that his noble rival emits a foul odour (while he himself emits a pleasant fragrance). The princess turns to him. | 40 | 22 |
| K43a In K43 family | A kind person leaves the fire. | People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and depart. Someone sympathises with those who have been abandoned and secretly hides fire for them. | 40 | 41 |
| K56a4 In K56 family | The messenger dog. | When a kind girl returns home, an animal or bird (usually a dog) announces that she is well, but when an unkind girl returns or when her dead body is brought back, the dog (rooster, crow) announces that something is wrong with her. | 40 | 74 |
| k56a4f In k56 family | The evil girl becomes ugly. | After meeting a supernatural character, the unkind girl becomes ugly. | 40 | 52 |
| K65 | Spirits of loci. | Having been cast out, discarded, or born of the first ancestors, creatures of a certain category acquire individuality, transforming into spirits who are the masters of various loci. | 40 | 61 |
| K65e In K65 family | Midwife in the demonic world, ATU 476**, (ATU 156B*). | A woman is invited into the non-human world, where she delivers a child for one of the creatures (or serves as a nanny for a certain period of time, baptises the child). Then she returns to the human world. | 40 | 63 |
| K66a In K66 family | The flying ship as a condition of marriage, ATU 513B. | The princess (inheritance) is given to the one who builds (obtains) a ship capable of moving on land (flying through the air). | 40 | 39 |
| L100g In L100 family | The One-Legged Goose, ATU 785A. | A servant serves his master a roasted bird, one of whose legs has already been eaten. He tells him to look at the chickens, geese, etc., which are standing on one leg. When they run away, it becomes clear that they all have two legs. Usually, the servant says that if the master had scared the roasted goose, it would have shown its second leg too. | 40 | 24 |
| L37c1 In L37 family | Misfortune, ATU 735A. | The happiness (misfortune, hardship, etc.) of each person is represented by specific characters with whom they interact. | 40 | 44 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.