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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H55 | Sinners in the Other World, ATU 471, (ATU 470). | A person going to the other world sees people who are punished or rewarded for their actions in life. | 75 | 89 |
| I7 | Cloud serpent. | The reptile produces rain and thunderstorms. | 75 | 136 |
| K64a In K64 family | The Blinded Cyclops, ATU 1137, K521.1, K603. | A man blinds a sleeping or immobile giant-cannibal and escapes from him. | 75 | 126 |
| K77b In K77 family | Bremen Town Musicians, ATU 130. | Having left their owners, domestic animals find an empty house or build a house. Robbers or predatory animals come there. Domestic animals attack or simply scare them away. Predators do not understand who they are facing and flee. | 75 | 74 |
| A12c In A12 family | Reptiles or fish eclipse the sun. | Eclipses of the sun, moon or their setting (marked*) are caused by a snake, lizard, dragon, fish or crocodile; these creatures attack the luminaries now or attacked them at the beginning of time. See motif A12. | 76 | 92 |
| B12 | Snake rivers. | The riverbed follows the path of a snake, fish, dragon, or crab; the river arises from parts of the snake's body; the river is a snake. | 76 | 81 |
| F49 | Caesarean section, T584. | Women had their stomachs cut open to remove the baby. Someone explains how to give birth or makes childbirth possible. | 76 | 106 |
| I108 | The Pleiades – a single character. | The Pleiades are a single character, not a group of people. | 76 | 91 |
| I20 | Underground dwarves, F451. | The inhabitants of the underworld or the land on the horizon where the sky meets the earth are dwarves. See motif I14A. | 76 | 131 |
| K17 | Ornithomorphic groom. | A male character in the form of a winged creature approaches a girl and either magically or unnoticed by her impregnates her. See motif K16: taking the form of an animal or bird, he enters the girl's house. | 76 | 68 |
| K26 | The earth seen from the sky. | Approaching an opening or making one, the character sees the world below (usually seeing the earth from the sky). See motif K25. | 76 | 102 |
| A37 | The sun is subjected to armed attack. | The character deliberately and by resorting to special means (usually shooting with a bow) strikes the sun or several suns or attempts to do so. | 77 | 154 |
| D1 | Woman-fire. | A woman (usually elderly) is the embodiment of fire – alone or together with her husband, the master of fire. Cf. motif D5 (woman possesses fire). | 77 | 119 |
| I85 | The Polar Star – a stake or a nail. | Polar Star – stake, nail, hitching post, etc. | 77 | 108 |
| K130a In K130 family | The Girl in the Brothers' House, (ATU 709A). | Several young men (brothers) live far away from other people. A girl comes to them, or she is miraculously born in their house, and they treat her like a sister. After some time, the girl finds herself in danger, but is ultimately saved. | 77 | 108 |
| K38e In K38 family | Copper, silver, gold. | Locations or objects made of three (rarely four) materials of varying degrees of value, but all valued positively (copper, silver, gold; silver, gold, diamonds, etc.) are mentioned. | 77 | 201 |
| K95 | Together and after death, ATU 970. | Two people who love each other (usually a man and a woman) die prematurely and are buried in the same grave or nearby. After or during the burial, something unusual happens that is connected with the story (special plants grow in that place, the smoke from the two funeral pyres joins together, the dead turn into two birds, two stars, etc.). | 77 | 77 |
| L42b In L42 family | The gullible children of the cannibal. | After capturing the hero, the antagonist brings him home and leaves him in the care of a family member. The latter believes the hero's words and follows his instructions. See motif L42. | 77 | 116 |
| M151A In M151 family | Supports a rock, ATU 1530, J2273.1. | The character pretends to hold a rock, tree, etc., which is supposedly about to fall. See Dixon 1916: 189. (It is possible that in America the motif is of late African origin). | 77 | 81 |
| M199 | Squeezing water from a stone, ATU 1060. | A man and a giant (devil, predator, robber) agree to test their strength by crushing a stone. The man squeezes a piece of cheese, an egg, etc., and the giant believes that he is facing a strong man. {ATU 1060 includes variants in which the character squeezes brains (guts, etc.) out of the ground, without specifying this in the definition; where we were able to verify this, we did not include such traditions}. | 77 | 101 |
| G23a In G23 family | Plants from body parts. | Parts of the body and organs of living beings are transformed into various plants (teeth into corn, testicles into yams, etc.). | 78 | 129 |
| I8g In I8 family | Atlas, A842. | A single giant holds up the earth or the sky. | 78 | 108 |
| J30 | Remains of parents. | Before the heroes defeat their antagonists or flee from them, they find or receive the remains or property of the victim. | 78 | 108 |
| L118 | Hand caught in a log, H1532, ATU 38. | One character provokes another to stick a part of their body into a split log (between two boards, etc.) and knocks out the wedge. | 78 | 101 |
| A36 | The moon and immortality. | The moon (month) is contrasted with humans as immortal to mortals; it decides whether humans will be mortal; those who live on the moon are immortal. (Cf. Latvians, Dolgans). | 79 | 147 |
| A38 | The Sun in a Trap, A728. | The sun falls into a snare, a trap, and finds itself tied by a rope. | 79 | 112 |
| H36a In H36 family | False news: the origin of death, A1335.1. | The character distorts the message conveyed to him, deliberately lies, brings the wrong thing, loses what he is carrying, delays (and is overtaken by another messenger). As a result, people become mortal (they do not revive after death). | 79 | 156 |
| J58 | Chain of arrows, F53. | Characters shoot arrows (darts) that stick into each other and form a chain. They usually climb up the chain to the upper world. | 79 | 165 |
| K113 | Animal princess, ATU 402. | Young men (usually three brothers) find wives (usually by shooting arrows or other objects at random, see motif K113A). The wife of the youngest brother is initially ugly or appears in the form of an animal (often a frog or snake), but turns out to be a beauty and a sorceress. Alternatively, the girls choose their husbands, and the wife of the youngest brother is a sorceress. | 79 | 114 |
| K38f4 In K38 family | Fire-breathing monster, B11.2.11, B19.1, B742.3, B742.4. | Flames burst from the mouth and/or nostrils of a monstrous character hostile to the hero; his breath is fire. | 79 | 124 |
| K84 | Sisters married to animals, ATU 552.1. | A young man gives his sisters to the first ones who come to woo them (less often, unknown creatures kidnap the sisters one by one, demanding a ransom for them). These are animals or demons, which then usually help him. | 79 | 121 |
| L14 | The cultivated snake. | People bring a small creature (usually a worm or reptile) into their home and raise it, or it settles into a man-made dwelling on its own. The creature turns into something terrifying or magnificent. See motif L13 (raised monster attacks people). | 79 | 45 |
| L42g In L42 family | Hansel and Gretel, ATU 327A. | The stepmother, and more often the father (usually at the insistence of his new wife), leaves the children in a deserted place or sends them into the forest. They end up in the house of a cannibal or cannibals, all (or at least one of them) survive and achieve success. | 79 | 84 |
| M114b In M114 family | Come neither naked nor clothed (ATU 875). | When a character is asked to do and not do something at the same time, or not to do it in any of the possible ways (to come dressed and not naked, with a gift and without a gift, etc.), they figure out a solution. | 79 | 125 |
| B46 | Seven Star Brothers. | Each of the seven stars of the Big Dipper is an adult male. | 80 | 159 |
| I51a In I51 family | Four-legged animals – the pillars of the earth. | The earth is supported by or has a large mammal at its centre. See motif I8B. | 80 | 125 |
| I8A In I8 family | Pillars of the world: anthropomorphic characters. | The world, earth or sky are supported by anthropomorphic beings. | 80 | 121 |
| K27q In K27 family | Milk of a wild animal. | Task: to obtain the milk of a wild animal or milk possessed by a dangerous creature. See motif K27. | 80 | 108 |
| K27u In K27 family | Hide, ATU 329. | Task: to hide (the hero finds the antagonist, and/or the antagonist cannot find the hero). See motif K27. | 80 | 73 |
| K33a In K33 family | Brother Goat, ATU 450. | Young siblings (most often a brother and sister) leave home. One of them (rarely: several brothers) accidentally breaks a taboo and is transformed into an animal (usually a hoofed animal) or (rarely) a bird; later, the spell is usually broken. | 80 | 114 |
| K74a In K74 family | Only the hero defeats the demon and follows in his footsteps. | A demonic character arrives and mocks one of the men remaining in the house. When the hero remains, he defeats the demon and follows in his footsteps to where he dwells. Cf. motif K74 (an unassuming and weak-looking man approaches a warrior preparing dinner; he eats everything, ties up, beats or kills the cook. When the hero remains to cook, he defeats the demon). | 80 | 56 |
| M114 | The rope of sand, ATU 1174. | The character is asked to make (or actually makes) a rope or other object out of sand, ash, smoke, etc. | 80 | 79 |
| M29a In M29 family | Trickster - Raven (a) | See the motives in square brackets. | 80 | 65 |
| A32h In A32 family | Moon tree, A751.6. | A tree, bush, branch, snag, etc. are visible on the lunar disc. See motif A32G. | 81 | 112 |
| B38 | Unsuccessful colouring. | The character decorates birds or animals, or they decorate each other. Some are dissatisfied with the result. | 81 | 121 |
| B3e In B3 family | The earth fell into the waters. | At first, below the sky there is only air and water or (rarely) swamp, an indefinite abyss. A character descends from the sky, creates or has a support created for him, and the earth grows out of it; the earth is lowered, dropped from the sky; the earth is thrown, placed on the surface of the sea, and grows into land; the earth is brought from somewhere else (not from the underworld) and placed on the waters. (This is a more general motif compared to motif b79a1, "The bird dropped the firmament onto the waters"). | 81 | 112 |
| F64 | Incestuous parent, T411.1.1. | The character is presented as another person in order to mate with a close relative in the descending or (less commonly) ascending line. | 81 | 121 |
| I9 | Colours of the cardinal points. | Each (or at least three) of the four cardinal directions (as well as the zenith and nadir) and/or the objects located there have their own colour. Abbreviations: E: east, S: south, W: west, N: north. (Cf. Podosinov 2000: 143-147). | 81 | 154 |
| M104 | Allegedly murdered relatives. | A character suggests that another kill their close relatives (children, brothers, mother), hides their own, and assures them that they have killed them. When the other actually kills their children, mother or brothers, it turns out that the first character's relatives are unharmed. See motif A41 (The Moon hides her star children to provoke the Sun into killing his children). | 81 | 119 |
| K100 | The Faithful Servant, ATU 516. | A person learns about the dangers threatening another (and usually that by warning his friend/master, he will turn to stone). The person eliminates the dangers, despite the fact that his behaviour upsets the person he has saved. | 82 | 114 |
Tradition and narrative counts are the stored catalogue totals for each entry.