Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B110 — Where the back is – swamps, where the head is – red poppies.
Source data for narratives and traditions is drawn from Berezkin’s Analytical Catalogue. If you use this data, please acknowledge and link to it: Ю.Е. Березкин, Е.Н. Дувакин. Тематическая классификация и распределение фольклорно-мифологических мотивов по ареалам. Аналитический каталог.
Summary of motif
OverviewA character who is dragged along the ground or who runs, falls apart or hits the ground with different parts of his body. This determines the characteristics of the landscape and flora.
Berezkin category: The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar.
B11 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedB11. 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.
B11a. The mammoth, represented as an underground fish-like creature, creates rugged terrain on wet ground and digs river beds.
B11B. At the beginning of time or during the flood, the mammoth drowned or sank into the ground, and since then it has not been seen on earth.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| H7F | 99.24% | God gives instructions that certain categories of people must die and suffer. The character who receives the instructions, caring for the people, passes on other orders to the executors. |
| C31A | 99.03% | The master (mistress) of the underworld receives (should receive) heavenly lights or fire. Due to a trick or accident, they are not given to him or are returned. |
| K62A | 98.79% | 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). |
| B3C | 97.79% | When the creator, having created the land, lies down to rest, the antagonist tries to drown him, dragging him to the edge of the earth. As a result, the earth expands, and the antagonist is unable to reach its edge. |
| E36 | 97.78% | The human body was or could have been covered with a protective layer (bone, rarely wool), but it has only been preserved on the nails (head). |
| K73B6 | 97.72% | The wife of a powerful character gives birth to wonderful children. Her jealous sisters conspire to make her husband order her to be disposed of (usually by locking her and the child in a barrel and throwing it into the water). The boy immediately grows up and rescues his mother and himself. He himself (in the form of a bird, animal, insect, or flying in on a miraculous object) or his puppy brother enters his father's lair and, eavesdropping on the conversation, learns of the existence of miraculous objects. Upon returning, he obtains them or already possesses them and demonstrates them to his father when they meet (the objects may include the young man's brothers). |
| I98B | 97.68% | The Pleiades – ducks, nest or wild duck egg. |
| K25A2 | 97.03% | An anthropomorphic character flies away or tries to fly away, attaching feathers shed by birds flying in the sky to his body. |
| B68B | 96.81% | A character who, by his appearance, behaviour or unexpected appearance, tried to frighten God (people) and was turned into an animal (with a different appearance than before) for this. |
| H6C1 | 95.71% | To obtain the desired object, the character grabs the young or the female bird (snake, crab) and promises to release them if the father (mother, male) bird delivers the desired object. |
See the 100 most similar distributions →
Map of motif dispersal
DistributionDrag the map to pan, use the scroll wheel to zoom — choose a texture or projection below
Traditions
23 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 23 traditions: Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Lithuanians, Setu, Vepsians, Western Sami, Eastern Sami (including Skolts), Western Ukrainians, Tats, Armenians, Kazan (Middle Volga) Tatars, Bashkirs, Mordvins, Chuvash, Mansi, Eastern Khanty (Ostyaks), Southern Selkups, Northern Selkups, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Lkungen (Straits; including Samish, Songish, Sooke, Lummi), Klallam, Urums, Rumei, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Russian Federation
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