Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
B94 — Trees lose the gift of speech.
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
OverviewTrees (and animals) used to talk, asking people not to cut them down or kill them.
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.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| I76B | 98.64% | After a certain amount of time or after performing certain actions, an ordinary mouse turns into a bat. |
| B113 | 98.22% | Due to certain events during the time of creation, women have cold backsides (and men have cold knees, or vice versa). |
| I110 | 98.20% | Constellations are associated with agricultural tools or with people engaged in agricultural work (most often ploughing and haymaking). See motifs I110A (plough), I110B (haymaking). |
| D4H | 98.00% | The swallow obtains fire for people. See motif D4A. |
| A2C1 | 97.91% | The Sun is going to have children. One of the animals warns that if the Sun has children, the world will burn. The Sun has to (refuse marriage and) remain childless. |
| K35A4 | 97.82% | In order to get rid of the hero and take his place, the deceiver pushes him into the sea or leaves him on a distant island. The hero survives and returns. |
| H54B | 97.66% | The character's gaze brings death (and destruction). |
| D1A4 | 97.49% | Two fires from different dwellings meet and converse. |
| M143 | 97.42% | Finding himself in a pit or well, one character persuades another to climb down to him, thanks to which he gets out, leaving the other at the bottom. |
| K56E | 97.42% | Two people have the same physical defect (a bump, a hump). The first one finds himself in a place where spirits gather, and they rid him of his defect. The second comes to the spirits, and they double his defect, giving him what they took from the first person. (Uther 2004 mentions Kasevich, Osipov 1976, No. 171; the Karen text is published there and does not correspond to the definition of the motif). |
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
15 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 15 traditions: Soqotri, Chin-Naga: Ao, Mao, Sema, Zeme, Kolren, Kom, Lhota, Rengma, Angami, Kabui, Tangkhul, Koirenf, Toda, Kota, Kuruba (Kurumba), Badaga, Maravar, Pulaya, Kadar, Portuguese, Portugal, Poles, Slovenians, Slovenes, Lithuanians, Latvians, Livonians, Estonians, Karelians, Chuvans, Russian-speaking Creols of Markovo, Napo (Quijo), Kanelo (“Jungle Kechua”), Yughs, Russian Federation
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