Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
C33A — The restored chain.
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
OverviewThroughout the year, someone tries to saw through or break the chain or rope that holds him or another character. On a certain day of the year, when the chain has become completely thin, it is restored to its former state, or the pole to which the chain is attached is reinserted into the ground. Cf. motif G8d.
Berezkin category: Disasters
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 8, Queer and monstrous beings, creatures, objects and loci, folk beliefs related to particular phenomena and objects.
C33 has 3 other sub-motifs
RelatedC33. A strongman-god-fighter is chained to a rock or a pillar for centuries.
C33a. Throughout the year, someone tries to saw through or break the chain or rope that holds him or another character. On a certain day of the year, when the chain has become completely thin, it is restored to its former state, or the pole to which the chain is attached is reinserted into the ground. Cf. motif G8d.
C33a1. A bird of prey flies to the chained character every day and pecks at his internal organs. The character recovers overnight, and the cycle repeats itself.
C33b. The demise of the first race is associated with the appearance of wind.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| F70E1 | 99.87% | 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. |
| K97 | 99.84% | A man prepares to kill a large bird, but does not kill it. When the bird later carries him, it pretends to leave him on a rock or throw him down. In doing so, it makes it clear how frightened it was. Either the bird first drops and catches the man, and later he makes her experience fear herself (the Volyn variant is slightly different). |
| K85D | 99.73% | Covered with skins (coated with resin and sprinkled with sand, etc.), the mighty horse becomes invulnerable to the bites of other horses. |
| M127B | 99.67% | A character attaches a vessel or part of a vessel to their body, lowers it into the water, and the vessel pulls them along. |
| K2A3 | 99.67% | The hero's companions leave him on the mountain, destroying the rope (chain) by which he climbed up or which he lowered down. |
| M199L | 99.66% | When the giant blew, sneezed, etc., or let go of the bent tree on which the man was sitting, the man was thrown far away. The man says that he did it of his own free will (to show how he can fly, to repair the roof, etc.). |
| K27Q1 | 99.65% | The hero is sent to bring lioness milk in a wineskin made from a lion skin (usually from a lion cub's skin). |
| F87A | 99.62% | A snake crawls onto the clothes of a girl bathing, climbs down in exchange for a promise to marry him, and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to children. Together with them, she visits her relatives. They call the snake out of the water and kill it. After that, the wife transforms her children and/or herself into birds. |
| K85 | 99.62% | The antagonist owns the fastest horse. The hero obtains an even faster horse (usually the brother or sister of this horse), which is the only one that surpasses the antagonist's horse and usually orders the antagonist to throw off his rider. |
| L110C | 99.62% | An elderly couple makes a child out of clay (wood, straw, dough). The doll comes to life and eats everyone it sees. Usually a goat (ram) breaks it, and those who have been swallowed come out alive. |
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
26 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 26 traditions: France, Germans: North (Low- and Central German dialects): Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommern, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, incl East Frisia and Oldenburg), Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Thüringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Sachsen, Brandenburg, Rügen, Poles, Macedonians, Balkarians, Serbs, Monte Negro, Balkarians, Albanians, Balkarians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Finns, Norwegians, Western Ukrainians, Byelarusians, Belarusians, Persians, Cherkassians, Adyghe, Kabardin, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Ingush, Laks, Svans, Mingrelians (Megrelians), Laz, Georgians, Armenians, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Lutsi (Ludza), Russian Federation
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