Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
H52B — The search for immortality, ATU 470B.
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
OverviewSetting out in search of a land where there is no death, a man encounters characters engaged in tasks that can only be completed in an impossibly long time. However, the man needs eternal life, and so he continues on his way.
Berezkin category: Paradise Lost
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
H52 has 2 other sub-motifs
RelatedH52. A man finds a land where there is no death. Having decided to visit his native places, he never returns to it.
H52a. Returning from the land of immortality, a person must not touch the ground. However, he dismounts from his horse to help an old man (old woman). Death, who has taken the form of an old man, immediately kills him. Rarely: at the last moment, the hero decides not to perform actions that are fatal for him.
H52b. Setting out in search of a land where there is no death, a man encounters characters engaged in tasks that can only be completed in an impossibly long time. However, the man needs eternal life, and so he continues on his way.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| A8A | 100.00% | The sun, moon and star (stars) appear as three consecutive and comparable objects/characters in narratives about the abduction and subsequent liberation of celestial bodies. |
| J7A | 100.00% | A girl (less often a boy) brings lunch to her father or brothers who are working in the field (in the forest), but encounters a demonic character. |
| K149 | 100.00% | The character has a rope or reins with three knots, allowing him to move faster or slower. Usually, untying the first and second knots causes the character's ship to sail faster (thanks to the rising wind) or his horse to gallop faster; however, contrary to the warning, the character (when almost reaching the goal) also unties the third knot and as a result loses the ship, the horse, ends up not where he wanted to be, etc. |
| M114B3 | 99.99% | When a girl is asked to weave clothes, given a negligible amount of yarn, she asks in return to make her weaving tools from sticks, twigs, straw, etc. |
| F87 | 99.94% | The snake forces the girl to promise to marry him and takes her to the underwater world. She is happy there and gives birth to a son (or two sons) and a daughter. Together with her children, she returns to visit her relatives. They learn what words she must use to summon her husband from the water, summon him, and kill him. Seeing the bloody water, the snake's wife (rarely the snake himself) turns the children and herself into birds or trees. |
| I113 | 99.94% | A pig or boar made of gold or with golden bristles is a precious object. (In ATU, "a pig with golden bristles" is one of the possible miraculous objects; the presence of a corresponding number in regional indexes does not necessarily mean the presence of an image; only cases where the image is directly named are taken into account). |
| I87E | 99.94% | After the present humans, dwarves will live on earth. |
| K168B | 99.94% | A person makes another person believe that he has turned into a bear (wolf), found himself in the forest, etc. When he wakes up, the bewitched person finds himself where he was before. |
| K67G | 99.94% | Pretending to carry out his master's orders, the worker cuts off the animals' lips (to make them look like they are smiling). |
| G25 | 99.91% | Cereal seeds are scattered across the world, fell to the ground, now people grow bread. |
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
11 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 11 traditions: Sardinia, Corsica, Sardinians, Corsicans, France, Hungarians, Romanians, Moldavians, Aromanians, Moldovans, Western Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, Mordvins, Eastern Ukrainians, Northern Ukrainians, Italians: Central (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio)
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