Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif

I92A — Jumping over the rainbow.

10 Myths, legends and folktales
10 Unique narratives for motif I92A
9 Cultures & traditions where I92A is told
2 Sub-motifs of motif I92A
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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

Overview

A person who jumps or steps over a rainbow changes their gender.

Berezkin category: Supernatural objects, objects and creatures

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.

I92 has 2 other sub-motifs

Related

I92.  A person who has come into contact with a rainbow in a certain way (walked under it, drunk water where the rainbow drinks, etc.) changes their gender.
I92a.  A person who jumps or steps over a rainbow changes their gender.
I92b.  Where the ends of the rainbow reach the ground, there is treasure.

🌐 See a combined distribution map for all of I92’s motifs

Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns

Phylogeny
MotifSimilarityMotif summary
N1899.94%fairy-tale text ends with a formula stating that the narrator received food, drinks, money or other real world items from the characters described, but lost them against their own free will because of meeting dogs or people (robbers, boys, children or a neighbor).
I35A199.78%The character claims the role of the thunder god and imitates him.
J32A99.77%When dying, a person orders that someone spend the night at his grave or bring something to the grave.
N299.49%Fabulous and epic texts start from the beginning, which states that animals were performing human social or economic functions at that time.
L96A99.45%A person sighs, after which a character named Oh, Uh, Hey-way, etc. appears.
K119E99.27%The poor young man who was helped by an animal assistant, who presented him to the king as a rich man, is a miller or a miller's son.
N2799.27%Bird milk (variant: chicken, pigeon, hawkish, etc.) milk is mentioned in fairy tales, riddles, paroemias and conspiracies as something very rare and difficult to obtain or non-existent actually.
K67D99.26%The worker (rarely – the husband) annoys the master (wife) so much that he or she decides to run away, taking his or her property with him or her. The worker hides in a sack (chest) with his or her property and ends up back where he or she started.
I9599.22%The Pleiades are a sieve or riddle for sifting agricultural products. See motif I95.
K35C199.18%The young man is not killed, but rewarded, because he answered correctly (evasively) the question of a powerful character – which of the two women he should marry, which is more beautiful, which object or material is more valuable, etc.

See the 100 most similar distributions →

Map of motif dispersal

Distribution

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Traditions

9 recorded

This motif has been recorded in 9 traditions: Greeks (modern), Balkarians, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Albanians, Balkarians, Karachays, Balkar, Ossetians, Georgians, Crimean Tatars, Karaims, Kurds, Bashkirs

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