Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K43A — A kind person leaves the fire.
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
OverviewPeople leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and depart. Someone sympathises with those who have been abandoned and secretly hides fire for them.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
K43 has 3 other sub-motifs
RelatedK43. People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are abandoned or expelled discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. [Materials on European fairy tales are mostly not yet included]
K43a. People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and depart. Someone sympathises with those who have been abandoned and secretly hides fire for them.
K43b. People leave a boy, a girl, a sister and brother, a young woman or young spouses alone and leave, or drive them away. Those who are left behind or driven away discover unusual abilities or helpers, obtaining blood and food. Those who are abandoned eat their fill, while those who abandon them go hungry. A character (often a bird - a crow, magpie, seagull, etc.) visits the abandoned and brings a piece of fat or meat to the camp of the starving.
K43c. The bound children (a young man and his sister) are left alone in an empty camp, and the animal frees them.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M61A | 99.72% | To get valuables, the character provokes a quarrel between their owners. When they start fighting each other, valuables fall out of their bodies and end up at the character's disposal. |
| K52B | 99.55% | The hero comes to capture the daughter of a supernatural creature. He sees a slave breaking an axe (adze, wedge). The hero repairs the axe, and the slave helps him in return. See motif K52. |
| B35 | 99.38% | The bear hastily puts his left moccasin on his right foot and vice versa, which is why he is club-footed. |
| K52 | 99.38% | A woman or young man who approaches the shore is carried away by predatory sea creatures to the bottom of the sea; a character descends to rescue the kidnapped person and brings him or her back with the help of cunning and shamanic powers. |
| L1F | 99.18% | The sister, using magic or transforming herself into a monster, kills her brothers in revenge for the death of her lover or husband. |
| L67 | 99.17% | Having dug an underground passage to a lying monstrous hoofed animal, a small animal gnaws the wool from the place on the skin where the heart beats; the hero thrusts a spear or arrow into this place. See motif L66. |
| L57 | 99.07% | The character loses an internal organ or part of the body, which is taken away by others; he approaches unnoticed and takes back what was lost. |
| J65 | 98.95% | After the attack by enemies, a woman and her daughter remain. She rejects the marriage proposals of animal suitors and agrees to give her daughter to the heavenly deity (the Sun). The children from this marriage take revenge on their enemies. |
| M53A | 98.95% | raven gathers seals or other marine mammals around and deceives them into killing them. |
| H19 | 98.74% | The raven hides game animals in a pen or cave or scares them away from hunters. See motif H18. |
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
39 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 39 traditions: Kets, Tagish, Inland Tlingit, Tahltan, Kaska, Athna, Tanana, Gwich'in (Kuchin, Loucheux), Beaver, Bering Strait Inupiat (incl. King Island), North Alaskan Inupiat, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Heiltsuk (Bellabella), Oowekeeno, Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw), Nootka (Nu-chah-nulth), Makah, Bella Coola (Nuxalk), Micmac, Menominee, Sarsee (Tsuu T'ina), Gros Ventre, Chilkotin, Shuswap, Thompson (Nlaka'pamux), Lillooet, Lkungen (Straits; including Samish, Songish, Sooke, Lummi), Klallam, Comox, Pentlatch, Lushootseed (Puget Sound: Puyallup, Nisqualmi, Snuqualmi, Duwamish, Muckleshoot, Snohomish, Skagit), Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, (Lower) Cowlitz, Western Sahaptin (Upper Cowlitz, Klikitat, Tenino, Umatilla, Yakima, Wallawalla), Nez Perce, Quileute, Chemakum (Hoh), Quinault, Tillamook, Lower Chinook (Chinook proper), Tewa (San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Tesuque, Nambe; Hano), Tiwa (Taos, Picuris; Sandia, Isleta), Towa (Jemez), Halkomelem (Snaymuk)
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