Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
K9 — The wife of a deity is thrown down from heaven.
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
OverviewThe heavenly leader (deity), accusing or suspecting a woman of infidelity, relations with an animal, incest, or a desire to rule over him, throws her down. She becomes the mistress of the lower or middle world or part of it, or the mother of the master of the lower world, and gives birth to humans. Cf. motif J18.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Acts of heroes
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.
K9 has 1 other sub-motifs
RelatedK9. The heavenly leader (deity), accusing or suspecting a woman of infidelity, relations with an animal, incest, or a desire to rule over him, throws her down. She becomes the mistress of the lower or middle world or part of it, or the mother of the master of the lower world, and gives birth to humans. Cf. motif J18.
K9a. The punished character is suspended on a chain or metal thread between heaven and earth.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| C26 | 89.11% | Monsters are ready to invade our world from another, but a powerful character protects people from the invasion. |
| L85E | 87.28% | The character is temporarily split vertically into two halves and then rejoined. |
| L72H | 81.94% | Fleeing for his life, the character throws behind him a tool for kindling fire (flint, tinder, match, kindling), which becomes an obstacle in the path of his pursuer. (A discarded flint is counted if it serves to strike fire, and is not counted if it is simply a hard stone that turns into a mountain). |
| M7B | 81.89% | zoomorphic character (usually a fox) finds himself in a place he can't get out of, and consistently asks for help from animals (fish) passing by or approaching him. The latter helps. |
| J27 | 81.65% | A little boy (several babies) was abandoned, born to a mother who had already died, lives in a river, in a forest, etc. Another boy lives with his father or mother, but in the end the first one moves to live in the locus of the second. Often (see motif J25, "Infants hide and return"), the brother living in the river, in the forest, etc., first secretly meets with his "home" brother (with his brothers; with other children from his clan; with a puppy nursed by his mother). |
| K44A | 79.52% | A frog or toad (coastal Koryaks: triton) kidnaps or finds a boy and lies that she is his real mother. See motif K44. |
| L17 | 79.09% | Mouth and eyes of an anthropomorphic creature on the chest, no head. |
| J22C | 79.09% | There is a demonic character in the form of Siamese twins – two semi-fused women. |
| B42MN | 77.35% | Only one character (rather than several) chases an animal (elk or bear) across the sky, associated with one of the circumpolar constellations, but not with the Pleiades or Orion. (In the Kalevala tradition, there is no identification with stars). |
| B42M | 77.11% | The three stars of the Big Dipper's handle are three men (hunters, thieves). The stars of the dipper are the object they seek to obtain (the hunted animal; the bed). Alcor (a faint star near Mizar) is a container, a vessel carried by the second of the three characters. |
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
17 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 17 traditions: Kru: Kru proper, Sapo (Sapã), Grebo, Kran (Krahn, Guere-Krahn; incl. Putu, Tchien), Bete, Neyo, Wobe, Devoin (Dey), Belle (Kuwaa), Bassa, Sikon, Marquesas, Toraja (Toradja), To Mori, Baree (=Eastern Toraja), Ancient Greece, Lithuanians, Latvians, Abkhaz, Abkhazians, Svans, Mansi, Eastern Khanty (Ostyaks), Southern Selkups, Northern Selkups, Kets, Western Ojibwa (Chippewa), Huron (incl Wyandot), Five Nations Iroquois (Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga), Kogi (Cagaba), Sanha, Creols of Aritama Valley
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