Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
L1B1 — The female demon and her brothers.
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
OverviewA woman comes into conflict with her brothers and turns into a dangerous demon.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
This is of motif type Adventures and tricks and is part of group 10, Adventures.
L1 has 8 other sub-motifs
RelatedL1a. A young woman turns into a bear (in Asia, a tigress) and attacks her close relatives or husband.
L1b. A young woman turns into a monstrous bear and kills most people except her younger sister (Ojibwa: the younger sister of her former husband). Their brothers (or one brother) return from hunting and kill the bear, or she dies while chasing them. Cf. motif L65D.
L1b1. A woman comes into conflict with her brothers and turns into a dangerous demon.
L1c. Those fleeing from the monstrous bear ascend to the sky and turn into stars.
L1c1. Fleeing from demonic characters, a group of men â relatives of a girl â ascend to the sky and remain there. See motif L1C.
L1c2. Fleeing from a demonic creature, the characters hide their children (younger brother or sister) in a camouflaged pit, usually under the hearth. See motif L1C.
L1d. The jaguar-werewolf kills most people and is killed by the woman who survives.
L1e. A monstrous bird is created from a small amount of human or animal flesh (usually from the heart) or from lumps of manioc starch.
L1f. The sister, using magic or transforming herself into a monster, kills her brothers in revenge for the death of her lover or husband.
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| D4M | 99.38% | The thief comes to the owners of fire or light. They feast or dance. He joins them and steals their valuables when the moment is right. See motif D4A. |
| F64 | 99.13% | The character is presented as another person in order to mate with a close relative in the descending or (less commonly) ascending line. |
| F18C | 99.13% | The character sees a girl on the other side of the river and copulates with her in an unusual way (sends his penis across the river; turns it into a bridge for the girl to cross the river; into a dam that blocks the river in front of her; dives, swimming up to the girl underwater; sends an object into the girl's vagina). See motif F18B. |
| K21A | 98.95% | A celestial being marries an earthly woman. She longs to return to earth and secretly descends from her husband. |
| M49A | 98.89% | hero needs to penetrate unnoticed into the locus of dangerous creatures; he meets an old woman (usually a shaman, a doctor) going there, puts on her skin, and penetrates into dangerous ones in her guise creatures. |
| M59 | 98.89% | A small animal asks a large one to transport it across the river; consistently rejects all the seats on the carrier's body that he offers; climbs to where the carrier is You can kill when the crossing is over. |
| A32B1 | 98.73% | A woman sits (jumps) on the face (back) of the Moon Man and is now visible in the silhouette of the moon spots. |
| M41 | 98.68% | The character throws his eyes (an inhaler has a tooth) up or into the distance. At first they return to the eye sockets, but then they disappear. |
| L33F | 98.63% | A rock or boulder pursues a character. The character calls for help, and the nightjar splits the rock into pieces. |
| L97 | 98.40% | Seeing a character who is unable to move (nailed to the ground, his lower body rooted to the ground, petrified, completely absent), the hero himself manages to avoid a similar fate. |
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
32 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 32 traditions: Lepcha, Central Yakuts (Sakha), Tutchone, Tagish, Inland Tlingit, Tlingit, Blackfoot, Sarsee (Tsuu T'ina), Cheyenne, Omaha, Ponca, Iowa, Arikara, Wichita; Spiro Mound iconography, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Crow, Carrier, Chilkotin, Shuswap, Lower Chinook (Chinook proper), Shasta; Chimariko, Karok, Klamath, Modoc, Caddo, Wintu, Patwin, Nomlaki, Maidu, Nisenan, Konkov, Yana, Upland Yuma: Walapai, Havasupai, Yavapai, Navajo, Western Yakuts (Sakha): Olekma and Vilyuy Basins, Northwestern Yakuts (Sakha): Yessey, Anabar, Olenyok and Lower Lena Basins, Northeastern Yakuts (Sakha): Yana, Indigirka and Kolyma Basins
If you wish to get access to data for projects and research, then please contact us, we do our best to help
How to cite: Fielder-White, J. (2026). The Folklore Database. https://folkloredatabase.com
0009-0006-1672-4451
Where applicable, users should also cite the relevant original sources, catalogues, and classification systems, including Berezkin, ATU, Thompson, and other cited authorities, alongside the page accessed and the last time accessed.
Editorial annotations and database enhancements Š Jonathan Fielder-White licensed under CC BY 4.0. Berezkin-derived narrative and metadata licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Full rights information can be found here.
All rights are reserved in the database structure, selection, arrangement, metadata, classifications, software, interface design, and original editorial content.
Important: The Folklore Database expressly reserves all rights in relation to text and data mining, automated extraction, scraping, machine learning, dataset creation, and the training, development, validation, or improvement of artificial intelligence technologies or systems. No part of this website or database may be scraped, copied, reproduced, harvested, downloaded in bulk, or otherwise used for AI training or commercial data extraction without prior written permission.
Designed and Developed by Jon Fielder-White.
Š 2024â2026 Crecganford / Jonathan Fielder-White. All rights reserved.