Berezkin Analytical Catalogue · Motif
M113A — A bird sees blood instead of water.
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 certain type of bird cannot drink water from rivers and lakes because instead of water it sees blood, fire, etc.
Berezkin category: Adventures: Tricks and episodes
This is of motif type Cosmology and etiology and is part of group 7, Etiology of plants and animals and of their peculiar features, particular animals as protagonists of cosmological stories, metamorphoses, weather and calendar.
M11 has 4 other sub-motifs
RelatedM11. The character gives others food extracted from his or someone else's body or contaminated with bodily secretions, without revealing the source of the food.
M11a. The character gives others the fish extracted from his body.
M11b. A woman feeds a man with good-quality meat or fat, which she cuts from her own flesh or extracts from her body, and stops doing so when he learns about the source of the food.
M11c. Without harming himself, a male character cuts off, pierces, roasts, holds over a fire, etc. a part of his body (or his wife's body). The character cooks the meat, fat, etc. obtained in this way and treats his guest to it. This food is not perceived as unclean (cf. motifs M11B and M38).
m11d. The character makes food taste good by adding salt to it. Another character learns that the cook extracts this salt from his own body (it is contained in his bodily secretions).
Top 10 motifs with similar dispersal patterns
Phylogeny| Motif | Similarity | Motif summary |
|---|---|---|
| M39A6B | 99.02% | The ruler, to whom the master builder went to work, is going to kill or maim him. The master asks to send a person to his house asking him to bring a forgotten instrument or something else. The daughter-in-law understands the true meaning of the request, captivates the messenger and saves her father-in-law. |
| M152 | 98.73% | Seeing a predator (a giant, etc.) approaching, the weak character pretends to thank the one who is leading the predator for his promise to bring prey, or his wife and children (rarely: he himself) begin to talk aloud about how they are going to eat the predator or how they have eaten his companions before. |
| K38 | 98.44% | For doing good to chicks (rarely: young of non-ornithomorphic flying creatures), their mother or father does a favour for the person. |
| L39D | 98.24% | A boy climbs a tree to pick fruit. A demonic character asks him to share, but not to throw the fruit on the ground, but to pass it from hand to hand. He grabs the boy and carries him away. |
| I76A | 97.68% | After a certain period of time, a snake or fish transforms into another creature, usually a dragon. |
| K77B2 | 97.50% | The goat (goat, ram, etc.) responds to the predator's questions in the sense that parts of its body are weapons and other objects designed to kill the questioner, or that the goat is actually armed. |
| K38B | 96.98% | A snake or monster of aquatic-chthonic or indeterminate nature eats or maims the young of a bird or other flying creature â in most cases, the chicks of a huge bird. A man kills the snake (monster). See motif K38. |
| K93B2 | 96.72% | A childless woman conceives a child after eating a fruit (usually an apple; in northern traditions also cabbage, eggs, peas, etc., in India â mangoes). |
| M57D1 | 96.66% | bird consistently gives a person magical objects (or gives one, with which he receives the rest) or consistently fulfills his wishes. |
| L90 | 96.53% | One lip (one fang, horn, etc.) of the creature reaches the sky, while the other drags along the ground. |
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
6 recordedThis motif has been recorded in 6 traditions: Northern Naga: Konyak, Lungshang, Wancho, Nokte, Moclum, Lunshan, Chang, Maring, Naga of Myanmar, Indian literary tradition (Vedic, Brahman, Purana, Indian Buddhism, Hinduism, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Panchtantra, Jatakas); iconography of Hindu temples, Bulgarians, Balkarians, Serbs, Monte Negro, Balkarians, Georgians, Japan
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